@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
Nationalism is a poisonous disease that is based on prejudice and hatred, and it gradually infects the body politic of nations . The Scottish version is based on the poorly disguised hatred of English people, and the English version (Brexit) is based on the poorly disguised hatred of French and Germans.
This is undeniably true, and both sets of petty nationalists get really upset when anyone points this out.
Which is why Brexit is such a terrible idea.
I know, I know. But I've been pro-European getting together since I was about 18 and while I'm not averse to changing my mind I see no reason to do so on that topic.
And Pan-Europeanism is a just as much based on dislike of the US... :-)
Orwell on nationalism summed it up - the supra-nationalisms are just another layer in the same game.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
But the left are wholly enthralled with the subject
A small minority of the left are obsessed with it. The majority - as you can see by Starmer's support base - are very much not.
I am not.
Reverse your statement and you are accurate
Provide evidence that the majority of the left are obsessed with it. You can't.
My evidence is Starmer winning a landslide in the Leadership Election and promising to take the party away from factionalism and culture wars.
Starmer literally got on his knees before the left-wing culture warriors and tweeted it out! Don't think he's going to be allowed to forget that in a hurry.
Only old racists are getting frothy about Starmer taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matter. Have you not noticed every Premier League footballer doing the same thing?
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
If the Tories wanted a culture war, why is the *response* to the various culture issues of the day - trans, BLM etc so moderate, and polite?
Let's see how things progress over the coming months and years.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
Mr. Battery, hard to see Labour going right on culture when their leader's on his knees before an anti-capitalist far left cabal of cretins.
If you read the thread, the solution isn't to go right on culture, it's to stop talking about it and argue on economic grounds instead.
This is what Blair said in his lecture a few months ago, you can't win a culture war, don't even bother having the arguments.
Again, yes. Turn it down on culture but the policies stay progressive. We can and will win the war - it's inevitable since we are progressives and things will progress - but we must stop this stuff being weaponized against us at the polls.
I see Leicester's labour mayor is playing silly buggers. You would have thought with nearly 50% of the city being BAME and constantly told by Labour that government failing those groups, he would be dead keen to ensure public safety.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
The PISA rankings show not much change in the UK, but declines elsewhere, so the UK has moved up in the rankings (although there may be some small gains in Maths). They also find that British schoolchildren are among the unhappiest on the planet.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The deficit was not going to balloon anyway. In fact the deficit shrank every single year from 2010 until COVID19 struck so I'm not sure where you pull such nonsense from, far from ballooning it was brought under control.
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
Indeed. Genuinely good luck to him, it's not going to be an easy job but anyone named in the report needs to be shown the door.
Kinnock's excising of Militant led eventually to Blair, getting Momentum out of the party now is a pre-requisite for becoming electable in the future - with people like you and I prepared to vote for them.
Mr. Battery, hard to see Labour going right on culture when their leader's on his knees before an anti-capitalist far left cabal of cretins.
If you read the thread, the solution isn't to go right on culture, it's to stop talking about it and argue on economic grounds instead.
This is what Blair said in his lecture a few months ago, you can't win a culture war, don't even bother having the arguments.
You are now a Blairite.
That is some conversion in only 6 months
I'm not a Blairite. Blair is just correct on this issue.
Well said. Politics is not about agreeing with everything Faction-X does just because Faction-X does a few things right. That is a mistake that many on the left make over and over again.
I laid Trump for the nomination at 1.07 on Betfair. There's backing now at 1.11, so I'm wondering about hedging to go green or evens if it's him. The agony of choice.
Not sure it'll get much longer (unless he actually drops out/is axed).
I think it will. The Mary Trump book (she has alleged her uncle Donald is a fraudster) and the Trump tax returns issue (on which SCOTUS will rule soon) may synergise.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
The Tories allow a bloke who has called Africans picanninies with water melon smiles to retain the whip - even when he has also claimed they woud be better off ruled by Europeans. Every party has its racists, but at least Starmer seems intent on taking on the ones Labour is home to.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
If the Tories wanted a culture war, why is the *response* to the various culture issues of the day - trans, BLM etc so moderate, and polite?
Let's see how things progress over the coming months and years.
True - I just can't see any signs that on such culture issues that the government line is a slightly-conservative-but-we-are-listening-and-moving thing.
On trans issues, for example, they seem to be trying to pick a cautious and moderate line between two groups. As opposed to legislating an "old fashioned" answer and enforcing it.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
You're a massive, spineless hypocrite. You called me a Blairite despite your massive outbursts whenever someone attempts to call you a Tory.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
But the left are wholly enthralled with the subject
A small minority of the left are obsessed with it. The majority - as you can see by Starmer's support base - are very much not.
I am not.
Reverse your statement and you are accurate
Provide evidence that the majority of the left are obsessed with it. You can't.
My evidence is Starmer winning a landslide in the Leadership Election and promising to take the party away from factionalism and culture wars.
Starmer literally got on his knees before the left-wing culture warriors and tweeted it out! Don't think he's going to be allowed to forget that in a hurry.
Only old racists are getting frothy about Starmer taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matter. Have you not noticed every Premier League footballer doing the same thing?
Indeed. Recognising that black lives matter is not a culture war issue.
Anyone with an element of basic decency should be able to do that.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
Only very right-wing frothers like @isam and @BluestBlue seem to have any problem with it, even on here.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
You're a massive, spineless hypocrite. You called me a Blairite despite your massive outbursts whenever someone attempts to call you a Tory.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
Only very right-wing frothers like @isam and @BluestBlue seem to have any problem with it, even on here.
Its at times like this I dislike the term right wing.
Economically I'm about as right wing as it gets, and I suspect isam is much further left wing than I am economically. But I kneel with Starmer on this.
Anyone care to guess ...? ...CanSino declined to disclose whether the innoculation of the vaccine candidate is mandatory or optional, citing commercial secrets...
Nationalism is a poisonous disease that is based on prejudice and hatred, and it gradually infects the body politic of nations . The Scottish version is based on the poorly disguised hatred of English people, and the English version (Brexit) is based on the poorly disguised hatred of French and Germans.
This is undeniably true, and both sets of petty nationalists get really upset when anyone points this out.
Which is why Brexit is such a terrible idea.
I know, I know. But I've been pro-European getting together since I was about 18 and while I'm not averse to changing my mind I see no reason to do so on that topic.
And Pan-Europeanism is a just as much based on dislike of the US... :-)
Orwell on nationalism summed it up - the supra-nationalisms are just another layer in the same game.
Sorry, my friend. Dislike of the US has nothing to do with it as far as I'm concerned. I don't like the current US GOVERNMENT, and I didn't like their war in Iraq, but that's very different.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
Reading has shown a reasonably steady improvement in scores since before the Cameron government.
Science has shown a steady decrease.
Maths showed a sharp increase in the most recent study; I'll let Gove and Cummings have that one.
And whilst there are some great free schools, there have also been some terrible ones. There have been schools which never opened and schools which were closed because they were inadequate. Those parents and children didn't benefit.
Basically this is what you'd expect if you run things with an attitude of "move fast and break things". But we're not talking a new website where the only risk is a Venture Capitalist's money. We're talking the actual education of real children, and you have to be at least a bit cautious. That's the bit of brain missing from both Gove and Cummings. That's why they both resent and need the checks and balances.
A "Rooseveltian approach" is not saying he is like Roosevelt. It gives an idea (for those who know a bit more history than most) of what they are trying to do.
When I do my couch to 5km challenge I get encouragement from my good pal Michael Johnson. By listening to him and taking his encouragement am I comparing myself to one of the greatest runners of all time? I hardly think so.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
You're a massive, spineless hypocrite. You called me a Blairite despite your massive outbursts whenever someone attempts to call you a Tory.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
But the left are wholly enthralled with the subject
A small minority of the left are obsessed with it. The majority - as you can see by Starmer's support base - are very much not.
I am not.
Reverse your statement and you are accurate
Provide evidence that the majority of the left are obsessed with it. You can't.
My evidence is Starmer winning a landslide in the Leadership Election and promising to take the party away from factionalism and culture wars.
Starmer literally got on his knees before the left-wing culture warriors and tweeted it out! Don't think he's going to be allowed to forget that in a hurry.
Hey there, mr blue, what on earth is wrong with you today?
I think I know. You already sense that this photo of Starmer taking a knee to show his support for black men not being murdered by racist cops is meagre rations indeed for stoking up culture war nonsense.
Mr. Battery, hard to see Labour going right on culture when their leader's on his knees before an anti-capitalist far left cabal of cretins.
If you read the thread, the solution isn't to go right on culture, it's to stop talking about it and argue on economic grounds instead.
This is what Blair said in his lecture a few months ago, you can't win a culture war, don't even bother having the arguments.
You are now a Blairite.
That is some conversion in only 6 months
I'm not a Blairite. Blair is just correct on this issue.
Well said. Politics is not about agreeing with everything Faction-X does just because Faction-X does a few things right. That is a mistake that many on the left make over and over again.
And the right. Shortsighted (politically) people tend to do that. I find myself Liking posts by both CorrectHorseBattery and Philip Thompson quite often.
Anyone care to guess ...? ...CanSino declined to disclose whether the innoculation of the vaccine candidate is mandatory or optional, citing commercial secrets...
Don't worry - I am quite sure they did a mass study on volunteers.
Volunteers in the boarding schools they so kindly setup to help the Uighurs become good citizens.
I called this several months ago. The Chinese will be desparate to be the first to claim they have a working vaccine. How much it works or what side effects will be secondary.
Can I just say I support in general an investment-led approach to recovery and I'm fully behind Johnson if he sees it through. My concern - and there are already signs of it - is that the numbers are being fiddled.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
A "Rooseveltian approach" is not saying he is like Roosevelt. It gives an idea (for those who know a bit more history than most) of what they are trying to do.
When I do my couch to 5km challenge I get encouragement from my good pal Michael Johnson. By listening to him and taking his encouragement am I comparing myself to one of the greatest runners of all time? I hardly think so.
Its childish.
Congratulations on getting into running.
I did Couch to 5K (with Michael Johnson as well!) a few years ago and I've been hooked ever since. I ran my first half last year and currently working on getting my 5K down.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
You're a massive, spineless hypocrite. You called me a Blairite despite your massive outbursts whenever someone attempts to call you a Tory.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Maybe getting a bit over the top now
Calm down
You're a troll and not a very good one.
Big_G is respected here across the spectrum of views, he is no troll. Maybe go for a walk and then come back after some fresh air as you're clearly worked up but I think you should apologise to Big_G for the way you've spoken to him in these past two posts.
Its easy to get worked up here and go too far and I've gone too far sometimes too and apologised for doing so, but there's no need to speak to people like that CHB you're better than that normally.
The key thing is that Johnson no longer pretends to be Churchill. Nothing wrong with following an FDR playbook, but I don't think Johnson has much in common with that man. Blair is probably the closest to the Roosevelt example of a triangulating politician, although it wasn't called that in those days.
Looks like Leicester is going to be the pilot site for the 'tactical lockdown' plans, it's unlikely that the industry in the town isn't to some extent responsible for the spike in cases there.
The key thing is that Johnson no longer pretends to be Churchill. Nothing wrong with following an FDR playbook, but I don't think Johnson has much in common with that man. Blair is probably the closest to the Roosevelt example of a triangulating politician, although it wasn't called that in those days.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
Dundonian Tory is frustrated. I feel your pain.
Normal Scots frustrated = good.
Tories frustrated = bad.
Welcome to the Toryverse.
You appear to be saying only Independence supporters are "normal Scots"
No he is saying the Tories in Scotland see it though Westminster blue tinted specs, trying some obfuscation using the old insult of "normal Scots" is a bit passe. Eye test required or a less febrile imagination.
The pardon by Pence question is interesting and may have consequences for the 'year Trump will leave' betting market. Giving Nixon a pardon didn't work out well for Gerald Ford indeed, whose general election loss is widely blamed on that including by Ford himself, but on the other hand Pence may think he can't win a primary with the Trumpian base if he doesn't award a pardon.
Yes, I don't think Trump could be confident about this, that's one of the reasons I think Pence only gets it it Trump is either dead or unable to communicate. Trump is more likely to go with someone who is definitely on his team, like Barr, or better someone in his family, ie Ivanka or Kushner.
Trump can't hand over the Presidency to anyone other than Pence. He can hand the nomination to Barr or a member of the family, but that doesn't necessarily get him pardoned.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The deficit was not going to balloon anyway. In fact the deficit shrank every single year from 2010 until COVID19 struck so I'm not sure where you pull such nonsense from, far from ballooning it was brought under control.
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
Exactly: the government deficit ballooned enormously in the years immediately following 2008: Markets didn’t care. Osborne chose to reduce the deficit in a period of high unemployment instead of spending on putting those people to good use.
Frankly, full employment is great: full employment means people in jobs, earning money, living fulfilling lives. Nothing about full employment means that people are stuck in some gradgrindish slavery, chained to a single job. On the contrary, genuine full employment means that employers need to actually make the effort to retain their workers, otherwise they start to leave for better options elsewhere.
I just don’t see having an extra 4% of your population sitting around idle waiting for the economy to find a use for them as being the best we could possibly do in the circumstances. Wouldn’t it have been better for those people to have been in almost any kind of training, or if there was infrastructure work to be done that would pay off in the future, to be doing that instead?
Can I just say I support in general an investment-led approach to recovery and I'm fully behind Johnson if he sees it through. My concern - and there are already signs of it - is that the numbers are being fiddled.
I am also for this because of the economic crisis triggered by Covid. This is not 2008 where a government had been running a large deficit in a time of above average growth (fuelled by a bubble, funnily enough). This is a collapse in demand to which countercyclical measures are appropriate. Classic Keynes.
How much we can afford to do, having not fully recovered from 2008, remains to be seen but we should do what we can.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
It is better than not fighting racism at all. Which would be the preference of most of the people who are upset by the Starmer photo or trying to use it against him.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The deficit was not going to balloon anyway. In fact the deficit shrank every single year from 2010 until COVID19 struck so I'm not sure where you pull such nonsense from, far from ballooning it was brought under control.
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
Exactly: the government deficit ballooned enormously in the years immediately following 2008: Markets didn’t care. Osborne chose to reduce the deficit in a period of high unemployment instead of spending on putting those people to good use.
Frankly, full employment is great: full employment means people in jobs, earning money, living fulfilling lives. Nothing about full employment means that people are stuck in some gradgrindish slavery, chained to a single job. On the contrary, genuine full employment means that employers need to actually make the effort to retain their workers, otherwise they start to leave for better options elsewhere.
I just don’t see having an extra 4% of your population sitting around idle waiting for the economy to find a use for them as being the best we could possibly do in the circumstances. Wouldn’t it have been better for those people to have been in almost any kind of training, or if there was infrastructure work to be done that would pay off in the future, to be doing that instead?
Markets did care, there was a great difference between the UK's bond yields and eg Germany's. But the markets also thought the [future Tory] government would put it right and they were right to think that. People who lose money on markets often do so by not realising markets don't just judge what's happening now but what is expected to happen in the future.
The UK has had full employment for years now. Can you name any counter example of a nation whose economics you wish we'd followed more that have had a better employment rate than ours?
You seem to be in denial over the fact that Osborne's economics led to both full employment and a balanced deficit combined.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
What credibility?
I don't really care what other people on here think, I say it as I see it. I've been told I was talking nonsense here many times and been right.
BLM are marxists, their website paraphrases the communist manifesto. They are anti Semitic, they bang on about Zionism. They want to defund the police and now we see violence against police and their property after BLM rallies. They're to the left of Corbyn, and Starmer adopts their pose.
So, far from refusing to give the Tories a culture war, he is the only one to have explicitly taken sides
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
Just leave the moronic, nutty Tories to it. It's a complete waste of time and effort arguing with some people.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
Always endless!y fascinating to hear how someone without a vote would vote. Of course on the most recent polling, 40%+ of Scottish Labour voters would vote yes.
The pardon by Pence question is interesting and may have consequences for the 'year Trump will leave' betting market. Giving Nixon a pardon didn't work out well for Gerald Ford indeed, whose general election loss is widely blamed on that including by Ford himself, but on the other hand Pence may think he can't win a primary with the Trumpian base if he doesn't award a pardon.
Yes, I don't think Trump could be confident about this, that's one of the reasons I think Pence only gets it it Trump is either dead or unable to communicate. Trump is more likely to go with someone who is definitely on his team, like Barr, or better someone in his family, ie Ivanka or Kushner.
Trump can't hand over the Presidency to anyone other than Pence. He can hand the nomination to Barr or a member of the family, but that doesn't necessarily get him pardoned.
How can he hand the nomination to someone?
Nearly all the delegates elected to the Republican National Convention are Trump delegates, so if he says, "I've decided not to run, and I ask you to instead vote for X", and X is not Hillary Clinton, the delegates are likely to vote for X.
I think it would work best if the last name of X is "Trump", but it would also almost definitely work with Mike Pence, and probably anyone else he might name.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
The problem for you is that when you receive a counter argument you, like others, try the trick of accusing one of being a fanboy or bot rather than engage with the argument itself
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
You're a massive, spineless hypocrite. You called me a Blairite despite your massive outbursts whenever someone attempts to call you a Tory.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Maybe getting a bit over the top now
Calm down
You're a troll and not a very good one.
Big_G is respected here across the spectrum of views, he is no troll. Maybe go for a walk and then come back after some fresh air as you're clearly worked up but I think you should apologise to Big_G for the way you've spoken to him in these past two posts.
Its easy to get worked up here and go too far and I've gone too far sometimes too and apologised for doing so, but there's no need to speak to people like that CHB you're better than that normally.
Nah bollocks. Big G sometimes likes to set himself up as the site's policeman. CHB can say what he wants and if Big G doesn't like it he can ignore his posts.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
Always endless!y fascinating to hear how someone without a vote would vote. Of course on the most recent polling, 40%+ of Scottish Labour voters would vote yes.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
Just leave the moronic, nutty Tories to it. It's a complete waste of time and effort arguing with some people.
I don't believe isam's ever identified himself as a Tory. He's for years been a UKIP/Farage fan though now that UKIP have folded I don't know if he has a natural home.
A "Rooseveltian approach" is not saying he is like Roosevelt. It gives an idea (for those who know a bit more history than most) of what they are trying to do.
When I do my couch to 5km challenge I get encouragement from my good pal Michael Johnson. By listening to him and taking his encouragement am I comparing myself to one of the greatest runners of all time? I hardly think so.
Its childish.
Congratulations on getting into running.
I did Couch to 5K (with Michael Johnson as well!) a few years ago and I've been hooked ever since. I ran my first half last year and currently working on getting my 5K down.
Thanks. I used to do a lot of running when I was younger but got out of the way of it. With gyms being closed and far too many snacks on hand in my current work station something needed to be done!
(Amazed that you are pals with Michael as well though. It's almost like he is an inspiration rather than someone I am comparing myself to).
A "Rooseveltian approach" is not saying he is like Roosevelt. It gives an idea (for those who know a bit more history than most) of what they are trying to do.
When I do my couch to 5km challenge I get encouragement from my good pal Michael Johnson. By listening to him and taking his encouragement am I comparing myself to one of the greatest runners of all time? I hardly think so.
Its childish.
Congratulations on getting into running.
I did Couch to 5K (with Michael Johnson as well!) a few years ago and I've been hooked ever since. I ran my first half last year and currently working on getting my 5K down.
Thanks. I used to do a lot of running when I was younger but got out of the way of it. With gyms being closed and far too many snacks on hand in my current work station something needed to be done!
(Amazed that you are pals with Michael as well though. It's almost like he is an inspiration rather than someone I am comparing myself to).
Michael was fantastic, his advice on stitches I follow to this day.
At least with poppy fascism it's just a few weeks in October and November. This new BLM fascism has no end date, no way for companies and people to climb down without looking like racists for not supporting BLM.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
Just leave the moronic, nutty Tories to it. It's a complete waste of time and effort arguing with some people.
I don't believe isam's ever identified himself as a Tory. He's for years been a UKIP/Farage fan though now that UKIP have folded I don't know if he has a natural home.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
Always endless!y fascinating to hear how someone without a vote would vote. Of course on the most recent polling, 40%+ of Scottish Labour voters would vote yes.
I used to live in Scotland and vote
I used to get off with beautiful 20 year old women, not any more.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
You're showing your one-sidedness again and it's getting boring. Why does Johnson not get the same treatment from you?
Interesting point Big G. As I mentioned the other day, there are 36 members of the Socialist Campaign Group, which is large enough to cause trouble for a PM Starmer whether governing alone or in coalition. Starmer needs to find ways to whittle this group down now. If he expels a few MPs now it is not going to cost him much as the Tories have an 80 seat majority but could prove beneficial later providing he can replace them with "Starmerites" in 2024.
Regarding Philip's response, the condescending nature not withstanding, it's not his right or his place to sit here and tell me to apologise to people or to go outside or whatever else.
I have just as much right to argue and to talk as others here, I really do not like that some members seem to act like moderators and attempt to control the behaviour of other users. It's pretty below the pale and frankly rude and I won't just leave it be.
If you don't like my posts, then don't respond. Simple as that.
The key thing is that Johnson no longer pretends to be Churchill. Nothing wrong with following an FDR playbook, but I don't think Johnson has much in common with that man. Blair is probably the closest to the Roosevelt example of a triangulating politician, although it wasn't called that in those days.
Johnson has always liked to compare himself with historical figures. It's part of the ego of the man, and all a bit odd, but there we go.
Broadly, I think it's a bit of a mistake to be so public about making those comparisons about yourself. It sets you up to fail by comparison, and invites the "you're not fit to tie X's shoelaces!" stuff.
May always suffered it with the Thatcher comparison, which started as part of the brand but increasingly became a millstone around her neck, and possibly had real policy implications. I do wonder how much of her decision not to change tack after the 2017 election (when it was objectively obvious she couldn't get a deal through with Tory MPs alone) was driven by a wish to live up to her "the Lady's not for turning" self-image.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The deficit was not going to balloon anyway. In fact the deficit shrank every single year from 2010 until COVID19 struck so I'm not sure where you pull such nonsense from, far from ballooning it was brought under control.
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
Exactly: the government deficit ballooned enormously in the years immediately following 2008: Markets didn’t care. Osborne chose to reduce the deficit in a period of high unemployment instead of spending on putting those people to good use.
Frankly, full employment is great: full employment means people in jobs, earning money, living fulfilling lives. Nothing about full employment means that people are stuck in some gradgrindish slavery, chained to a single job. On the contrary, genuine full employment means that employers need to actually make the effort to retain their workers, otherwise they start to leave for better options elsewhere.
I just don’t see having an extra 4% of your population sitting around idle waiting for the economy to find a use for them as being the best we could possibly do in the circumstances. Wouldn’t it have been better for those people to have been in almost any kind of training, or if there was infrastructure work to be done that would pay off in the future, to be doing that instead?
Markets did care, there was a great difference between the UK's bond yields and eg Germany's. But the markets also thought the [future Tory] government would put it right and they were right to think that. People who lose money on markets often do so by not realising markets don't just judge what's happening now but what is expected to happen in the future.
The UK has had full employment for years now. Can you name any counter example of a nation whose economics you wish we'd followed more that have had a better employment rate than ours?
You seem to be in denial over the fact that Osborne's economics led to both full employment and a balanced deficit combined.
I’m glad you agree that markets are forward looking. If Osborne had announced that the government intended to sell bonds to fund training plan to prepare those made unemployed after the crisis for future opportunities, or to invest in 3-4 year infrastructure projects, do you really think that the bond markets would have thrown up their hands and given up on the UK? Clearly not - there was no sign that there was any lack of appetite for UK bonds, despite the QE bond buying by the BoE.
So no denial here. Just a sadness over the loss of 6 years of productive work that was burnt on the meaningless alter of "fiscal probity". Were we back to near-full employment in 2019 (ignoring 2020 & Covid-19 obviously): Sure! And that’s great.
But we lost 6 years for nothing. Six years when 4% of the population sat around unable to work, with all the knock-on effects on future earnings & immediate social costs that entails. What a waste.
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
Reading has shown a reasonably steady improvement in scores since before the Cameron government.
Science has shown a steady decrease.
Maths showed a sharp increase in the most recent study; I'll let Gove and Cummings have that one.
And whilst there are some great free schools, there have also been some terrible ones. There have been schools which never opened and schools which were closed because they were inadequate. Those parents and children didn't benefit.
Basically this is what you'd expect if you run things with an attitude of "move fast and break things". But we're not talking a new website where the only risk is a Venture Capitalist's money. We're talking the actual education of real children, and you have to be at least a bit cautious. That's the bit of brain missing from both Gove and Cummings. That's why they both resent and need the checks and balances.
Closing down the failing schools, and in many places replacing the management and reopening them as academies, was way overdue before yet another generation of pupils were failed by them. The reforms weren't perfect in every way, but more children are now getting a good education than was previously the case.
Where it's relevant to today, is that it showed up the institutional inertia across government, a civil service full of people who thought 'Yes, Minister' was a documentary, made to highlight their role in frustrating the government of the day. This is what the government are determined to address, against the howls of anguish from the entrenched interests.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
Always endless!y fascinating to hear how someone without a vote would vote. Of course on the most recent polling, 40%+ of Scottish Labour voters would vote yes.
I used to live in Scotland and vote
I used to get off with beautiful 20 year old women, not any more.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
Always endless!y fascinating to hear how someone without a vote would vote. Of course on the most recent polling, 40%+ of Scottish Labour voters would vote yes.
I used to live in Scotland and vote
I used to get off with beautiful 20 year old women, not any more.
Really? Sounds interesting!
Much more interesting than some of that which is on the site at the moment. I suppose that's what discussing Trump does to us!
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The deficit was not going to balloon anyway. In fact the deficit shrank every single year from 2010 until COVID19 struck so I'm not sure where you pull such nonsense from, far from ballooning it was brought under control.
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
Exactly: the government deficit ballooned enormously in the years immediately following 2008: Markets didn’t care. Osborne chose to reduce the deficit in a period of high unemployment instead of spending on putting those people to good use.
Frankly, full employment is great: full employment means people in jobs, earning money, living fulfilling lives. Nothing about full employment means that people are stuck in some gradgrindish slavery, chained to a single job. On the contrary, genuine full employment means that employers need to actually make the effort to retain their workers, otherwise they start to leave for better options elsewhere.
I just don’t see having an extra 4% of your population sitting around idle waiting for the economy to find a use for them as being the best we could possibly do in the circumstances. Wouldn’t it have been better for those people to have been in almost any kind of training, or if there was infrastructure work to be done that would pay off in the future, to be doing that instead?
Markets did care, there was a great difference between the UK's bond yields and eg Germany's. But the markets also thought the [future Tory] government would put it right and they were right to think that. People who lose money on markets often do so by not realising markets don't just judge what's happening now but what is expected to happen in the future.
The UK has had full employment for years now. Can you name any counter example of a nation whose economics you wish we'd followed more that have had a better employment rate than ours?
You seem to be in denial over the fact that Osborne's economics led to both full employment and a balanced deficit combined.
I’m glad you agree that markets are forward looking. If Osborne had announced that the government intended to sell bonds to fund training plan to prepare those made unemployed after the crisis for future opportunities, or to invest in 3-4 year infrastructure projects, do you really think that the bond markets would have thrown up their hands and given up on the UK? Clearly not - there was no sign that there was any lack of appetite for UK bonds, despite the QE bond buying by the BoE.
So no denial here. Just a sadness over the loss of 6 years of productive work that was burnt on the meaningless alter of "fiscal probity". Were we back to near-full employment in 2019 (ignoring 2020 & Covid-19 obviously): Sure! And that’s great.
But we lost 6 years for nothing. Six years when 4% of the population sat around unable to work, with all the knock-on effects on future earnings & immediate social costs that entails. What a waste.
We didn't lose six years for nothing. We kept throughout our unemployment rate lower than most other European nations running deficits like we were - and we eliminated Brown's deficit that his hubris created.
Can you name any other nation with a comparable deficit to run better unemployment or growth figures than ours over the past decade? Any examples at all please?
Anyone care to guess ...? ...CanSino declined to disclose whether the innoculation of the vaccine candidate is mandatory or optional, citing commercial secrets...
Don't worry - I am quite sure they did a mass study on volunteers.
Volunteers in the boarding schools they so kindly setup to help the Uighurs become good citizens.
I called this several months ago. The Chinese will be desparate to be the first to claim they have a working vaccine. How much it works or what side effects will be secondary.
What advantage would it be to the Chinese - or anybody else for that matter - to have the first vaccine if it didn't work or had bad side effects? There's no election pending in China.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
What credibility?
I don't really care what other people on here think, I say it as I see it. I've been told I was talking nonsense here many times and been right.
BLM are marxists, their website paraphrases the communist manifesto. They are anti Semitic, they bang on about Zionism. They want to defund the police and now we see violence against police and their property after BLM rallies. They're to the left of Corbyn, and Starmer adopts their pose.
So, far from refusing to give the Tories a culture war, he is the only one to have explicitly taken sides
Well said. For someone who apparently 'wants to avoid a culture war', he sure put his foot - or rather his knee - in it the first chance he got, and tweeted it all out to the world for virtue-signalling points.
It's doomed as a strategy anyway - lefties live for the culture war. Controlling speech, cancelling people, wrecking monuments, banning this, no-platforming that, getting that person sacked - it's not just their job, it's their passion!
And that's the albatross around Labour's neck that makes the public think twice before putting them in power.
Nationalism is a poisonous disease that is based on prejudice and hatred, and it gradually infects the body politic of nations . The Scottish version is based on the poorly disguised hatred of English people, and the English version (Brexit) is based on the poorly disguised hatred of French and Germans.
This is undeniably true, and both sets of petty nationalists get really upset when anyone points this out.
Which is why Brexit is such a terrible idea.
I know, I know. But I've been pro-European getting together since I was about 18 and while I'm not averse to changing my mind I see no reason to do so on that topic.
And Pan-Europeanism is a just as much based on dislike of the US... :-)
Orwell on nationalism summed it up - the supra-nationalisms are just another layer in the same game.
I'm pretty sure Voltaire wasn't motivated by anti-Americanism.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
He's already done it
There will be some who will never forgive Keir Starmer for showing solidarity with the BAME communities in that way. But my guess is that they will be in a minority. I don't think most people in the UK will have a problem with it.
You don't have to associate yourself with violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism to fight racism. Still, that's the way he chose to advertise it
You really have become utterly unhinged on this one. Even the most rabid Tories cannot seriously think that Starmer associates himself with "violence against the police, extreme left Marxists and anti Semitism". Starmer has condemned all violence, and has already done plenty to demonstrate that he has no time for far left Marxists or anti-semitism.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
What credibility?
I don't really care what other people on here think, I say it as I see it. I've been told I was talking nonsense here many times and been right.
BLM are marxists, their website paraphrases the communist manifesto. They are anti Semitic, they bang on about Zionism. They want to defund the police and now we see violence against police and their property after BLM rallies. They're to the left of Corbyn, and Starmer adopts their pose.
So, far from refusing to give the Tories a culture war, he is the only one to have explicitly taken sides
Well said. For someone who apparently 'wants to avoid a culture war', he sure put his foot - or rather his knee - in it the first chance he got, and tweeted it all out to the world for virtue-signalling points.
It's doomed as a strategy anyway - lefties live for the culture war. Controlling speech, cancelling people, wrecking monuments, banning this, no-platforming that, getting that person sacked - it's not just their job, it's their passion!
And that's the albatross around Labour's neck that makes the public think twice before putting them in power.
p.s. Isam - you have an awful lot of credibility on this topic - which is why they don't like you bringing up this particular sore point.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
@Big_G_NorthWales you were doing so well for a few weeks but now it's back to CCHQ propaganda from you, what a shame. Of course we all knew you'd find a way to go back to being a Johnson fanboy eventually.
Our government used to be better than this. But now we are ruled by Dom I think it appropriate to post links to articles commenting on that
Well lets take the Dom one as an example since he so triggers you. There are approximately 430k people working in the Whitehall civil service. Do you really believe for a moment that Dom wants to take an axe to all of them? Or is he looking for some slightly more dynamic leadership at the top? I mean, what do you think might be a more accurate description?
Comments
Orwell on nationalism summed it up - the supra-nationalisms are just another layer in the same game.
There is a tiny, very vocal strand of 'The Left' that are obsessed with fashionable culture warmongering.
Most left-wingers are exercised by fairness and economic opportunity.
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1277516396554080258
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1277517176170262529
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1277539986552823810
I have no care what you think about me and the conservative party, other than remember that I am a conservative member and as such will defend the government, though of course will criticise Boris as I have done and will continue to do so when necessary
As for the long term bond markets, they included expectations that the UK would both elect a Tory government (pre-election) and expectations that the government would do the right thing and bring the deficit under control. Which it did. Had the government kept the spending taps on like Brown had for half a decade before the crash hit then the markets would have reacted differently.
The UK unemployment rate was higher because we'd just had a recession. They found work afterwards. Full employment at all times is a horrible idea that leads to people being in economically unsuitable jobs.
Looking at the situation pre-COVID we had: Full employment, growing wages, the deficit effectively eliminated, a faster growing economy than our peers, debt to GDP falling. A massively ringing endorsement of a job well done by Osborne.
Kinnock's excising of Militant led eventually to Blair, getting Momentum out of the party now is a pre-requisite for becoming electable in the future - with people like you and I prepared to vote for them.
On trans issues, for example, they seem to be trying to pick a cautious and moderate line between two groups. As opposed to legislating an "old fashioned" answer and enforcing it.
Well here we go, you're a Johnsonite Tory. Have a good day.
You didn't criticise Johnson, you're up his backside.
Anyone with an element of basic decency should be able to do that.
Calm down
Economically I'm about as right wing as it gets, and I suspect isam is much further left wing than I am economically. But I kneel with Starmer on this.
Don't worry - I am quite sure they did a mass study on volunteers.
Volunteers in the boarding schools they so kindly setup to help the Uighurs become good citizens.
Here's the summary of the PISA results for the most recent study:
https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/3806/key_insights_from_pisa_2018_for_the_united_kingdom.pdf
Reading has shown a reasonably steady improvement in scores since before the Cameron government.
Science has shown a steady decrease.
Maths showed a sharp increase in the most recent study; I'll let Gove and Cummings have that one.
And whilst there are some great free schools, there have also been some terrible ones. There have been schools which never opened and schools which were closed because they were inadequate. Those parents and children didn't benefit.
Basically this is what you'd expect if you run things with an attitude of "move fast and break things". But we're not talking a new website where the only risk is a Venture Capitalist's money. We're talking the actual education of real children, and you have to be at least a bit cautious. That's the bit of brain missing from both Gove and Cummings. That's why they both resent and need the checks and balances.
When I do my couch to 5km challenge I get encouragement from my good pal Michael Johnson. By listening to him and taking his encouragement am I comparing myself to one of the greatest runners of all time? I hardly think so.
Its childish.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/business/leicester-tops-list-places-textiles-2470002
I think I know. You already sense that this photo of Starmer taking a knee to show his support for black men not being murdered by racist cops is meagre rations indeed for stoking up culture war nonsense.
Hence the ever more ludicrous hyperbole.
"My client described his Rooseveltian approach in an attempt to compare himself with Fidel Castro..."
I did Couch to 5K (with Michael Johnson as well!) a few years ago and I've been hooked ever since. I ran my first half last year and currently working on getting my 5K down.
Its easy to get worked up here and go too far and I've gone too far sometimes too and apologised for doing so, but there's no need to speak to people like that CHB you're better than that normally.
But you have gone over the top a wee bit
Frankly, full employment is great: full employment means people in jobs, earning money, living fulfilling lives. Nothing about full employment means that people are stuck in some gradgrindish slavery, chained to a single job. On the contrary, genuine full employment means that employers need to actually make the effort to retain their workers, otherwise they start to leave for better options elsewhere.
I just don’t see having an extra 4% of your population sitting around idle waiting for the economy to find a use for them as being the best we could possibly do in the circumstances. Wouldn’t it have been better for those people to have been in almost any kind of training, or if there was infrastructure work to be done that would pay off in the future, to be doing that instead?
How much we can afford to do, having not fully recovered from 2008, remains to be seen but we should do what we can.
You are losing credibility with your frequent posts of Starmer taking the knee and your bizarre interpretation of it.
Come on, you're just having a bad day.
Actually I don't think either you or Mr G are having a particularly edifying discussion.
The UK has had full employment for years now. Can you name any counter example of a nation whose economics you wish we'd followed more that have had a better employment rate than ours?
You seem to be in denial over the fact that Osborne's economics led to both full employment and a balanced deficit combined.
I don't really care what other people on here think, I say it as I see it. I've been told I was talking nonsense here many times and been right.
BLM are marxists, their website paraphrases the communist manifesto. They are anti Semitic, they bang on about Zionism. They want to defund the police and now we see violence against police and their property after BLM rallies. They're to the left of Corbyn, and Starmer adopts their pose.
So, far from refusing to give the Tories a culture war, he is the only one to have explicitly taken sides
I think it would work best if the last name of X is "Trump", but it would also almost definitely work with Mike Pence, and probably anyone else he might name.
I just got one from a Nigerian prince with an amazing offer.
Their post about calling me a Blairite was trolling and designed to get a response. Their hypocrisy just makes it more entertaining.
If people don't like being called out for posting nonsense, then that's not my problem.
(Amazed that you are pals with Michael as well though. It's almost like he is an inspiration rather than someone I am comparing myself to).
I have just as much right to argue and to talk as others here, I really do not like that some members seem to act like moderators and attempt to control the behaviour of other users. It's pretty below the pale and frankly rude and I won't just leave it be.
If you don't like my posts, then don't respond. Simple as that.
Broadly, I think it's a bit of a mistake to be so public about making those comparisons about yourself. It sets you up to fail by comparison, and invites the "you're not fit to tie X's shoelaces!" stuff.
May always suffered it with the Thatcher comparison, which started as part of the brand but increasingly became a millstone around her neck, and possibly had real policy implications. I do wonder how much of her decision not to change tack after the 2017 election (when it was objectively obvious she couldn't get a deal through with Tory MPs alone) was driven by a wish to live up to her "the Lady's not for turning" self-image.
So no denial here. Just a sadness over the loss of 6 years of productive work that was burnt on the meaningless alter of "fiscal probity". Were we back to near-full employment in 2019 (ignoring 2020 & Covid-19 obviously): Sure! And that’s great.
But we lost 6 years for nothing. Six years when 4% of the population sat around unable to work, with all the knock-on effects on future earnings & immediate social costs that entails. What a waste.
Where it's relevant to today, is that it showed up the institutional inertia across government, a civil service full of people who thought 'Yes, Minister' was a documentary, made to highlight their role in frustrating the government of the day. This is what the government are determined to address, against the howls of anguish from the entrenched interests.
Much more interesting than some of that which is on the site at the moment. I suppose that's what discussing Trump does to us!
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/evening-standard-comment-sir-mark-sedwill-takes-a-bullet-but-we-need-the-civil-service-a4482991.html
Can you name any other nation with a comparable deficit to run better unemployment or growth figures than ours over the past decade? Any examples at all please?
There's no election pending in China.
It's doomed as a strategy anyway - lefties live for the culture war. Controlling speech, cancelling people, wrecking monuments, banning this, no-platforming that, getting that person sacked - it's not just their job, it's their passion!
And that's the albatross around Labour's neck that makes the public think twice before putting them in power.