Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
If they had any sense they would be keen to sell up and move out of the overpriced dump. Also as it is public money they will get shedloads thrown at them to move into the bargain. They can sell their garrets and buy large properties in fresh air locations with greenery.
Very interesting header, thanks @Cyclefree. I think more should be made of the situation with Dodds. I believe there are mutterings within the party over her lack of impact. She's only been in post a few months but it's a cruel game politics. She has been promoted rapidly under Starmer and doesn't appear to have found her feet yet.
Generally in opposition, only the leader and the shadow chancellor make any kind of impact on the general public.
If I were Starmer I would replace Dodds with Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper, she has been over promoted in my view
Yvette Cooper , we can ignore your guidance if you seriously think she could do anything , totally useless.
I agree with MalcolmG.
Blair won with a completely fresh team, unassociated with the failures of the Labour Govts of the 1970s. Cooper & Balls and Ed Miliband now reek of the past & failure. In politics, you must never look back to rejects of the past.
After all, it was Miliband who lost Scotland, and changed the Labour voting rules with consequences that were entirely predictable. Cooper couldn't make a success of HIPs, so it is laughable that she could make a success of something like Test & Trace. Cooper in fact is just not very good. Miliband in fact is not very good.
SKS has got some very competent MPs. He needs to promote new fresh faces. If Dodds isn't working, he needs to replace her.
(Also, I don't myself think SKS will be up against Boris in 2024.)
Cooper is the sort of competent inoffensive person you put in charge to run something where it’s basically steady state and spinning the plates. But she’s never going to be able to change the world or lead politics in a different direction - as was brutally exposed during her abortive leadership campaign that landed us with Corbyn.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Well if they want to keep their jobs, the weather may be worse and there may be less to do than in London but the housing is cheaper especially if they keep the same pay.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Usually at vast expense.
Yes, though the government has prime property in central London it can sell/lease to fund it. Those offices are a highly valuable resource.
Well they were.
Most UK Civil servants aren't actually in London anyway. There are about 450-500k UK civil servants. About 90k in London. Are the Government really going to leave NO ministerial departments in London?
Not sure why the canaries want to risk their low covid numbers by having a load of Brits coming with higher rates and an inability to follow rules, will end in tears I’m afraid.
Money, 'tis said, is the root of all evil. I suspect the Canadian tourist trade is suffering without us. Are Germans allowed to travel, incidentally; there are usually quite a few of them there. Must confess that I'd love to go, but the thought of the plane trip is somewhat off-putting.
From what I saw in Europe last month, the Germans are the only people travelling at the moment, in large numbers at least.
British as well, we met a lot of Brits in Italy and anecdotally loads of my friends have been to Italy and Greece.
In nearly a month I only saw three other British cars, and everywhere I stayed said they hadn’t seen any British visitors this year. On the Eurotunnel returning home, German cars were in a clear majority.
That's strange because we met loads in Sicily and again in Naples, Germans as well but loads of Brits in the bars and restaurants.
To be fair, I was in southern Germany and North/North East Italy, neither areas that are at the centre of the British tourist trail. But the dearth of visitors was remarkable, and to see a Eurotunnel train heading for the UK in early October with more German cars than British was remarkable.
Possibly the ever shifting quarantine policy made driving across Europe more problematic than jetting in to Italy directly - despite the former clearly being safer - yet another example of how government policy has been counter productive.
Does this mean that ministers will now need to have three houses? One in their constituency, one at Westminster and one where their ministerial job is?
How can ministers work in the North when they could be required to vote in the House of Commons at a moment's notice?
Is that not why we are wasting 100B on HS2 so a few fannies can get to London 15 minutes quicker. PS: how often do ministers ever mix with the low level plebs that would be exiled northwards.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Intellectually, quite possibly. For putting it across, hmm. But there's time to work that out.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
It could see a Labour and LD majority without the Red Wall if the Liberals made big gains in the Home Counties and Labour made some gains in Scotland but there is near zero chance of a Labour majority alone without regaining the Red Wall or most of Scotland
The Liberal Democrats are not the Liberal Party. Separate, fights elections on its own.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Well if they want to keep their jobs, the weather may be worse and there may be less to do than in London but the housing is cheaper especially if they keep the same pay.
Otherwise they can hire northern locals
Depends what you mean by worse. I find London to be stifling in the summer. Rain is easier to deal with, you just buy a quality coat.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
It's a good idea but it will be difficult to achieve. One issue is that civil servants tend to have partners or spouses who are also professionals, and it is not clear there are enough professional jobs in eg Doncaster vs London. As someone who has experience with the ONS and numerous issues that have arisen with the quality of their output, one thing that people frequently say is that they can't get good people who want to live in Newport, for these kind of reasons. It's a sad reflection on the unbalanced nature of the UK economy, but it is a real issue.
Does this mean that ministers will now need to have three houses? One in their constituency, one at Westminster and one where their ministerial job is?
How can ministers work in the North when they could be required to vote in the House of Commons at a moment's notice?
They can't. So the ministers and their private offices and the Permanent Secretaries etc have to stay in Westminster.
So this is for other ranks only. Managing them will be harder, because they'll be miles away. Some money will be saved, but there won't be a cultural change. And planning the move will make departments ineffective for a while, because reorganisations always have that effect.
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Intellectually, quite possibly. For putting it across, hmm. But there's time to work that out.
Again, we're at the detail/rhetoric interface. The ideal person would have both. When it comes to (potential) chancellors of the exchequer, I think there's probably a strong national preference for the details aspect.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Usually at vast expense.
Yes, though the government has prime property in central London it can sell/lease to fund it. Those offices are a highly valuable resource.
Well they were.
Most UK Civil servants aren't actually in London anyway. There are about 450-500k UK civil servants. About 90k in London. Are the Government really going to leave NO ministerial departments in London?
They are as much use as chocolate teapot so would have no impact whatsoever if they were all shovelled into one of the Kent lorry parks.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
I know pb.com is infested with them, but in the real world there are not many liberals left.
I suspect the path for Labour is more Corbyn without the Antisemites. Especially if there are large-scale economic consequences of the pandemic.
Labour have yet to come to terms that there were **some** very electorally attractive aspects of Corbynism.
(After all, OGH voted for him twice in a highly marginal seat 😁)
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth. Although there are plenty of ways to measure it. In the middle of Morecambe Bay is another.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
It could see a Labour and LD majority without the Red Wall if the Liberals made big gains in the Home Counties and Labour made some gains in Scotland but there is near zero chance of a Labour majority alone without regaining the Red Wall or most of Scotland
The Liberal Democrats are not the Liberal Party. Separate, fights elections on its own.
To all intents and purposes it is, the other Liberal Party are a tiny minority who opposed the merger with the SDP and got just 10,000 votes at the last general election out of 32 million ie less than 0.1%
Does this mean that ministers will now need to have three houses? One in their constituency, one at Westminster and one where their ministerial job is?
How can ministers work in the North when they could be required to vote in the House of Commons at a moment's notice?
They can't. So the ministers and their private offices and the Permanent Secretaries etc have to stay in Westminster.
So this is for other ranks only. Managing them will be harder, because they'll be miles away. Some money will be saved, but there won't be a cultural change. And planning the move will make departments ineffective for a while, because reorganisations always have that effect.
But it's a good squirrel on a bad news day.
I doubt much, if any money will be saved. That hasn't been the experience with other major civil service transfers.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Usually at vast expense.
Yes, though the government has prime property in central London it can sell/lease to fund it. Those offices are a highly valuable resource.
Well they were.
Most UK Civil servants aren't actually in London anyway. There are about 450-500k UK civil servants. About 90k in London. Are the Government really going to leave NO ministerial departments in London?
True, though given the location they probably still are just a little bit less so.
What is often missing in the caricature of Brexiters and Remainers, is the substantial number of people who voted Remain because they anticipated the sh*tshow it would become. Not because they had a love for the EU. Who would have been quite happy with a Norway type relationship, with the inevitable additional clout from being a such a big economically important nation whose position could not realistically be ignored in future, even if excluded from the formal EU decision making process, but just didn't think that it would come about. But might have voted for it if it did (eg. the referendum vote was contingent on the seeking of such a relationship)
It seems that often the most vituperative criticism of "remainers" comes from Brexiters who held the same basic opinion on preferred relationship with the EU (and indeed accept (or at least did at the time) that no deal type arrangements would be a disaster, but voted Brexit to achieve it. I suppose they blame the "Eurosceptic remainers" for not doing more, somehow, to bring the preferred outcome about.
I think I would qualify as one of the site's "Arch Remainers", but I have said many times that I would be happy enough with an EEA deal.
It is a stupid thing to give up full membership for, but it is way, way better than being a 3rd country.
I don't even particularly like the EU, I just thought that leaving would be a huge act of national self harm. As it is indeed turning out to be. A compromise EEA arrangement is where I think the median opinion is, but no attempt to compromise was ever made by Brexiteers. Suck it up, we voted out, they said. Well if they don't like how it's turning out, it is on them, not us. Suck it up, you voted out.
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Intellectually, quite possibly. For putting it across, hmm. But there's time to work that out.
Again, we're at the detail/rhetoric interface. The ideal person would have both. When it comes to (potential) chancellors of the exchequer, I think there's probably a strong national preference for the details aspect.
Working out the policies is probably the easy bit, compared to the politics of building consensus, shaping the messages, and the heavy lifting of persuasion and campaigning.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
People will get more for their money and adapt. Or not, in which case others will. Why on earth wouldn't they unless they are bigoted snobs?
I mentioned, I think, previously a friend who was offered by the bank he works for - London money (minus some allowances) to move to an office near Manchester (business park on the outskirts, I believe). The idea was to see how much enthusiasm there was for this. He has told me the bank is going ahead - massive enthusiasm.
The plan (pre covid) was that they will keep some of the London office for the units who are staying in London, the older staff who don't want to move - and temp desk space for when they come to London for meetings etc. Floors reduced etc.
For him, this would mean going from a small one bed flat in the commuter zone (well outside London proper) to a 3/4 bed house 30 minutes from work.
The money is the key to this. Previous attempts to get people out of London have failed on the pay-half-or-less-of--London wages thing. He's being offered 80-90% of current wages to move.
If you start offering employment outside London on a large scale at 80-90% of London wages, expect a loud bang. The sonic boom from everyone leaving London.
Does this mean that ministers will now need to have three houses? One in their constituency, one at Westminster and one where their ministerial job is?
How can ministers work in the North when they could be required to vote in the House of Commons at a moment's notice?
Is that not why we are wasting 100B on HS2 so a few fannies can get to London 15 minutes quicker. PS: how often do ministers ever mix with the low level plebs that would be exiled northwards.
The idea of moving the HoC to York, while the Palace of Westminster is being rebuilt comes to mind.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
It could see a Labour and LD majority without the Red Wall if the Liberals made big gains in the Home Counties and Labour made some gains in Scotland but there is near zero chance of a Labour majority alone without regaining the Red Wall or most of Scotland
The Liberal Democrats are not the Liberal Party. Separate, fights elections on its own.
To all intents and purposes it is, the other Liberal Party are a tiny minority who opposed the merger with the SDP and got just 10,000 votes at the last general election out of 32 million ie less than 0.1%
Depends whether you simply look at names, or at beliefs.
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Look at the numbers and you will see that the 'new economic settlement' involves either
- yoking our grandchildren and great grandchildren to a level of debt they will simply not be able to manage or
- imposing a regime of austerity that will make 2010 -2018 look like the sunlit uplands or
-imposing state run asset kleptocracy of the UK's last great store of wealth, the property market.
The money has gone. The economy is shattered and broken permanently. There are no other alternatives
Meanwhile, evidence that COVID has largely harvested those that flu would claimed anyway mounts by the day.
The COVID response is the greatest policy catastrophe by any British government ever, as I have maintained all along. It has been perpetrated by a governing class that has not been fit for purpose for decades, supported by a mainstream media that make goldfish look intellectual and parrots original.
My bet is that when this is all over voters will be looking at new alternatives in their droves both on the left and right.
Both main parties are utterly exhausted and completely bankrupt of solutions.
Most of the large departments with huge numbers of administrative staff are already outside of London. What's left is much smaller, and probably involves staff who are far more mobile between the various departments. Or at least have to meet regularly under cross departmental working groups.
It makes sense to have them all in one place, whether it is London or somewhere else. But London is obviously the most logical given the location of Parliament and everything else.
A headline that these will move to "the North" is all very good. But where in "the North". Given the above, it hardly makes sense to base the Treasury in York, the Foreign Office in Leeds, the Home Office in Manchester... It's just sloganising.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Look at the numbers and you will see that the 'new economic settlement' involves either
- yoking our grandchildren and great grandchildren to a level of debt they will simply not be able to manage or
- imposing a regime of austerity that will make 2010 -2018 look like the sunlit uplands or
-imposing state run asset kleptocracy of the UK's last great store of wealth, the property market.
The money has gone. The economy is shattered and broken permanently. There are no other alternatives
Meanwhile, evidence that COVID has largely harvested those that flu would claimed anyway mounts by the day.
The COVID response is the greatest policy catastrophe by any British government ever, as I have maintained all along. It has been perpetrated by a governing class that has not been fit for purpose for decades, supported by a mainstream media that make goldfish look intellectual and parrots original.
My bet is that when this is all over voters will be looking at new alternatives in their droves both on the left and right.
Both main parties are utterly exhausted and completely bankrupt of solutions.
Coronavirus has killed something in the order of four years' worth of flu casualties. So if we've already lost the 2020-2024 flu victims in 2020, and coronavirus deaths are on the rise again, who is it killing now? The 2025 cohort? How far ahead does it need to get for you to change your mind?
Does this mean that ministers will now need to have three houses? One in their constituency, one at Westminster and one where their ministerial job is?
How can ministers work in the North when they could be required to vote in the House of Commons at a moment's notice?
That is the point -- it weakens the link between government and the Commons. It also weakens Cabinet government because ministers are scattered around the country. Meat and drink to the unelected centraliser in chief, who wants to run the whole show himself from a single room with big tellies and some superforecasters.
Most of the large departments with huge numbers of administrative staff are already outside of London. What's left is much smaller, and probably involves staff who are far more mobile between the various departments. Or at least have to meet regularly under cross departmental working groups.
It makes sense to have them all in one place, whether it is London or somewhere else. But London is obviously the most logical given the location of Parliament and everything else.
A headline that these will move to "the North" is all very good. But where in "the North". Given the above, it hardly makes sense to base the Treasury in York, the Foreign Office in Leeds, the Home Office in Manchester... It's just sloganising.
This government has passed up the obvious opportunity for the only change that would really have any impact: moving Parliament to (say) York whilst the Palace of Westminster is being effectively re-built.
Edit: Apols to @Malmesbury who I see has got there before me.
However incompetent the Tory govt has been on handling Corvid there is no reason to believe Labour would have handled it any better.Their shadow cabinet has hardly anyone who has any kind of executive CV.What Labour should do is try to recognise that and call for the govt to bring in recognisable successful figures from the worlds of business culture or sport into the govt. In the 2nd world war. Churchill brought in a highly regarded Labour figure from the unions Ernest Bevin to be minister of employment.It was a big success.
My cynicism tells me that a Labour government would be no better. Similar one law for you, none for me. Similar cronyism. Similar pissing money up against the wall. Probably more authoritarianism. Maybe not so much cronyism with the private sector but a similar effect due to incompetence dealing with it. No more likely to make the right decisions whatever they are. Contempt for the needs of business. More of a "government is right" attitude. These are diseases of the political left as well as the right. And don't forget the alternative was having a regime that many people found deeply unpalatable. Starmer is looking more like someone I might vote for if I decide the Tories need a kicking, but that will be a decision I make on the way to the polling station. Not now.
The specific problems that the UK have with dealing with the pandemic are greater than one set of incompetent Govt ministers, and encompass all areas of public administration and national life, going back decades.
Indeed. As my Dad used to say, we wrote the (West) German constitution for them, why can't we have it for ourselves? We need a revolution, not a Labour government
I was thinking this the other day...I'm not sure there's any potential candidate to be PM willing to talk about enacting necessary constitutional change. Politics has become short termist which has been massively to the deteriment of the country. Where's a Bevan character or - more controversially- a Thatcher type.
There is so much that needs ripping up and starting again, from our voting system and the House of Lords, through the relationship between central and local government, tax and NI, the way property is taxed, and so on.
But the Tories won’t touch any of these. Instead they are trying to trash the BBC, the civil service, the powers of the courts, the planning system.....
Have Labour committed to PR yet?
Indeed, yes. They were obsessed with it under Blair and Corbyn, which is why Blair committed to government by soundbites and Corbyn was caught lying about that train reservation he’d made. The irony is the PR of all that wasn’t that gre...
Oh hang on - did you mean public relations or proportional representation?
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
The correct criteria is "furthest from the coast".
Church Flatts Farm, Derbyshire.
Here just over in Derbyshire, one of the local bike clubs even has a 300km-ish day cycle event called "Let's All Go to Skeggy" (and back).
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Please let them move the Depratment (sic) of Education as soon as possible in that case.
Hiring things that grow on damp walls would lead to a vast improvement in both intelligence and efficiency. Intelligent Northerners would be even better.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
I know pb.com is infested with them, but in the real world there are not many liberals left.
I suspect the path for Labour is more Corbyn without the Antisemites. Especially if there are large-scale economic consequences of the pandemic.
Labour have yet to come to terms that there were **some** very electorally attractive aspects of Corbynism.
(After all, OGH voted for him twice in a highly marginal seat 😁)
I think you're probably right if talking about "liberals" in the classic British sense. But I think an election winning coalition of "liberals" in the American political meaning of the word is possible. That's what I was talking about earlier. And, yes, this will have aspects of Corbynism, I agree. Where Corbynism = rejecting the Blair Thatcher settlement on economic policy rather than anything to do with the man himself.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
The correct criteria is "furthest from the coast".
Church Flatts Farm, Derbyshire.
Here just over in Derbyshire, one of the local bike clubs even has a 300km-ish day cycle event called "Let's All Go to Skeggy" (and back).
Even then it's tricky! Where does the Severn end and the sea begin?
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
Shetland as an enclave of an rUK Wangland would blow minds.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
I know pb.com is infested with them, but in the real world there are not many liberals left.
I suspect the path for Labour is more Corbyn without the Antisemites. Especially if there are large-scale economic consequences of the pandemic.
Labour have yet to come to terms that there were **some** very electorally attractive aspects of Corbynism.
(After all, OGH voted for him twice in a highly marginal seat 😁)
Indeed, to most intents and purposes classical liberalism died with Cameron and Clegg and the coalition, what you are left with now is pro Brexit reasonably large state with the Boris Tories and social democracy and diluted Corbynism with Starmer Labour and Scottish social democracy with Sturgeon and the SNP.
In fact most of the handful of classical liberals left now are mainly to be found in Ed Davey's LDs
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Look at the numbers and you will see that the 'new economic settlement' involves either
- yoking our grandchildren and great grandchildren to a level of debt they will simply not be able to manage or
- imposing a regime of austerity that will make 2010 -2018 look like the sunlit uplands or
-imposing state run asset kleptocracy of the UK's last great store of wealth, the property market.
The money has gone. The economy is shattered and broken permanently. There are no other alternatives
Meanwhile, evidence that COVID has largely harvested those that flu would claimed anyway mounts by the day.
The COVID response is the greatest policy catastrophe by any British government ever, as I have maintained all along. It has been perpetrated by a governing class that has not been fit for purpose for decades, supported by a mainstream media that make goldfish look intellectual and parrots original.
My bet is that when this is all over voters will be looking at new alternatives in their droves both on the left and right.
Both main parties are utterly exhausted and completely bankrupt of solutions.
Coronavirus has killed something in the order of four years' worth of flu casualties. So if we've already lost the 2020-2024 flu victims in 2020, and coronavirus deaths are on the rise again, who is it killing now? The 2025 cohort? How far ahead does it need to get for you to change your mind?
Flu deaths totalled more than 25,000 in at least two of the last six years, from what I can see.
2019 was an exceptionally low year for flu deaths, leaving a lot of dry tinder.
The COVID death count has been compiled by a government utterly and completely desperate to justify its wholesale bankrupting of Britain to an increasingly restless and sceptical population.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
Shetland as an enclave of an rUK Wangland would blow minds.
Please, the thought is making ill. I can barely deal with Croatia. They should never have been allowed into the EU with a shape like that. Can't they merge with Bosnia or something?
Ha. That's ironic after we were banging on about it yesterday. Still not totally happy, btw, with the idea of them not being your team. Guess I'll accept it in time. Do you at least have a soft spot for them? It would help a lot if you could say that you do.
(Yes, very nice song, that BB one. I had not heard it.)
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
Shetland as an enclave of an rUK Wangland would blow minds.
Please, the thought is making ill. I can barely deal with Croatia. They should never have been allowed into the EU with a shape like that. Can't they merge with Bosnia or something?
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
Shetland as an enclave of an rUK Wangland would blow minds.
Please, the thought is making ill. I can barely deal with Croatia. They should never have been allowed into the EU with a shape like that. Can't they merge with Bosnia or something?
According to Andra Neil Bosnia has dumped Herzegovina, so they may be looking for a new squeeze.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth. Although there are plenty of ways to measure it. In the middle of Morecambe Bay is another.
Oops! My mistake. The area around Tamworth is the furthest point from the sea, not the centroid. I obviously got mixed up
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
On topic, I think Cyclefree's analysis is good, and notably fair. My main recommendation to Starmer at this stage is to do more presentations jointly with colleagues, especially Dodds - he has done enough to show he's a plausible PM, now he needs to show Labour has strength in depth.
A new economic settlement - just to cope with the aftermath of the virus crisis, not to mention the glaring flaws in the current one - will be the most pressing issue after the virus subsides. You can’t seriously think that Dodds is the best person for the challenge?
Look at the numbers and you will see that the 'new economic settlement' involves either
- yoking our grandchildren and great grandchildren to a level of debt they will simply not be able to manage or
- imposing a regime of austerity that will make 2010 -2018 look like the sunlit uplands or
-imposing state run asset kleptocracy of the UK's last great store of wealth, the property market.
The money has gone. The economy is shattered and broken permanently. There are no other alternatives
Meanwhile, evidence that COVID has largely harvested those that flu would claimed anyway mounts by the day.
The COVID response is the greatest policy catastrophe by any British government ever, as I have maintained all along. It has been perpetrated by a governing class that has not been fit for purpose for decades, supported by a mainstream media that make goldfish look intellectual and parrots original.
My bet is that when this is all over voters will be looking at new alternatives in their droves both on the left and right.
Both main parties are utterly exhausted and completely bankrupt of solutions.
Coronavirus has killed something in the order of four years' worth of flu casualties. So if we've already lost the 2020-2024 flu victims in 2020, and coronavirus deaths are on the rise again, who is it killing now? The 2025 cohort? How far ahead does it need to get for you to change your mind?
Flu deaths totalled more than 25,000 in at least two of the last six years, from what I can see.
2019 was an exceptionally low year for flu deaths, leaving a lot of dry tinder.
The COVID death count has been compiled by a government utterly and completely desperate to justify its wholesale bankrupting of Britain to an increasingly restless and sceptical population.
Flu deaths fluctuate year on year due to whatever the dominate strain is (i.e. how good the guess at the vaccine was) and the temperature. Last year we had a relatively warm winter.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
The correct criteria is "furthest from the coast".
Church Flatts Farm, Derbyshire.
Here just over in Derbyshire, one of the local bike clubs even has a 300km-ish day cycle event called "Let's All Go to Skeggy" (and back).
Even then it's tricky! Where does the Severn end and the sea begin?
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
If they can persuade civil servants to move there it would be inhabited and thereby extend Scotland's EEZ quite considerably.
Six months into her leadership in late Summer of 1975, Thatcher was not streets ahead in the polls - nor had she at that stage come up with a clear policy alternative.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
You need to include the Falklands in your circle. Where does that place the centre?
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
Yep why can't the bloody Welsh police do it on their side of the border? Or is it a cunning plan by the UK Govt to p*ss the Welsh off with Labour?
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
Power mad busybodies don't need an excuse to be power mad busybodies. The whole British state has become mentally deficient.
Not content with fetishising the tiny fishing industry, Tories have now got their electron microscopes out and are magnifying English and Welsh(!) wines to their shrivelled, wee hearts' content.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
You need to include the Falklands in your circle. Where does that place the centre?
If you include them then you probably have to include the Pitcairns and so on, and HOW DID YOU PEOPLE TRICK ME INTO THIS? This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! I'm off to get lunch and do housework. I believe it's now customary to call everyone "saddos" before signing off, but I'll break with tradition.
Not content with fetishising the tiny fishing industry, Tories have now got their electron microscopes out and are magnifying English and Welsh(!) wines to their shrivelled, wee hearts' content.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
The guidance for Tier 3 says that we shouldn't cross the borders from West Yorkshire into Lancashire, Greater Manchester or South Yorkshire. And those buggers shouldn't come here. Making that a 'rule' would be the next step and align with the Wales policy. Not that I'm expecting it, mind.
Very interesting header, thanks @Cyclefree. I think more should be made of the situation with Dodds. I believe there are mutterings within the party over her lack of impact. She's only been in post a few months but it's a cruel game politics. She has been promoted rapidly under Starmer and doesn't appear to have found her feet yet.
Generally in opposition, only the leader and the shadow chancellor make any kind of impact on the general public.
If I were Starmer I would replace Dodds with Ed Miliband or Yvette Cooper, she has been over promoted in my view
Yvette Cooper , we can ignore your guidance if you seriously think she could do anything , totally useless.
I agree with MalcolmG.
Blair won with a completely fresh team, unassociated with the failures of the Labour Govts of the 1970s. Cooper & Balls and Ed Miliband now reek of the past & failure. In politics, you must never look back to rejects of the past.
After all, it was Miliband who lost Scotland, and changed the Labour voting rules with consequences that were entirely predictable. Cooper couldn't make a success of HIPs, so it is laughable that she could make a success of something like Test & Trace. Cooper in fact is just not very good. Miliband in fact is not very good.
SKS has got some very competent MPs. He needs to promote new fresh faces. If Dodds isn't working, he needs to replace her.
(Also, I don't myself think SKS will be up against Boris in 2024.)
Not sure that Dodds is incompetent, rather than somewhat ineffectual as a public performer. Might have been a decent appointment as shadow Chief Secretary, where she would have had room to grow (or be quietly discarded).
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Very unlikely you can draw a circle that has four random points on its circumference
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
So are they actually using ANPR (number plate recognition) or are they just seeing if your numbers plate starts with a C (I happen to have an English number plate) Either way this is complete dictatorial madness.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Very unlikely you can draw a circle that has four random points on its circumference
I think he means the smallest circle encompassing those points.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
#BetterTogether
Quite frankly keeping the sheep botherers out of England should have been policy centuries ago.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Delivered how? Cross border traffic is ‘discouraged’.
Mind, I suppose Meibion ap Glyndwr might be recruited to shoot down drones!
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
It’s about ten miles by dinghy to Weston Super Mare I reckon. So when all those traffickers are done in Calais there’s going to be a new market for them to exploit.
Not content with fetishising the tiny fishing industry, Tories have now got their electron microscopes out and are magnifying English and Welsh(!) wines to their shrivelled, wee hearts' content.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
Apart from trip to chemist staying at home but will use Amazon as required
The sight of supermarket shelves sealed off is all over social media and of course will be experienced in person by shoppers reminding everyone how petty this all is
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
#BetterTogether
Quite frankly keeping the sheep botherers out of England should have been policy centuries ago.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Delivered how? Cross border traffic is ‘discouraged’.
Mind, I suppose Meibion ap Glyndwr might be recruited to shoot down drones!
Cannot stop people carrying out their work unless it means going inside
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
You mean the one wrapped in brown paper!
In Llandudno I understand Asian Babes is retitled as East Anglian Babes,
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Delivered how? Cross border traffic is ‘discouraged’.
Mind, I suppose Meibion ap Glyndwr might be recruited to shoot down drones!
Delivered by a bloke in a van, just as an online order for something was delivered to me three hours ago.
This is the weapons grade lunacy that our People’s Soviet in Cardiff Bay has contrived. Spend your money locally, nope illegal, buy the exact same thing anywhere else on planet Earth and have it delivered? Yup fine crack on.
Wales a land where you can buy tins but not a tin opener, doughnuts but not books, gin but not baby clothes.
I can but assume the real First Minister has been kidnapped and we have an imposter from an asylum in post.
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Very unlikely you can draw a circle that has four random points on its circumference
In general you cannot do so. There are exceptions, but in general four points at random will not lie on a circumference (unlike 3 points)
Most of the large departments with huge numbers of administrative staff are already outside of London. What's left is much smaller, and probably involves staff who are far more mobile between the various departments. Or at least have to meet regularly under cross departmental working groups.
It makes sense to have them all in one place, whether it is London or somewhere else. But London is obviously the most logical given the location of Parliament and everything else.
A headline that these will move to "the North" is all very good. But where in "the North". Given the above, it hardly makes sense to base the Treasury in York, the Foreign Office in Leeds, the Home Office in Manchester... It's just sloganising.
Why does it make sense to have them all in one place?
What's in London has far more to do with very senior staff who want to live in London - and are paid the money to do so. In turn they need spear carriers......
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
Apart from trip to chemist staying at home but will use Amazon as required
The sight of supermarket shelves sealed off is all over social media and of course will be experienced in person by shoppers reminding everyone how petty this all is
Got razors? Because they’re now not essential in the local supermarket (!)
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth. Although there are plenty of ways to measure it. In the middle of Morecambe Bay is another.
May as well face the inevitable and aim for the middle of E&W; somewhere near Rugby perhaps?
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Close enough for me to go down and throw turnips at them
Does anyone imagine that will really happen? That thousands of civil servants are just going to sell up and move north?
Voluntary redundancy and rehiring Northerners. That's usually how it's done.
Of course, it never needs to happen, it just needs to look like it is happening so the fiction of "levelling up the North" can be maintained.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
Point of order. The centre of the country is near Haltwhistle Northumberland. Not Tamworth.
Don't go there! There literally dozens of ways of measuring the centre of a country, from centre of gravity, to centre of population, on encompassing circles, to mid-point-of-the-extremes, to inscribed circles, and so on. You could lose hours or even days to the problem
And then there's the thistle of which 'country' is being referred to to be grasped...
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for bloody Shetland, a lot of these geographical centres would be a lot closer together.
The inclusion of Rockall presumably puts the centroid of the "country" in the mid-Atlantic.
Somewhat surprisingly, if you try to draw a circle around everything from Kent to Rockall, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the centre of your circle is near Cumnock, East Ayrshire. That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
Very unlikely you can draw a circle that has four random points on its circumference
Not content with fetishising the tiny fishing industry, Tories have now got their electron microscopes out and are magnifying English and Welsh(!) wines to their shrivelled, wee hearts' content.
I see the great trade deal on cheese means they only take Stilton if EU don't fill their quota , otherwise 30% tariff. What kind of fcukwits are these people and that moron Truss tried to make out she got a great deal, what do they do with all the bridges they buy I wonder.
What is often missing in the caricature of Brexiters and Remainers, is the substantial number of people who voted Remain because they anticipated the sh*tshow it would become. Not because they had a love for the EU. Who would have been quite happy with a Norway type relationship, with the inevitable additional clout from being a such a big economically important nation whose position could not realistically be ignored in future, even if excluded from the formal EU decision making process, but just didn't think that it would come about. But might have voted for it if it did (eg. the referendum vote was contingent on the seeking of such a relationship)
It seems that often the most vituperative criticism of "remainers" comes from Brexiters who held the same basic opinion on preferred relationship with the EU (and indeed accept (or at least did at the time) that no deal type arrangements would be a disaster, but voted Brexit to achieve it. I suppose they blame the "Eurosceptic remainers" for not doing more, somehow, to bring the preferred outcome about.
I think I would qualify as one of the site's "Arch Remainers", but I have said many times that I would be happy enough with an EEA deal.
It is a stupid thing to give up full membership for, but it is way, way better than being a 3rd country.
I don't even particularly like the EU, I just thought that leaving would be a huge act of national self harm. As it is indeed turning out to be. A compromise EEA arrangement is where I think the median opinion is, but no attempt to compromise was ever made by Brexiteers. Suck it up, we voted out, they said. Well if they don't like how it's turning out, it is on them, not us. Suck it up, you voted out.
What happened to the sustenance of remainer tears, so often referred to ?
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Hope you aren't planning on going anywhere, Big_G. Apart from collecting your government-approved set of groceries, of course (and don't even think about reaching for that magazine by the tills).
Apart from trip to chemist staying at home but will use Amazon as required
The sight of supermarket shelves sealed off is all over social media and of course will be experienced in person by shoppers reminding everyone how petty this all is
Does the chemist not deliver G, up here the chemist delivers the FREE prescriptions FREE of charge.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
So are they actually using ANPR (number plate recognition) or are they just seeing if your numbers plate starts with a C (I happen to have an English number plate) Either way this is complete dictatorial madness.
It is possible that Drakeford is a Plaid Cymru double agent.
First, the intervention of the English police (WTF) arresting Welsh people in Gloucestershire of the Forest of Dean is predictably generating huge anger in Wales.
And second, the more punitive and costly are Drakeford's lockdowns, the more English taxpayers will baulk at picking up the bills. The comments from some English journalists on the WAG are beginning to resemble the vituperation normally reserved for the Scottish Government.
Devolution never killed anything stone-dead, it was always going to tear us apart.
But Drakeford ... WTF .... banning the sale of books .... books of all things (as posted here yesterday by williamglenn).
I have never heard of anything so stupid. Books are a great way to pass the time in lockdown, but we can only get them from dependable Jeff Bezos.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Tories are well down the road to a police state, they are using Germany in 1930's as their blueprint.
What is often missing in the caricature of Brexiters and Remainers, is the substantial number of people who voted Remain because they anticipated the sh*tshow it would become. Not because they had a love for the EU. Who would have been quite happy with a Norway type relationship, with the inevitable additional clout from being a such a big economically important nation whose position could not realistically be ignored in future, even if excluded from the formal EU decision making process, but just didn't think that it would come about. But might have voted for it if it did (eg. the referendum vote was contingent on the seeking of such a relationship)
It seems that often the most vituperative criticism of "remainers" comes from Brexiters who held the same basic opinion on preferred relationship with the EU (and indeed accept (or at least did at the time) that no deal type arrangements would be a disaster, but voted Brexit to achieve it. I suppose they blame the "Eurosceptic remainers" for not doing more, somehow, to bring the preferred outcome about.
I think I would qualify as one of the site's "Arch Remainers", but I have said many times that I would be happy enough with an EEA deal.
It is a stupid thing to give up full membership for, but it is way, way better than being a 3rd country.
I don't even particularly like the EU, I just thought that leaving would be a huge act of national self harm. As it is indeed turning out to be. A compromise EEA arrangement is where I think the median opinion is, but no attempt to compromise was ever made by Brexiteers. Suck it up, we voted out, they said. Well if they don't like how it's turning out, it is on them, not us. Suck it up, you voted out.
What happened to the sustenance of remainer tears, so often referred to ?
That's the trouble. Remainers mostly aren't crying. The EU mostly isn't crying. They're just pointing out the ways this is set to go wrong.
Lol, Johnson and conservative values don't belong in the same sentence.
But yes, there are two problems with Starmer's Labour; Corbynism runs deep and hasn't been totally excised, but also Starmer isn't the best cultural fit to bring red wall voters back.
Don't blame me, I voted for Nandy.
She is a lightweight, for the moment Starmer has Remainers and has won back LD 2019 voters, including in the North but he will not win over Red Wall Leave voters unless we go to No Deal which turns out to be devastating economically or the Tories kept free movement or compromised over fishing which is not happening, though in the latter case many of them would go to Farage
I would hope that Starmer's strategists are looking at a plan that by-passes the Red wall. There may be ways to win in the South that avoid spending too much time chasing these lost voters in seats like Mansfield.
Is there a path for Labour to win a majority without both Scotland & the Red Wall seats? I doubt it. (Remember the Welsh seats will be significantly reduced in number as well by the next GE).
I think Labour must be close to maxing out the metropolitan/University seats in the South.
They need either Scotland or Red Wall. And maybe substantial chunks of both.
A non-Red Wall path would involve some kind of alliance with the Liberals.
I know pb.com is infested with them, but in the real world there are not many liberals left.
I suspect the path for Labour is more Corbyn without the Antisemites. Especially if there are large-scale economic consequences of the pandemic.
Labour have yet to come to terms that there were **some** very electorally attractive aspects of Corbynism.
(After all, OGH voted for him twice in a highly marginal seat 😁)
Indeed, to most intents and purposes classical liberalism died with Cameron and Clegg and the coalition, what you are left with now is pro Brexit reasonably large state with the Boris Tories and social democracy and diluted Corbynism with Starmer Labour and Scottish social democracy with Sturgeon and the SNP.
In fact most of the handful of classical liberals left now are mainly to be found in Ed Davey's LDs
The problem is thus -
- Net immigration is seen as an un-alloyed good. - Part of the *stated* purpose of mass immigration was to hold wages down. - It has succeeded in that. - The wages that were held down the most, were those at the bottom. - Because of the structure of skills shortages, upper middle class saw immigration without massive wage suppression. - So, if you are sitting in alt-bank finance startup in London, you are on a great wage and chatting with your new mates from every part of the globe. Living the multicultural dream.... - The religion of infrastructure-bad - apart from trains. Sometimes. Houses are EVUL. - The world of sub-minimum wage jobs, with people living 4 to a room in every room in a property (bunk beds)*, is round the corner, but 200 million miles from alt-bank-guy above.
*I went to look at a house in a nice area yesterday. The house was in exactly that style of multiple occupation. 12 beds in a nominally 4 bed house. Had a nice chat with the people living there - once they realised I wasn't going to turn them in to the immigration services.
Sky confirm the English police will stop Welsh cars and if they do not have grounds to have crossed the border they will be reported to the Welsh police for prosecution
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
Why the actual fuck are English police following the orders of Mark Drakeford?
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
So are they actually using ANPR (number plate recognition) or are they just seeing if your numbers plate starts with a C (I happen to have an English number plate) Either way this is complete dictatorial madness.
It is possible that Drakeford is a Plaid Cymru double agent.
First, the intervention of the English police (WTF) arresting Welsh people in Gloucestershire of the Forest of Dean is predictably generating huge anger in Wales.
And second, the more punitive and costly are Drakeford's lockdowns, the more English taxpayers will baulk at picking up the bills. The comments from some English journalists on the WAG are beginning to resemble the vituperation normally reserved for the Scottish Government.
Devolution never killed anything stone-dead, it was always going to tear us apart.
But Drakeford ... WTF .... banning the sale of books .... books of all things (as posted here yesterday by williamglenn).
I have never heard of anything so stupid. Books are a great way to pass the time in lockdown, but we can only get them from dependable Jeff Bezos.
I know, I’m more flabbergasted and angrier today having slept on it than I was yesterday. Why should taxpayers in Norfolk be on the hook for the raving lunacy in Cardiff?
It’s just randomised nuts. Tins but not tin openers, buying a duvet illegal?? Unless you get it online in which case it’s fine.
Comments
Otherwise they can hire northern locals
Most UK Civil servants aren't actually in London anyway. There are about 450-500k UK civil servants. About 90k in London. Are the Government really going to leave NO ministerial departments in London?
Possibly the ever shifting quarantine policy made driving across Europe more problematic than jetting in to Italy directly - despite the former clearly being safer - yet another example of how government policy has been counter productive.
PS: how often do ministers ever mix with the low level plebs that would be exiled northwards.
Overdrawn to the extent of almost 400bn this year and still penny pinchers.
Now, if they announced the permanent move of Parliament to Tamworth (the centroid of Great Britain) and made Westminster a tourist hotel then I might believe them.
So this is for other ranks only. Managing them will be harder, because they'll be miles away. Some money will be saved, but there won't be a cultural change. And planning the move will make departments ineffective for a while, because reorganisations always have that effect.
But it's a good squirrel on a bad news day.
I suspect the path for Labour is more Corbyn without the Antisemites. Especially if there are large-scale economic consequences of the pandemic.
Labour have yet to come to terms that there were **some** very electorally attractive aspects of Corbynism.
(After all, OGH voted for him twice in a highly marginal seat 😁)
In the middle of Morecambe Bay is another.
A compromise EEA arrangement is where I think the median opinion is, but no attempt to compromise was ever made by Brexiteers. Suck it up, we voted out, they said.
Well if they don't like how it's turning out, it is on them, not us. Suck it up, you voted out.
The plan (pre covid) was that they will keep some of the London office for the units who are staying in London, the older staff who don't want to move - and temp desk space for when they come to London for meetings etc. Floors reduced etc.
For him, this would mean going from a small one bed flat in the commuter zone (well outside London proper) to a 3/4 bed house 30 minutes from work.
The money is the key to this. Previous attempts to get people out of London have failed on the pay-half-or-less-of--London wages thing. He's being offered 80-90% of current wages to move.
If you start offering employment outside London on a large scale at 80-90% of London wages, expect a loud bang. The sonic boom from everyone leaving London.
- yoking our grandchildren and great grandchildren to a level of debt they will simply not be able to manage or
- imposing a regime of austerity that will make 2010 -2018 look like the sunlit uplands or
-imposing state run asset kleptocracy of the UK's last great store of wealth, the property market.
The money has gone. The economy is shattered and broken permanently. There are no other alternatives
Meanwhile, evidence that COVID has largely harvested those that flu would claimed anyway mounts by the day.
The COVID response is the greatest policy catastrophe by any British government ever, as I have maintained all along. It has been perpetrated by a governing class that has not been fit for purpose for decades, supported by a mainstream media that make goldfish look intellectual and parrots original.
My bet is that when this is all over voters will be looking at new alternatives in their droves both on the left and right.
Both main parties are utterly exhausted and completely bankrupt of solutions.
It makes sense to have them all in one place, whether it is London or somewhere else. But London is obviously the most logical given the location of Parliament and everything else.
A headline that these will move to "the North" is all very good. But where in "the North". Given the above, it hardly makes sense to base the Treasury in York, the Foreign Office in Leeds, the Home Office in Manchester... It's just sloganising.
Edit: Apols to @Malmesbury who I see has got there before me.
Oh hang on - did you mean public relations or proportional representation?
Church Flatts Farm, Derbyshire.
Here just over in Derbyshire, one of the local bike clubs even has a 300km-ish day cycle event called "Let's All Go to Skeggy" (and back).
Hiring things that grow on damp walls would lead to a vast improvement in both intelligence and efficiency. Intelligent Northerners would be even better.
In fact most of the handful of classical liberals left now are mainly to be found in Ed Davey's LDs
2019 was an exceptionally low year for flu deaths, leaving a lot of dry tinder.
The COVID death count has been compiled by a government utterly and completely desperate to justify its wholesale bankrupting of Britain to an increasingly restless and sceptical population.
(Yes, very nice song, that BB one. I had not heard it.)
That is further north than all of Northern Ireland, and further west than Swansea.
I think we have found the ideal location for the Houses of Parliament.
This is massive overreaction along with restricting supermarket non essential food sales driving business to Amazon. I can buy most things on Amazon on Prime and they are here the next day
And moreover, why are they following such bloody stupid orders?
https://twitter.com/GregHands/status/1319716080638636034?s=20
I'm off to get lunch and do housework. I believe it's now customary to call everyone "saddos" before signing off, but I'll break with tradition.
Quite frankly keeping the sheep botherers out of England should have been policy centuries ago.
Mind, I suppose Meibion ap Glyndwr might be recruited to shoot down drones!
Better than the Japanese wines that I’ve tasted!
The sight of supermarket shelves sealed off is all over social media and of course will be experienced in person by shoppers reminding everyone how petty this all is
But no equipment which was promised.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/24/englands-schools-to-receive-fewer-laptops-for-distance-learning
This is the weapons grade lunacy that our People’s Soviet in Cardiff Bay has contrived. Spend your money locally, nope illegal, buy the exact same thing anywhere else on planet Earth and have it delivered? Yup fine crack on.
Wales a land where you can buy tins but not a tin opener, doughnuts but not books, gin but not baby clothes.
I can but assume the real First Minister has been kidnapped and we have an imposter from an asylum in post.
What's in London has far more to do with very senior staff who want to live in London - and are paid the money to do so. In turn they need spear carriers......
NEW THREAD
https://twitter.com/yhgrad/status/1319733829205217282
First, the intervention of the English police (WTF) arresting Welsh people in Gloucestershire of the Forest of Dean is predictably generating huge anger in Wales.
And second, the more punitive and costly are Drakeford's lockdowns, the more English taxpayers will baulk at picking up the bills. The comments from some English journalists on the WAG are beginning to resemble the vituperation normally reserved for the Scottish Government.
Devolution never killed anything stone-dead, it was always going to tear us apart.
But Drakeford ... WTF .... banning the sale of books .... books of all things (as posted here yesterday by williamglenn).
I have never heard of anything so stupid. Books are a great way to pass the time in lockdown, but we can only get them from dependable Jeff Bezos.
Blooming inconsiderate of them.
- Net immigration is seen as an un-alloyed good.
- Part of the *stated* purpose of mass immigration was to hold wages down.
- It has succeeded in that.
- The wages that were held down the most, were those at the bottom.
- Because of the structure of skills shortages, upper middle class saw immigration without massive wage suppression.
- So, if you are sitting in alt-bank finance startup in London, you are on a great wage and chatting with your new mates from every part of the globe. Living the multicultural dream....
- The religion of infrastructure-bad - apart from trains. Sometimes. Houses are EVUL.
- The world of sub-minimum wage jobs, with people living 4 to a room in every room in a property (bunk beds)*, is round the corner, but 200 million miles from alt-bank-guy above.
*I went to look at a house in a nice area yesterday. The house was in exactly that style of multiple occupation. 12 beds in a nominally 4 bed house. Had a nice chat with the people living there - once they realised I wasn't going to turn them in to the immigration services.
It’s just randomised nuts. Tins but not tin openers, buying a duvet illegal?? Unless you get it online in which case it’s fine.
Just WTF?