Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
To paraphrase Stalin in 1941, if they want a Vernichtungskrieg, then they will get one...
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
To paraphrase Stalin in 1941, if they want a Vernichtungskrieg, then they will get one...
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
To paraphrase Stalin in 1941, if they want a Vernichtungskrieg, then they will get one...
You are completely crazy
Yep. Motivated by hate and resentment and nothing else. Zero logic or reason.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
What do you want to push back? What do you want to replace it with, what have you lost in this so called war, how would things be different? I’m not sure I know what you and others want.
Someone to moan about and reminisce about the past as far as I can tell. Nothing new about older people doing that any more than there is anything new about younger people pushing boundaries and challenging the establishment.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Anything else?
Ah, because America doesn't matter and its cultural exports don't affect us and the world enormously? An attitude more insular than that of the most dogmatic Brexiteer.
For the pension issue gut feeling is that there would be no major electoral impact with addressing the bizarre ratchet effect that we are going to see when earnings rebound. For instance a one year suspension of the triple-lock giving an inflation only rise. Longer term it probably should be changed (weakened) as it is a hostage to fortune.
Fortune only determines how quickly pension spending gobbles up all of governmental spending under the triple lock. There is no fortune involved in it happening.
For the pension issue gut feeling is that there would be no major electoral impact with addressing the bizarre ratchet effect that we are going to see when earnings rebound. For instance a one year suspension of the triple-lock giving an inflation only rise. Longer term it probably should be changed (weakened) as it is a hostage to fortune.
Fortune only determines how quickly pension spending gobbles up all of governmental spending under the triple lock. There is no fortune involved in it happening.
The triple lock should go but if wages grow by more than 2.5% and more than inflation then pension spending won't gobble up everything.
It is inflation and wage growth being on the floor that is causing the problem.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Anything else?
Ah, because America doesn't matter and its cultural exports don't affect us and the world enormously? An attitude more insular than that of the most dogmatic Brexiteer.
There's very little support for "defund the police" in the UK, even among "the left" as you call it. BLM is a different matter. You can support the aim of the "movement" i.e. greater recognition of the rights of Black people not to be shot dead in the street by American cops whilst not supporting the loonies who run the "organisation". But that level of subtlety is alien to you isn't it?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
Also, although I believe governments are best for setting the conditions for innovation, rather than trying to directly pick winners, i don't have a lot of faith that they will do either efficiency or successfully due to lack of attention to detail and knowledgeable and unwillingness to go out on a limb and do something that might be in short term unpopular.
Much easier to talk about building ad massssshhhovise bridge. And the pressure will be on to raise taxes, bash the rich, etc.
Government involvement should be aimed at high-level research at the university level, and getting out of the way at a corporate level.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Would be helpful if gov.uk just published a PDF of areas by Tier as well rather than 55,000,000 people having to play 'spot the tier' by entering their postcode.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
Also, although I believe governments are best for setting the conditions for innovation, rather than trying to directly pick winners, i don't have a lot of faith that they will do either efficiency or successfully due to lack of attention to detail and knowledgeable and unwillingness to go out on a limb and do something that might be in short term unpopular.
Much easier to talk about building ad massssshhhovise bridge. And the pressure will be on to raise taxes, bash the rich, etc.
Government involvement should be aimed at high-level research at the university level, and getting out of the way at a corporate level.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
Isn't there a culture difference? Compare Shark Tank to Dragon's Den. Americans seem much more happy to take risks with their capital in return for greater returns. Brits not so much.
Would be helpful if gov.uk just published a PDF of areas by Tier as well rather than 55,000,000 people having to play 'spot the tier' by entering their postcode.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
Also, although I believe governments are best for setting the conditions for innovation, rather than trying to directly pick winners, i don't have a lot of faith that they will do either efficiency or successfully due to lack of attention to detail and knowledgeable and unwillingness to go out on a limb and do something that might be in short term unpopular.
Much easier to talk about building ad massssshhhovise bridge. And the pressure will be on to raise taxes, bash the rich, etc.
Government involvement should be aimed at high-level research at the university level, and getting out of the way at a corporate level.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
It was always thus, the scientist/engineer follows the project and personal money, you can’t blame them.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
Um. The WASPI women went to court and the finding aiui was that they did not have a case.
That was the point - years of outrage and complaint when, ultimatly, as Mr Meeks set out in a header, a lot of their complaints were not reasonable.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
Can you give an example of how the left has been pushing their tanks all over "you"? Are you a slave trader or a white supremacist?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
Also, although I believe governments are best for setting the conditions for innovation, rather than trying to directly pick winners, i don't have a lot of faith that they will do either efficiency or successfully due to lack of attention to detail and knowledgeable and unwillingness to go out on a limb and do something that might be in short term unpopular.
Much easier to talk about building ad massssshhhovise bridge. And the pressure will be on to raise taxes, bash the rich, etc.
Government involvement should be aimed at high-level research at the university level, and getting out of the way at a corporate level.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
This is also where I rather pessimistic. I can foresee the government going cripes our SAGE scientists modelling wasn't up to scratch, we must invest more money in this....so they will throw more money at the same people to do the same subpar job.
Rather than take it as a hint that we need to really pump money into wider university research for ML / AI / mathematical modelling and a huge push on intra-disciplinary working.
There is also the ongoing battle that a few very large companies suck up all the talent e.g. DeepMinds, bankrolled by Google, have hired 100s of PhDs in the past 3 years.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
This is less true than in normal years because of the loans schemes and govt aid rather than more true as you assume.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Anything else?
Ah, because America doesn't matter and its cultural exports don't affect us and the world enormously? An attitude more insular than that of the most dogmatic Brexiteer.
There's very little support for "defund the police" in the UK, even among "the left" as you call it. BLM is a different matter. You can support the aim of the "movement" i.e. greater recognition of the rights of Black people not to be shot dead in the street by American cops whilst not supporting the loonies who run the "organisation". But that level of subtlety is alien to you isn't it?
As with 97% of these things, the "lower case" version is the one to go for. By "lower case", I mean an attitude of flexible approval of most/much of an idea, rather than the "UPPER CASE" doctrinal adherence to a fundamentalist religion.
For example, we live in a mixed-economic-model-regulated-market-liberal-social-democracy. Each element of that is far from the "Pure" version, in an ideological sense. Which is why it works.
I wonder what those who have seen their pay frozen or cut or even jobs lost think about politicians more concerned about our foreign aid being reduced than they seem to be concerned about people's wages or jobs?
The chattering classes are going off the rails again ever more stridently as the polls steadfastly refuse to reflect thier views. They really never learn.
Since the public are always right about everything I look forward to the Tories announcing plans to nationalise the utilities, train companies and Royal mail.
In that context, it's worth noting that the public understanding of how much the UK spends on Foreign Aid overestimates the spending by a factor of ten.
A statesman would seek to correct the misconception. A coward would run with it.
A sound Chancellor would cut the deficit in ways that least hurt the domestic economy.
Cutting the aid budget is very sound economics. Which is why no other developed nation wastes as much as we do. Why do we waste more of our own money than anyone else like that?
You mean apart from Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark.
And now back to the question, which is a general point.
Imagine a policy. Any policy. Suppose the public has, for whatever reason, a big misconception about the costs and benefits of that policy. Not that they're evil, or stupid, just that they've picked up an incorrect idea about the facts. It happens to us all, we're all busy people and don't have time to check everything.
What should a wise government seek to do?
Act on public pressure, even if it's based on a really incorrect foundation? Or seek to bring the public mind closer to reality?
This is the fundamental dilemma behind Churchill's famous remark that one's belief in Democracy was unlikely to survive five minutes discussion with a constituent. The reality is that most of us can't be arsed to research and figure the true nature and implications of public policy, so we tend to leave it to others, mostly the politicos, whilst reserving the right to grumble about their lack of appreciation of what the public thinks.
Much of the time Governments ignore what the public think, not out of malice or mischief but because they understand the score in a way most of us don't. This can work well, but is self-evidently full of dangers as we know only too well.
It's why, though they still need to be given crap when deserved, I try to be pretty relaxed about MPs messing up on complicated things. They should know more, and the system seems designed to make that hard for them even when they want, but at the end of the day we've set up a system for them to deal with it not us, so demanding they do precisely what we want, often based on even less info, understanding and probably contradictory to boot, is not really what we're after.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
At the moment it's a proxy fight with poor old "Honest John" Swinney taking the punches. He looked pretty ashen last night during the debate.
Next step is likely to be a vote of No Confidence in Swinney if ScotGov continues to withhold the evidence.
When this all kicked off most people dismissed Salmond's charges that there was a conspiracy against him. Quite a few folk are revising their opinion.
Worth keeping an eye on although I appreciate most PB-ers are bored to tears with matters Caledonian, and don't wish to provoke MalcolmG et al anymore than they have to....
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Anything else?
Ah, because America doesn't matter and its cultural exports don't affect us and the world enormously? An attitude more insular than that of the most dogmatic Brexiteer.
There's very little support for "defund the police" in the UK, even among "the left" as you call it. BLM is a different matter. You can support the aim of the "movement" i.e. greater recognition of the rights of Black people not to be shot dead in the street by American cops whilst not supporting the loonies who run the "organisation". But that level of subtlety is alien to you isn't it?
But of course, it's the side opposed to the destruction of city centres and historical monuments by mobs that is lacking in subtlety...
One ignores the loony leaders at one's peril. The most powerful weapon deployed by the Kaiser's army in WW1 wasn't an artillery barrage, an airship, or a tank, but a simple train - one that carried a certain Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov from Switzerland to Petrograd in April of 1917 and destroyed an empire for them.
So all of Tyneside, Sunderland, County Durham, and Northumberland entered lockdown in Tier 2 and left lockdown into Tier 3.
Brill.
Same with West Yorkshire. Leeds' infection rate has dropped pretty dramatically in the last week or so and I didn't expect anything less, but still disappointing.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
When jobs go to the right school tie or close relatives what else do you expect, especially when 40% of the work force are excluded from the top jobs, BAME and females, let alone disabled etc
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
The IMF's forecasts date from September and predate the publication of Q3 data so are quite stale.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
To paraphrase Stalin in 1941, if they want a Vernichtungskrieg, then they will get one...
You are completely crazy
In fairness he was not the one to bring up the Vernichtungskrieg part first.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
You really are hysterical. Apart from that one statue in Bristol, where is this massive statue graveyard of proud British monuments that have been pulled down "by the left"?
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
More importantly, it was always thus. For generations, the young have pushed against the social norms of their elders, and the elders have felt threatened by that. And sometimes that push leads to a change in society that sticks, and sometimes it doesn't.
And the usual pattern is that the changes that people experience or push for while they are young are right and proper and those which come later are a step too far.
If those on the right want a culture war, what is their war aim? What to they seek to defend? What do they seek to change back?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
The IMF's forecasts date from September and predate the publication of Q3 data so are quite stale.
Yes, the OBR data is more reliable. However, I don't think France and Spain will be as good as that either. France in particular looks like it is having a second full on economic collapse.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
When jobs go to the right school tie or close relatives what else do you expect, especially when 40% of the work force are excluded from the top jobs, BAME and females, let alone disabled etc
I don't believe that happens that much in the real world.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
There is no such thing as cancel culture. The police have not been defunded - what you are doing is trying to silence those who exercised their free speech in (mistakenly in my view) calling for it. Statues (plural) have not been thrown in the river - yet you imply the practice as endemic. No-one has had their right to publish their views taken away - yet you suggest people are being censored.
The right is just crapping itself that after centuries of having everything, everything, its own way, being able to shove the faces of slave traders and mass murderers in the faces of all and sundry wandering the street of Bristol and elsewhere, in the name of "heritage", when people simply suggest that might not be a good idea you all scream "censorship!", "cancel culture". It is the most idiotic, oversensitive, anti-free speech, rubbish.
One "statue" has been thrown in a river, a statue of a murderer commemorated for commiting murder, yet that one act of vandalism that is somehow a threat to your freedom? Your hero was fished out, cleaned up, and will be put in a nice museum so you can extol his virtues. You really should move to the Arctic - its a bit warm for snowflakes this far down south.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Having experienced an almost foaming-at-the-mouth display of anger at the idea of building a company rather than flogging it and running, from a Leading Expert on investment.... It's a religion in some parts of management. Investment is something they are forced into.
I agree with Bomber Harris on how to restructure things.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
The IMF's forecasts date from September and predate the publication of Q3 data so are quite stale.
Yes, the OBR data is more reliable. However, I don't think France and Spain will be as good as that either. France in particular looks like it is having a second full on economic collapse.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
Also, although I believe governments are best for setting the conditions for innovation, rather than trying to directly pick winners, i don't have a lot of faith that they will do either efficiency or successfully due to lack of attention to detail and knowledgeable and unwillingness to go out on a limb and do something that might be in short term unpopular.
Much easier to talk about building ad massssshhhovise bridge. And the pressure will be on to raise taxes, bash the rich, etc.
Government involvement should be aimed at high-level research at the university level, and getting out of the way at a corporate level.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
Isn't there a culture difference? Compare Shark Tank to Dragon's Den. Americans seem much more happy to take risks with their capital in return for greater returns. Brits not so much.
There's certainly major differences around, for example, bankruptcy. Americans don't stigmatise someone who has tried and failed, as in the UK. Many US entrepreneurs succeed at the second or third try, and this is seen as a good thing over there. Robert @rcs1000 will know more about this than me, but those who risk capital are generally treated better in terms of taxation in the US than the UK, with losses able to be better offset against profits and investment returns.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
Defund the police almost got us a second term of Trump ! The detail, as proposed by obvious moderates such as Biden himself was a good idea (Shifting burden to MH services and so forth) but proposing cuts to police is never a good idea politically as May found out in 2017. One of those if you're explaining, you're losing.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. One of the first managers to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
Really good article in the Athletic about it the other week,
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
The IMF's forecasts date from September and predate the publication of Q3 data so are quite stale.
Yes, the OBR data is more reliable. However, I don't think France and Spain will be as good as that either. France in particular looks like it is having a second full on economic collapse.
More reliable for this year I agree.
It is the future that I think they're pessimistic for. In particular I wonder have they accounted for the 90% efficacy vaccine discoveries? If they haven't its already out of date.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
When jobs go to the right school tie or close relatives what else do you expect, especially when 40% of the work force are excluded from the top jobs, BAME and females, let alone disabled etc
The Chancellor and Home Secretary are now BAME and the Home Secretary is now female, 2 of the most top jobs in the country, did not stop the left trying to get rid of Patel last week
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
And the IMFs -9.8% this year . That is, the same as France, and better than Spain / Italy.
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
The IMF's forecasts date from September and predate the publication of Q3 data so are quite stale.
Yes, the OBR data is more reliable. However, I don't think France and Spain will be as good as that either. France in particular looks like it is having a second full on economic collapse.
More reliable for this year I agree.
It is the future that I think they're pessimistic for. In particular I wonder have they accounted for the 90% efficacy vaccine discoveries? If they haven't its already out of date.
Yes, the vaccine scenario assumes a pretty much full rollout by the middle of 2021 and full easing of restrictions on all industries.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
When jobs go to the right school tie or close relatives what else do you expect, especially when 40% of the work force are excluded from the top jobs, BAME and females, let alone disabled etc
The Chancellor and Home Secretary are now BAME and the Home Secretary is now female, 2 of the most top jobs in the country, did not stop the left trying to get rid of Patel last week
And what a fantastic job they are doing apart from shoveling money to their mates.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Duff managers will hang around but in a more competitive environment they get found out.
There is a reason the likes of Liverpool competing in the Champions League aren't led by Pardew.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. First manager to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
When he was around about 30-50% of top flight managers were from Glasgow as chairmen desperately searched for the next Alex Ferguson! Agree he was a perfectly capable manager and his career might be seen very differently if he had got a top job early in his career.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
There is no such thing as cancel culture. The police have not been defunded - what you are doing is trying to silence those who exercised their free speech in (mistakenly in my view) calling for it. Statues (plural) have not been thrown in the river - yet you imply the practice as endemic. No-one has had their right to publish their views taken away - yet you suggest people are being censored.
The right is just crapping itself that after centuries of having everything, everything, its own way, being able to shove the faces of slave traders and mass murderers in the faces of all and sundry wandering the street of Bristol and elsewhere, in the name of "heritage", when people simply suggest that might not be a good idea you all scream "censorship!", "cancel culture". It is the most idiotic, oversensitive, anti-free speech, rubbish.
One "statue" has been thrown in a river, a statue of a murderer commemorated for commiting murder, yet that one act of vandalism that is somehow a threat to your freedom? Your hero was fished out, cleaned up, and will be put in a nice museum so you can extol his virtues. You really should move to the Arctic - its a bit warm for snowflakes this far down south.
Another liberal lefty who adopts the Brexiteer view that Britain is the only country that matters in the world. Have a look across the pond - always a fertile source of culture trends for us - and you'll see that what came over this year is only a small taste of the future.
You also seem to think that the mere act of contradicting the left's doctrine is censorship, which is an amusing proof of how deeply entrenched its cultural hegemony has become. Your side has every right to promulgate its nonsense, and everyone else has an equal right to rebut it.
And 'no such thing as cancel culture'? Let's not stray that far into reality denial please.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. One of the first managers to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
Really good article in the Athletic about it the other week,
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Have Betfair paid out on the result of that match yet?
I realise that Betfair paying out is a joke, but it has made me think about how much the world has changed in such a short time. As I watched Maradonna's hand go up it was the month I turned 18 and 3 months before I started uni. The only people who had computers at home were a few teenagers like me and the odd self employed person being adventurous with their accounting methods. The graphics in Donkey Kong were sophisticated. As good as no-one had access to the outside world via a network. At uni the multiuser (multics) computers were huge monsters of integrated circuit boards and wires filling a large room and they broke down almost every hour. The reseachers were just starting to get workstations, one for each small group, if they worked in a field that required number crunching. The idea of Betfair in 1986 was totally unimaginable.
In 2006 just 20 years later, when the big World Cup news involved a bald head rather than an Argentinian hand, Betfair was already well established. Most people had some kind of computer at home with broadband access to the rest of the world. The numeric and graphical power of one laptop in 2006 was more than the Multics campus wide computers of the mid 80's.
Since then the changes have been less visible at the PC/Laptop level (although a lot of progress has been made) and of course the big development has been with smartphones. Everyone is online. Most people are at a loss if they have to spend a day at home offline. It is now quite difficult to imagine just how unconnected the world was when I first went to uni, and just how much it has changed since then.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
There is no such thing as cancel culture. The police have not been defunded - what you are doing is trying to silence those who exercised their free speech in (mistakenly in my view) calling for it. Statues (plural) have not been thrown in the river - yet you imply the practice as endemic. No-one has had their right to publish their views taken away - yet you suggest people are being censored.
The right is just crapping itself that after centuries of having everything, everything, its own way, being able to shove the faces of slave traders and mass murderers in the faces of all and sundry wandering the street of Bristol and elsewhere, in the name of "heritage", when people simply suggest that might not be a good idea you all scream "censorship!", "cancel culture". It is the most idiotic, oversensitive, anti-free speech, rubbish.
One "statue" has been thrown in a river, a statue of a murderer commemorated for commiting murder, yet that one act of vandalism that is somehow a threat to your freedom? Your hero was fished out, cleaned up, and will be put in a nice museum so you can extol his virtues. You really should move to the Arctic - its a bit warm for snowflakes this far down south.
Another liberal lefty who apparently adopts the Brexiteer view that Britain is the only country that matters in the world. Have a look across the pond - always a fertile source of culture trends for us - and you'll see that what came over this year is only a small taste of the future.
It's interesting that you think it's controversial to oppose the seemingly routine execution of black men in the street.
Liverpool and Cumbria, Cheshire, York and North Yorkshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire in Tier 2. Manchester, the North East, Nottingham, Humber, Warwickshire, Coventry, Birmingham and Stoke, Leicester, Lincolnshire and Derby in Tier 3.
Bristol and Kent in Tier 3 along with Slough, London and the rest of the South and East in Tier 2 apart from Cornwall and the Isle of Wight in Tier 1.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. First manager to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
When he was around about 30-50% of top flight managers were from Glasgow as chairmen desperately searched for the next Alex Ferguson! Agree he was a perfectly capable manager and his career might be seen very differently if he had got a top job early in his career.
I am not saying he was the greatest manager ever (and some very dodgy things went on under his watch at Bolton), BUT, Big Sam taking on ProZone and embracing data analytics actually made a lot of other clubs sit up and take notice...that this unfashionable club from the NW was managing to hold their own in the big league.
It is a lazy stereotype to just say thick old school manager coached his teams to play crap football, when actually he was ahead of the game in many regards.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Although reviews are scheduled to apply at 16 Dec and every 2 weeks thereafter, it is unlikely that any relaxations will occur before 13 Jan.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
There is no such thing as cancel culture. The police have not been defunded - what you are doing is trying to silence those who exercised their free speech in (mistakenly in my view) calling for it. Statues (plural) have not been thrown in the river - yet you imply the practice as endemic. No-one has had their right to publish their views taken away - yet you suggest people are being censored.
The right is just crapping itself that after centuries of having everything, everything, its own way, being able to shove the faces of slave traders and mass murderers in the faces of all and sundry wandering the street of Bristol and elsewhere, in the name of "heritage", when people simply suggest that might not be a good idea you all scream "censorship!", "cancel culture". It is the most idiotic, oversensitive, anti-free speech, rubbish.
One "statue" has been thrown in a river, a statue of a murderer commemorated for commiting murder, yet that one act of vandalism that is somehow a threat to your freedom? Your hero was fished out, cleaned up, and will be put in a nice museum so you can extol his virtues. You really should move to the Arctic - its a bit warm for snowflakes this far down south.
Another liberal lefty who apparently adopts the Brexiteer view that Britain is the only country that matters in the world. Have a look across the pond - always a fertile source of culture trends for us - and you'll see that what came over this year is only a small taste of the future.
Absolute bollocks. Firstly I am not a "lefty". Secondly, given I am married to an American, lived there for some years, have a home there, will be moving back there in a few years and am more attuned to American culture and politics than you are, I assure you that my comments equally apply to the United States as to this country.
At the moment it's a proxy fight with poor old "Honest John" Swinney taking the punches. He looked pretty ashen last night during the debate.
Next step is likely to be a vote of No Confidence in Swinney if ScotGov continues to withhold the evidence.
When this all kicked off most people dismissed Salmond's charges that there was a conspiracy against him. Quite a few folk are revising their opinion.
Worth keeping an eye on although I appreciate most PB-ers are bored to tears with matters Caledonian, and don't wish to provoke MalcolmG et al anymore than they have to....
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. One of the first managers to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
Really good article in the Athletic about it the other week,
One of the first to use sports psychologists too ISTR. Not a dinosaur. Far from it. Look at Bolton before him and after.
Another current manger who is ahead in many regards, Sean Dyche. Again comes across as this guff old school player, who instructs his teams to just play kick'em up the arse football, but the reality is that he is a lot more switched on and embracing of new ideas than most of the rest of the Premier League.
There was a great interview with him on the High Performance Podcast a few months ago, he came across incredibly well, both in terms of his personal ethics and what he demands from his players, but also how knowledgeable / open to best practice he was about things well beyond football e.g. he says he is asked to give lots of talks about leading companies and that he does them, not for the money (he donates all of that to charity), but for the opportunity to gain insight and knowledge from those organisations.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Philip I can hardly find a shop that has been closed. They've all declared themselves "essential". Toy Shops fully open. Essential. Even the likes of Matalan and Currys are open the same hours as they were before on a "stand outside the shop place an order and they carry it out to you basis".
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
There’s some almighty rows coming down the line, once the recession is over and the extraordinary spending has to be paid for.
Look at the row over £4bn of the aid budget, which is not even 2% of what’s been borrowed this year. There’s going to have to be tens of billions of spending cuts, and many more cuts by fiscal drag - starting with pensions.
Not so sure about that. Tax receipts are down only by £57bn - and some of that will be due to temporary policy decisions such as on Business Rates. The vast majority of the increase in the deficit is due to exceptional spending items - furlough, testing, etc.
In 2021 we all get vaccinated, the exceptional spending items come to an end, by 2022 the economy has largely recovered. The increase in the deficit on 2019 will then only be that created by increases in Departmental spending for three years while the economy took a detour.
It might not be that bad. And, Brexit permitting, it could even be better than that. There's a fair bit of extra personal savings that could be spent. Inflation could well become a topic of conversation again - and a modest, temporary dose might go some way to eroding the deficit.
Indeed I am hopeful that the OBR have been overly pessimistic in their data. Which is sort of their job under the circumstances and hopefully means in future budgets the bar has been set so low this time that it will be easier to clear it year on year and get back to some fiscal sanity.
Wherever possible to close the deficit without harming the economy needs to be done though. Tax rises and spending cuts both harm the economy normally, there's very few exceptions to that.
I am shocked that you and Boris Johnson have the same view on this. FWIW Bloomberg consensus forecasts of UK GDP growth are - 11.0% this year and +5.4% in 2021, versus the OBR's -11.3% and +5.5%. So if you and BJ are right then you will certainly turn out to be a lot smarter than all these people who produce economic forecasts for a living.
Just want to add that our view (a Japanese bank) is even more pessimistic than the OBR. We think their forecasts on unemployment are far too optimistic and this is going to result in a longer period of recovery. The 3% scarring figure looks a bit optimistic as well because of the former.
I went through the rest of the reasoning for the pessimistic outlook yesterday and the OBR has got the post virus trend at 2% and deal/no deal whatever it is I don't see how that's possible, our trend is going to be much closer to 1.5% which around where we have it.
The reason I'm more optimistic is I think there has been an absence of innovation or productivity growth for years. Necessity is the mother of invention and there have been a lot of necessary productivity improvements this year adopted that should be able to carry forwards into the future once we put the virus behind us.
Plus many [by no means all] of the businesses that die during this recession will be the weakest and least productive, thus a very harsh survival of the fittest will happen here.
I would expect the post virus trend to be 2.5% as a result.
I just don't see how we get from here to there. Our industries have had decades of underinvestment by short termist management who only care about their annual bonus. The same managers who have sacrificed investment in favour of the bonus pool aren't suddenly going to change their ways.
In the past 2% has typically been achievable following recessions even without new technologies or developments.
Adopting the new developments of this year to improve productivity to get an extra 0.5% should be possible.
As I said necessity is the mother of invention and many of the businesses that have made it through this year will have done so by being forced out of their comfort zone and forced to adapt to the times. That makes it easier to adapt next year too.
In a sink or swim situation not everyone will swim. Management classes in this country are so awful at their jobs, I don't see how the majority of them will swim. They will fail and take their companies down with them.
Well that was precisely my point that not everyone will swim.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Sure, but that doesn't result in higher GDP, especially not in the short term. It results in job losses which is a net drag on GDP.
Sorry are we talking about GDP or GDP growth?
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
That's a big logical leap. How long did it take for Premier League teams to stop hiring Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce? Those duff managers are also going to be looking for jobs and will still have the same malign effect on the economy with their parasitical ways.
Surprisingly Sam Allardyce is an example of somebody who was very forward thinking in terms of using innovation in the game. First manager to use ProZone, after it was rejected by basically all the big teams, and really big on the use of data analytics.
When he was around about 30-50% of top flight managers were from Glasgow as chairmen desperately searched for the next Alex Ferguson! Agree he was a perfectly capable manager and his career might be seen very differently if he had got a top job early in his career.
I am not saying he was the greatest manager ever (and some very dodgy things went on under his watch at Bolton), BUT, Big Sam taking on ProZone and embracing data analytics actually made a lot of other clubs sit up and take notice...that this unfashionable club from the NW was managing to hold their own in the big league.
It is a lazy stereotype to just say thick old school manager coached his teams to play crap football, when actually he was ahead of the game in many regards.
Agreed, and the Glaswegian manager trend another clear example of the lazy stereotyping. Now everyone wants the next Klopp, whereas they should be locking for the next unknown, who can do something new and different to give a competitive advantage. Chris Wilder might be a good shout, he will get the blame for second season syndrome after raising expectations, but his squad is essentially a mid table championship one, and his tactics pretty unique in English football (and most European football too, might be something similar in Italy perhaps).
Interesting to note Warrington being linked with Cheshire (so Tier 2). When Tier 3 was introduced it was being linked with Liverpool (so Tier 3). Of course Liverpool is also Tier 2, but its amusing to see Warrington consistently being linked with another area rather than listed as a borough all of its own.
Jonathan Ashworth pointing out that parts of the north will have been on a never-ending lockdown since this all started. Ending presumably in mid 2021.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
Defund the police almost got us a second term of Trump ! The detail, as proposed by obvious moderates such as Biden himself was a good idea (Shifting burden to MH services and so forth) but proposing cuts to police is never a good idea politically as May found out in 2017. One of those if you're explaining, you're losing.
The changes that the US police are resisting making are very largely the ones that have been done, years ago in the UK.
- Increased educational requirements - Background checks on recruits - Training in conflict de-escalation - Cracking down on internal racism - Expecting that "social work" is part of policing*.
This is not to say that UK policing is perfect. Just that US policing is a long, long way behind on the modern ideas of policing.
*A local PCSO is a perfect example of this - she systematically goes round checking on the 3-4 regular rough sleepers. Not hassling them, checking if they are OK, dealing with the conflicts with the people trying to muscle in on the Big Issue pitches etc.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
This is a little disingenuous as a line of argument. By definition, 'culture' is not an immediate bread and butter issue for most people. However, cultural trends are important in the medium to long term for all of us. It isn't reasonable to expect anyone to just depart from the cultural debate and let the other side make all the running because 'it doesn't affect you'. The statue of Edward Colston being present didn't have a material effect on anyone either.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Philip I can hardly find a shop that has been closed. They've all declared themselves "essential". Toy Shops fully open. Essential. Even the likes of Matalan and Currys are open the same hours as they were before on a "stand outside the shop place an order and they carry it out to you basis".
There's a difference between being open for collection only and open properly.
At the moment it's a proxy fight with poor old "Honest John" Swinney taking the punches. He looked pretty ashen last night during the debate.
Next step is likely to be a vote of No Confidence in Swinney if ScotGov continues to withhold the evidence.
When this all kicked off most people dismissed Salmond's charges that there was a conspiracy against him. Quite a few folk are revising their opinion.
Worth keeping an eye on although I appreciate most PB-ers are bored to tears with matters Caledonian, and don't wish to provoke MalcolmG et al anymore than they have to....
I wouldn't take the P&J as gospel.
But I'm not sure that Malky and I would react in the way you assume. In particular, I am increasingly convinced that neither you nor anyone else at PB - let alone the SCUP and their little helpers have thought this one right through to the wider implications.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
This is a little disingenuous as a line of argument. By definition, 'culture' is not an immediate bread and butter issue for most people. However, cultural trends are important in the medium to long term for all of us. It isn't reasonable to expect anyone to just depart from the cultural debate and let the other side make all the running because 'it doesn't affect you'. The statue of Edward Colston being present didn't have a material effect on anyone either.
Not at all, anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a discussion about foreign aid is a snowflake (imo). It is just not relevant.
Anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a debate about statues, fair enough.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
Defund the police almost got us a second term of Trump ! The detail, as proposed by obvious moderates such as Biden himself was a good idea (Shifting burden to MH services and so forth) but proposing cuts to police is never a good idea politically as May found out in 2017. One of those if you're explaining, you're losing.
The changes that the US police are resisting making are very largely the ones that have been done, years ago in the UK.
- Increased educational requirements - Background checks on recruits - Training in conflict de-escalation - Cracking down on internal racism - Expecting that "social work" is part of policing*.
This is not to say that UK policing is perfect. Just that US policing is a long, long way behind on the modern ideas of policing.
*A local PCSO is a perfect example of this - she systematically goes round checking on the 3-4 regular rough sleepers. Not hassling them, checking if they are OK, dealing with the conflicts with the people trying to muscle in on the Big Issue pitches etc.
The problem I see no way to fix is the militarisation of their Police versus ours.
Our Police focus training on de-escalation etc and only carry a taser or baton as "weapons" for emergencies.
American Police focus on shooting as training.
But how can that be fixed when British criminals are likely to carry knives as their worst weapon whereas many American criminals carry guns?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
The war ended with PM Attlee, not Churchill 🙄
Thanks for a great article by the way, demographics are underrated!
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
The war ended with PM Attlee, not Churchill 🙄
And the British empire, industry, and public finances variously lost, on the way out, worn out and knackered. The first at least was rather important to Mr Churchill.
Edit: not that anyone remotely of his persuasion had any choice. But it's certainly possibvle to argue that the British lost the war as well.
Comments
"Defund the Police" and "BLM" are largely American movements and have little relevance here. I'm not sure why you're so triggered by them.
Anything else?
It is inflation and wage growth being on the floor that is causing the problem.
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3%
Germany -6.0
Canada -7.1
UK -9.8
France -9.8
Italy -10.6
Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
https://twitter.com/danhollandnews/status/1331921015505563656?s=20
Presumably part of the UK is also the 'Brexit Disaster'.
I'm moderately as we seem from the numbers to be making a better fist of managing the second wave.
Too many good inventions make it out of our universities, only to end up as USA-based businesses. We need to understand why this is happening, and how the regulatory framework could encourage these businesses to start in the UK. A starting point might be tax reliefs for R&D and venture capital into new businesses, but I suspect there's a lot more complexity behind startups preferring the US over the UK.
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Base everything on a forecast from 6 months ago without taking into account what has happened since. Deranged.
Next.
The worst offenders are the most likely to sink leaving the remaining survivers better and able to step into the voids left behind by the failures.
Of course the horror of this year is the damage being inflicted upon the healthy and well managed businesses too and not just the mismanaged, but the survivors next year should proportionately be those better managed and better able to adapt.
Rather than take it as a hint that we need to really pump money into wider university research for ML / AI / mathematical modelling and a huge push on intra-disciplinary working.
There is also the ongoing battle that a few very large companies suck up all the talent e.g. DeepMinds, bankrolled by Google, have hired 100s of PhDs in the past 3 years.
Brill.
Injustice. This region, poorer than the Baltic States is getting more impecunious by the day.
Ironically we'd reached full employment too.
For example, we live in a mixed-economic-model-regulated-market-liberal-social-democracy. Each element of that is far from the "Pure" version, in an ideological sense. Which is why it works.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/2680648/salmond-inquiry-scottish-governments-second-humiliating-defeat/
At the moment it's a proxy fight with poor old "Honest John" Swinney taking the punches. He looked pretty ashen last night during the debate.
Next step is likely to be a vote of No Confidence in Swinney if ScotGov continues to withhold the evidence.
When this all kicked off most people dismissed Salmond's charges that there was a conspiracy against him. Quite a few folk are revising their opinion.
Worth keeping an eye on although I appreciate most PB-ers are bored to tears with matters Caledonian, and don't wish to provoke MalcolmG et al anymore than they have to....
One ignores the loony leaders at one's peril. The most powerful weapon deployed by the Kaiser's army in WW1 wasn't an artillery barrage, an airship, or a tank, but a simple train - one that carried a certain Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov from Switzerland to Petrograd in April of 1917 and destroyed an empire for them.
Yes I completely agree there will be lower GDP in the short-term, but there will be higher GDP growth as we recover.
Job losses is a drag on GDP. People re-entering the labour market is a boost to GDP growth.
We will be growing faster but from a lower base.
Edit .. my fishy html. fixed now
For generations, the young have pushed against the social norms of their elders, and the elders have felt threatened by that. And sometimes that push leads to a change in society that sticks, and sometimes it doesn't.
And the usual pattern is that the changes that people experience or push for while they are young are right and proper and those which come later are a step too far.
If those on the right want a culture war, what is their war aim? What to they seek to defend? What do they seek to change back?
The right is just crapping itself that after centuries of having everything, everything, its own way, being able to shove the faces of slave traders and mass murderers in the faces of all and sundry wandering the street of Bristol and elsewhere, in the name of "heritage", when people simply suggest that might not be a good idea you all scream "censorship!", "cancel culture". It is the most idiotic, oversensitive, anti-free speech, rubbish.
One "statue" has been thrown in a river, a statue of a murderer commemorated for commiting murder, yet that one act of vandalism that is somehow a threat to your freedom? Your hero was fished out, cleaned up, and will be put in a nice museum so you can extol his virtues. You really should move to the Arctic - its a bit warm for snowflakes this far down south.
I agree with Bomber Harris on how to restructure things.
Really good article in the Athletic about it the other week,
https://theathletic.co.uk/2193722/2020/11/16/prozone-analytics-ramm-mylvaganam-analysis-premier-league
It is the future that I think they're pessimistic for. In particular I wonder have they accounted for the 90% efficacy vaccine discoveries? If they haven't its already out of date.
Only Wight, Scilly and Cornwall are Tier 1.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
There is a reason the likes of Liverpool competing in the Champions League aren't led by Pardew.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area
You also seem to think that the mere act of contradicting the left's doctrine is censorship, which is an amusing proof of how deeply entrenched its cultural hegemony has become. Your side has every right to promulgate its nonsense, and everyone else has an equal right to rebut it.
And 'no such thing as cancel culture'? Let's not stray that far into reality denial please.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
In 2006 just 20 years later, when the big World Cup news involved a bald head rather than an Argentinian hand, Betfair was already well established. Most people had some kind of computer at home with broadband access to the rest of the world. The numeric and graphical power of one laptop in 2006 was more than the Multics campus wide computers of the mid 80's.
Since then the changes have been less visible at the PC/Laptop level (although a lot of progress has been made) and of course the big development has been with smartphones. Everyone is online. Most people are at a loss if they have to spend a day at home offline. It is now quite difficult to imagine just how unconnected the world was when I first went to uni, and just how much it has changed since then.
Bristol and Kent in Tier 3 along with Slough, London and the rest of the South and East in Tier 2 apart from Cornwall and the Isle of Wight in Tier 1.
It is a lazy stereotype to just say thick old school manager coached his teams to play crap football, when actually he was ahead of the game in many regards.
Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
There was a great interview with him on the High Performance Podcast a few months ago, he came across incredibly well, both in terms of his personal ethics and what he demands from his players, but also how knowledgeable / open to best practice he was about things well beyond football e.g. he says he is asked to give lots of talks about leading companies and that he does them, not for the money (he donates all of that to charity), but for the opportunity to gain insight and knowledge from those organisations.
- Increased educational requirements
- Background checks on recruits
- Training in conflict de-escalation
- Cracking down on internal racism
- Expecting that "social work" is part of policing*.
This is not to say that UK policing is perfect. Just that US policing is a long, long way behind on the modern ideas of policing.
*A local PCSO is a perfect example of this - she systematically goes round checking on the 3-4 regular rough sleepers. Not hassling them, checking if they are OK, dealing with the conflicts with the people trying to muscle in on the Big Issue pitches etc.
Especially in December!
But I'm not sure that Malky and I would react in the way you assume. In particular, I am increasingly convinced that neither you nor anyone else at PB - let alone the SCUP and their little helpers have thought this one right through to the wider implications.
Anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a debate about statues, fair enough.
The areas are as follows:
North East
---------
Tees Valley Combined Authority:
Hartlepool
Middlesbrough
Stockton-on-Tees
Redcar and Cleveland
Darlington
North East Combined Authority:
Sunderland
South Tyneside
Gateshead
Newcastle upon Tyne
North Tyneside
County Durham
Northumberland
North West
--------
Greater Manchester
Lancashire
Blackpool
Blackburn with Darwen
Yorkshire and The Humber
-----------------------
The Humber
West Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
West Midlands
------------
Birmingham and Black Country
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent
Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull
East Midlands
-----------
Derby and Derbyshire
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
Leicester and Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
South East
---------
Slough (remainder of Berkshire is in tier two)
Kent and Medway
South West
---------
Bristol
South Gloucestershire
North Somerset
Our Police focus training on de-escalation etc and only carry a taser or baton as "weapons" for emergencies.
American Police focus on shooting as training.
But how can that be fixed when British criminals are likely to carry knives as their worst weapon whereas many American criminals carry guns?
Edit: not that anyone remotely of his persuasion had any choice. But it's certainly possibvle to argue that the British lost the war as well.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1331930388378357762