I have no idea why No. 10 is doing it though, when individual departments should be and then feeding into Downing street the key info/needs for action.
Number 10 has to choose where to expend our taxes and their political capital; to decide where they can make the biggest difference in the time that they have. I can see data science giving them some insight into that.
(ps, I am still making these comments despite falling short of being elite, I hope that's ok. Probably not enough theatre or opera.)
Assuming they have any decent data to use. No point having the boffins sat in a central unit away from the data gatherers in my experience.
Yes, exactly this. Data science is a field that sits on top of a very, very good data engineering and analyst team. It's the cherry on top of a really good desert, not the desert itself.
But that knowledge is based on your expertise - Boris and Cummings don't like experts they just want someone to point at, boost about and when, it finally becomes necessary, cop the blame.
I'm going to break the habit of a lifetime and defend Dom here.
I think he's sincere in his lust for scientific government. If only everything could be optimised, and everything unnecessary trimmed, just think of the savings to be made.
The trouble is that, underneath the stinky T shirt, he's an Oxford humanities grad, so he doesn't get the limitations of scientific management. In particular, while it's certainly possible to use data to rigorously answer a question like "how can I optimise the profitability of my business?" or "how can I get enough votes to win a referendum?", real government has infinitely more interacting tradeoffs involved.
Worse than that, data doesn't help you know what questions to ask. My hunch is that a lot of the problems with the UK's Covid response in March were down to asking the wrong questions- "how do we prevent a second peak?" and "how do we stop the NHS being overwhelmed?"- as much as competence/incompetence in their answering and execution.
But yes, should it go wrong, it will be the fault of the boffins. It's always the fault of someone else.
Part of the answer to that is finding the gaps in the data you have - which almost always leads to interesting answers....
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
Grr.
So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).
As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.
If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
I think we're waiting to have a bash at big interventionist state here in the modern era. I'm not counting this effort from Johnson and Sunak - I sense their heart is not in it.
Thankfully not enough are stupid enough to think a big interventionist state will work currently and I don't think you will ever convince enough
Well I sense you are wavering so I will try for a bit longer before I down tools completely. And you will be a great prize - you know what they say about the passion of the converted.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Just occurred to me. If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class. I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
Something about actors really winds people up. Don't get it myself. For a profession that involves a huge amount of hard work mostly for little money, brings a lot of happiness to paying customers and is something that the UK excels at, it seems to make a certain kind of person on the Right very angry.
Re wealthy people posturing as working class, I actually think it's the "self made" Sugar and Stringfellow and Ashton types who do a lot of it. But not being "luvvies" (perish the thought) they escape censure. Until NOW!
On actors, though, Michael Caine - who I like, don't we all, national treasure - has always irritated me slightly with that cockney shtick of his.
Father = market porter; mother = cook/charwoman (wiki).
Most actors would swiftly have lost their original accent and replaced it with something a bit more RP. Not him. And this irritates you?
To me it becomes affectation after a while when you've long ago left your roots behind. Also with Caine - Sir Michael rather, great actor, national treasure and I mean it - he went very right wing in no time and also he fled our shores to avoid tax.
Just thinking about it now for the first time, this template is perhaps kind of the equivalent for me that Toynbee & Co are for others. I have an irrationally strong aversion to the self-made rich man who plays up his working class essence and at same time is smugly congratulatory of himself for escaping it and who votes Tory and dodges tax.
Wonder if it would bother him if he knew how I felt?
He doesn't care what you think. He made Muppets Christmas Carol. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. And why should he? Deserved an Oscar for that
Muppets Christmas Carol is the best film adaption of the original book out there. And I’m not even slightly joking.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
I have no idea why No. 10 is doing it though, when individual departments should be and then feeding into Downing street the key info/needs for action.
Number 10 has to choose where to expend our taxes and their political capital; to decide where they can make the biggest difference in the time that they have. I can see data science giving them some insight into that.
(ps, I am still making these comments despite falling short of being elite, I hope that's ok. Probably not enough theatre or opera.)
Assuming they have any decent data to use. No point having the boffins sat in a central unit away from the data gatherers in my experience.
It's a fair observation. The collation and presentation of data during Covid has been genuinely spectacular in its awfulness.
But that's not something a data scientist fixes, it's something a standard old data analyst fixes. A data scientist will give you a model that predicts death rates months into the future based on current trends, you won't get a nice readable graph of current data from them though.
Sure, I understand that but if the current data is indicative of the quality that a data scientist has to work with, he or she has a problem. The best that could come out of this project is a major improvement in the quality of data that governments collect.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Just occurred to me. If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class. I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
Something about actors really winds people up. Don't get it myself. For a profession that involves a huge amount of hard work mostly for little money, brings a lot of happiness to paying customers and is something that the UK excels at, it seems to make a certain kind of person on the Right very angry.
Re wealthy people posturing as working class, I actually think it's the "self made" Sugar and Stringfellow and Ashton types who do a lot of it. But not being "luvvies" (perish the thought) they escape censure. Until NOW!
On actors, though, Michael Caine - who I like, don't we all, national treasure - has always irritated me slightly with that cockney shtick of his.
Father = market porter; mother = cook/charwoman (wiki).
Most actors would swiftly have lost their original accent and replaced it with something a bit more RP. Not him. And this irritates you?
To me it becomes affectation after a while when you've long ago left your roots behind. Also with Caine - Sir Michael rather, great actor, national treasure and I mean it - he went very right wing in no time and also he fled our shores to avoid tax.
Just thinking about it now for the first time, this template is perhaps kind of the equivalent for me that Toynbee & Co are for others. I have an irrationally strong aversion to the self-made rich man who plays up his working class essence and at same time is smugly congratulatory of himself for escaping it and who votes Tory and dodges tax.
Wonder if it would bother him if he knew how I felt?
He doesn't care what you think. He made Muppets Christmas Carol. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. And why should he? Deserved an Oscar for that
Muppets Christmas Carol is the best film adaption of the original book out there. And I’m not even slightly joking.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
Grr.
So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).
As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.
If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
I think we're waiting to have a bash at big interventionist state here in the modern era. I'm not counting this effort from Johnson and Sunak - I sense their heart is not in it.
Thankfully not enough are stupid enough to think a big interventionist state will work currently and I don't think you will ever convince enough
Well I sense you are wavering so I will try for a bit longer before I down tools completely. And you will be a great prize - you know what they say about the passion of the converted.
Like most teenagers I was a socialist and a big supporter of labour. Then I grew up and realised it had no answers for the same reason socialism has always failed. It relies on people behaving in the way socialists think they should behave rather than the way in which human beings really behave. It really is that simple.
You are a prime example of this with your crusade to ban private schools and hand waving away the issues people raise like the very rich will send their kids to school abroad, the moderately rich will merely buy up all the housing in good state cachement areas pushing poor kids out so all they have left is the failing state schools. Oh it won't happen you declaim despite all the evidence showing it absolutely will
I have no idea why No. 10 is doing it though, when individual departments should be and then feeding into Downing street the key info/needs for action.
Number 10 has to choose where to expend our taxes and their political capital; to decide where they can make the biggest difference in the time that they have. I can see data science giving them some insight into that.
(ps, I am still making these comments despite falling short of being elite, I hope that's ok. Probably not enough theatre or opera.)
Assuming they have any decent data to use. No point having the boffins sat in a central unit away from the data gatherers in my experience.
It's a fair observation. The collation and presentation of data during Covid has been genuinely spectacular in its awfulness.
But that's not something a data scientist fixes, it's something a standard old data analyst fixes. A data scientist will give you a model that predicts death rates months into the future based on current trends, you won't get a nice readable graph of current data from them though.
Sure, I understand that but if the current data is indicative of the quality that a data scientist has to work with, he or she has a problem. The best that could come out of this project is a major improvement in the quality of data that governments collect.
It won't. The data scientists will just quit. They aren't data engineers and they definitely don't want to be data analysts. If the government was serious about data then they would be recruiting a team of data engineers, signing a contract with Google for an enterprise licence to GCP and building a whole new set of databases and processes to capture the data automatically across all departments and feed it into a new single source of truth. That's 2 years worth of work for a pretty reasonable sized team and it needs to be done first. The step after that is getting a bunch of good data analysts in to look after the data and ensure that relevant data is being surfaced and that it's consistent and automating processes and just making something useful out of the raw data.
The final step after about 3 years is recruiting data scientists to work with the raw and cleaned data to come up with new models and forecasts using statistical analysis and machine learning.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Why would you say something like that, or is this the labour way of winning votes?
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Given I tipped her at 100-1...The latter would have been just splendid...
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could only win it back By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Given I tipped her at 100-1...The latter would have been just splendid...
TBH I'd like to see Nandy standing in for Starmer at PMQ's sometimes.
While politically neutral and ready to praise the government for its interest in animal welfare (I genuinely think DEFRA has the most pro-welfare leadership for decades), animal welfare charities are genuinely baffled by this membership, which has zero members involved in welfare for a body set up to advise on welfare. Leaving aside politics, it just doesn't make practical sense, like setting up a road safety body without any members with a special interest in road safety.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could only win it back By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
It might come to that if they vote Tory again after 5 years of this shit show.
Mr. kinabalu, a 95% rate of income tax is insane. Or do you think it's a good thing?
I'd take that over a sanctimonious hypocrite imagining there's no money as he plays his piano in his mansion.
We still have effective tax rates over 100% on people coming off benefits, which is equally insane. If you want people to work, it should make financial sense to do so.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Given I tipped her at 100-1...The latter would have been just splendid...
TBH I'd like to see Nandy standing in for Starmer at PMQ's sometimes.
Idiot!!!!! Trying to do two things at once. Meant Rayner.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
There are plenty of "somethings" looming not to far down the road.
I look forward to your reaction to a YouGov poll conducted in the 24 hours immediately following a Conservative Budget that announces a £30 billion package of austerity achieved through a mixture of tax rises and public spending cuts, just at the same time as interest and mortgage rates are starting to rise again. I think we're about two years away from that.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could only win it back By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
It might come to that if they vote Tory again after 5 years of this shit show.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could only win it back By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
It might come to that if they vote Tory again after 5 years of this shit show.
As a great philosopher said - "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Why would you say something like that, or is this the labour way of winning votes?
Just a bit of frustration boiling over at the YouGov. I mean, honestly. We've served up some top Starmer for the last few weeks against an increasingly lamentable Johnson and seemingly got no reward. May as well get Jeremy back if it's going to be like this. At least he scared people.
But so long as Trump stays lagging by more than 5 points, this is the main thing right now.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Not a big Phillips fan but I did vote for Nandy. The "too dull to pull" theory on Starmer might have something in it. But I hope not. It would be too sad if we have become dumbed down to that extent.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
SKS will never beat Boris. He is just too dull and that does not work in this media age. Labour should have chosen either Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy.
Given I tipped her at 100-1...The latter would have been just splendid...
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Why would you say something like that, or is this the labour way of winning votes?
Just a bit of frustration boiling over at the YouGov. I mean, honestly. We've served up some top Starmer for the last few weeks against an increasingly lamentable Johnson and seemingly got no reward. May as well get Jeremy back if it's going to be like this. At least he scared people.
But so long as Trump stays lagging by more than 5 points, this is the main thing right now.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
Grr.
So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).
As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.
If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
I think we're waiting to have a bash at big interventionist state here in the modern era. I'm not counting this effort from Johnson and Sunak - I sense their heart is not in it.
Thankfully not enough are stupid enough to think a big interventionist state will work currently and I don't think you will ever convince enough
Well I sense you are wavering so I will try for a bit longer before I down tools completely. And you will be a great prize - you know what they say about the passion of the converted.
Like most teenagers I was a socialist and a big supporter of labour. Then I grew up and realised it had no answers for the same reason socialism has always failed. It relies on people behaving in the way socialists think they should behave rather than the way in which human beings really behave. It really is that simple.
You are a prime example of this with your crusade to ban private schools and hand waving away the issues people raise like the very rich will send their kids to school abroad, the moderately rich will merely buy up all the housing in good state cachement areas pushing poor kids out so all they have left is the failing state schools. Oh it won't happen you declaim despite all the evidence showing it absolutely will
I look at this exactly the opposite way. Human beings left to their own devices will create a society which is grossly unequal. Unequal to a degree that is indecent. As it is now, people with advantages of talent and wealth and looks, and particularly wealth, and of race and gender, will always by and large have better life outcomes than those not so blessed - not every person but on the whole - and so for me a very high priority of government should be to act in a way that goes against the grain of this rather than to simply let it be, or worse accentuate it. And by go against the grain I mean enact policies which lead to more equal opportunities and outcomes. That's MORE equal not equal. Nothing crazy or scary about this.
Genuinely, Labour has a really big problem on their hands and not sure how it can be resolved. Starmer is evidently the best they could have chosen but right now he's not looking like it's enough.
The Tory support is rock solid stable, until something happens to actually hit it, Labour ain't gonna be forming any governments any time soon.
Public are bastards plain and simple.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could only win it back By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
Nice to see you quoting a lifelong Marxist. Apropos of nothing very much I visited his grave last time I was in Berlin. Quite understated, not to say unprepossessing.
Comments
I don't think there is a bias in it - is there one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._D._Morel#Discoveries_at_Elder_Dempster
Oscar Wilde applies.
Make of that what you will!
https://twitter.com/DGWilkinson/status/1281602640095391746
You are a prime example of this with your crusade to ban private schools and hand waving away the issues people raise like the very rich will send their kids to school abroad, the moderately rich will merely buy up all the housing in good state cachement areas pushing poor kids out so all they have left is the failing state schools. Oh it won't happen you declaim despite all the evidence showing it absolutely will
The final step after about 3 years is recruiting data scientists to work with the raw and cleaned data to come up with new models and forecasts using statistical analysis and machine learning.
I'd take that over a sanctimonious hypocrite imagining there's no money as he plays his piano in his mansion.
Brecht says hello:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could only win it back
By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler
for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/10/boris-johnson-plans-radical-shake-up-of-nhs-in-bid-to-regain-more-direct-control
This is what we want -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Epue9X8bpc
I look forward to your reaction to a YouGov poll conducted in the 24 hours immediately following a Conservative Budget that announces a £30 billion package of austerity achieved through a mixture of tax rises and public spending cuts, just at the same time as interest and mortgage rates are starting to rise again. I think we're about two years away from that.
But so long as Trump stays lagging by more than 5 points, this is the main thing right now.
"That means that something else is happening – we are actually getting closer to herd immunity. I can’t really see another reason.”
https://unherd.com/thepost/swedish-doctor-t-cell-immunity-and-the-truth-about-covid-19-in-sweden/
I know how it feels.
Little did I know it would be an un-read retweet. Little did I know.