British Recovery bond. Aren't those known as gilts ?
Maybe, but sold directly to the public as war bonds were, I believe, during the World Wars.
I wondered whether they would be a good idea, but the problem is that it puts the government in competition with the banks for capital from personal savings.
British Recovery bond. Aren't those known as gilts ?
Maybe, but sold directly to the public as war bonds were, I believe, during the World Wars.
I wondered whether they would be a good idea, but the problem is that it puts the government in competition with the banks for capital from personal savings.
And we don't have any problems raising money on the markets right now, in fact our latest bond sales have been massively oversubscribed. Bonds of that nature only make sense if money needs to be raised from domestic markets because we're frozen out of international ones for some reason.
It's flagshagging economics that would probably result in lesser economic growth for the reason you outline - they're competing with banks and equity markets if they offer a retail bond.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
That might well be true, but your insouciance about the strategic threat is equally silly.
I didn’t have you down as a Brexity idiot, but I guess you must be.
I’m not insouciant.
I am reminding the PB Brexit incel group-thinkers that obsessing over China and military deployments to the Far East is not a substitute for a defence strategy.
This is bad Gardenwalker. Idiot? Incel? Really?
You're better than this.
It is very frustrating to be called insouciant about China. That’s not my case at all.
I am *more* worried about China than the average PBer, but not at the expense of more near and present dangers.
I withdraw idiot, but not incel which is currently my favourite term of vituperation.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Attlee helped found NATO, develop our nuclear deterrent and modernise the RAF with a jet bomber force, so he was certainly responsible with defence and foreign policy.
But, and I'm shocked I'm about to say this, we were spending too much on defence overall with garrisons of 10,000 men all over the world - everywhere - and trying to be a superpower sans money and increasingly sans empire.
That was a mistake.
I think the 1935 India Act was a missed opportunity; India should have been given full dominion status. There would have been no partition. It then would likely have actively participated in WW2 as an ally of the UK as all the other dominions did.
India would then probably have moved to be a republic by the 1950s or 1960s, but slowly and steadily. There would still have been a risk of tension and conflict between Muslim and Hindu areas - a very real one - but at least a constitutional and federal framework within which to debate them.
Baldwin's need to appease Tory imperialists like Churchill made such a thing utterly impossible.
Churchill was largely in the wilderness in those years, and broadly ignored.
The story of India is that it got each level of progressive self-government and reform about 20 years later than it should have done, when compared to the other dominions, and then only to about 60-70% of the level that it should have done.
I think had it moved on a similar trajectory to Australia and Canada, provincial and local self-government in the 1850s and 1860s, and broader home rule by the 1880s and 1890s, with full dominion status in the 1920s and 1930s, then we'd have had a much more positive long-term relationship over the last 60-70 years with India as a close ally throughout, which would have helped immeasurably with the Cold War, and it might be an influential member of a far more powerful "Six Eyes" today.
It's a nice piece of alternate history, but given contemporary British attitudes, none of that was remotely possible.
I think much of it is, and there was certainly debate on it at the time - just as Home Rule for Ireland was first proposed by Gladstone in the 1880s, but never happened, by which time it was too late - here's a debate on it in 1929:
I wouldn't land it all at the door of unenlightened British attitudes, either - I think that's too simplistic: we are all products of our times, with a only a visionary few able to see how things can be different, and why, and you need to factor in the geopolitical context, and broader realpolitik constraints of the times too, which aren't the same as our constraints and context today.
The contemporary politician most sympathetic to you views about the trajectory of Indian independence was probably Attlee, thanks to his experiences as a member of the Simon Commission. He was in power a couple of decades too late, of course.
It's not as though 'enlightened' attitudes weren't fairly widespread; simply that they were in a minority.
Attlee favoured a "new colonialism" - of a benevolent and enlightened type, as an extension of municipal socialism - in Africa, even into the early 1950s.
I'm not cheerleading Attlee - just pointing out that in the late 20s/early 30s, specifically on India, he was the contemporary politician advocating the closest thing to your ideal.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
The "world as it is " is one where the EU accounts for a declining portion of world trade. How does that align with future prosperity?
The world as it is for U.K. trade is very roughly as follows:
Europe (inc EU) 50% USA 15% APAC 15% (China about half) Middle East 5% ROW 15%
In terms of Europe’s share, it’s no different to 2010 as far as I can tell from some quick eyeballing.
UK exports of goods and services to the EU had fallen to 43% by 2016. It was still 48% of goods but that was the part that was falling fastest. These numbers will bounce around a bit but post Brexit I will be surprised if the EU remains more than 40% of our exports for long, if at all. Still very important of course.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
That might well be true, but your insouciance about the strategic threat is equally silly.
I didn’t have you down as a Brexity idiot, but I guess you must be.
I’m not insouciant.
I am reminding the PB Brexit incel group-thinkers that obsessing over China and military deployments to the Far East is not a substitute for a defence strategy.
This is bad Gardenwalker. Idiot? Incel? Really?
You're better than this.
It is very frustrating to be called insouciant about China. That’s not my case at all.
I am *more* worried about China than the average PBer, but not at the expense of more near and present dangers.
I withdraw idiot, but not incel which is currently my favourite term of vituperation.
I should have perhaps have written 'apparent insouciance'. As for 'incel', up yours.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
The "world as it is " is one where the EU accounts for a declining portion of world trade. How does that align with future prosperity?
The world as it is for U.K. trade is very roughly as follows:
Europe (inc EU) 50% USA 15% APAC 15% (China about half) Middle East 5% ROW 15%
In terms of Europe’s share, it’s no different to 2010 as far as I can tell from some quick eyeballing.
UK exports of goods and services to the EU had fallen to 43% by 2016. It was still 48% of goods but that was the part that was falling fastest. These numbers will bounce around a bit but post Brexit I will be surprised if the EU remains more than 40% of our exports for long, if at all. Still very important of course.
My numbers are for imports AND exports, and include Switzerland and Norway.
Which is relevant in terms of defence strategy, ie they are in our neighbourhood (whether Philip Thompson agrees or not).
I do expect to see trade % with EU decline, not least because we have just put up trade barriers with it; and indeed because of higher relative growth in APAC.
But Europe will remain our main trading arena long after I’m retired (I’m 42).
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
Sign language is subtitles for virtue signallers. If the speech is prewritten then there's no need for it. They make sense for live Q&As though.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
The "world as it is " is one where the EU accounts for a declining portion of world trade. How does that align with future prosperity?
The world as it is for U.K. trade is very roughly as follows:
Europe (inc EU) 50% USA 15% APAC 15% (China about half) Middle East 5% ROW 15%
In terms of Europe’s share, it’s no different to 2010 as far as I can tell from some quick eyeballing.
UK exports of goods and services to the EU had fallen to 43% by 2016. It was still 48% of goods but that was the part that was falling fastest. These numbers will bounce around a bit but post Brexit I will be surprised if the EU remains more than 40% of our exports for long, if at all. Still very important of course.
My numbers are for imports AND exports, and include Switzerland and Norway.
Which is relevant in terms of defence strategy, ie they are in our neighbourhood (whether Philip Thompson agrees or not).
Why are you including Switzerland and Norway, neither are part of the UK-EU trade deal. We have independent trade deals with both that doesn't depend on any of the parts of the UK-EU deal.
On the lockdown surely the issue is to get back to the R number. Keeping it below 1 remains the key. Seems we've got it below 1 broadly, but not by much.
Getting kids back into school should have upward pressure on the R, whilst vaccination will have downwards pressure on the R.
I think Boris is playing this right. Eek out the lessening of restrictions so no chance of an uptick occurs. By April we will have a much much better idea of the situation, and we can accelerate opening up safely.
This has to be the last lockdown. Once things open, they can't close again, so you have to get it right, even if it means a few weeks of playing it too safe.
I don't agree with ruling out any backward steps. We don't really know what effect each reopening step has on transmission, so it's going to be somewhat experimental. Hence we might as well be a bit braver (as in "this will probably be ok" rather than "we're almost certain this will be ok"), on the proviso that we might need to go back a step if things do start heading in the wrong direction. I think people could handle that if it was explained in advance.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
Because if you don't, the woke warriors will be all over you.
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
That might well be true, but your insouciance about the strategic threat is equally silly.
I didn’t have you down as a Brexity idiot, but I guess you must be.
I’m not insouciant.
I am reminding the PB Brexit incel group-thinkers that obsessing over China and military deployments to the Far East is not a substitute for a defence strategy.
This is bad Gardenwalker. Idiot? Incel? Really?
You're better than this.
It is very frustrating to be called insouciant about China. That’s not my case at all.
I am *more* worried about China than the average PBer, but not at the expense of more near and present dangers.
I withdraw idiot, but not incel which is currently my favourite term of vituperation.
I should have perhaps have written 'apparent insouciance'. As for 'incel', up yours.
Any chance of people limiting their posts to words not exceeding 2 syllables (I know) as I am struggling to look them all up.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
It’s an American import. The Americans with Disabilities Act mandates signers for most public events.
For a TV audience yes, subtitles would be much more effective than a signer.
Mr. kinabalu, China has concentration camps of slave labour.
If you want to argue against exploitative nations being the wealthiest, that's a cause to oppose China achieving economic leadership.
That's sort of the point, yes. For me the reason to be concerned about China is human rights abuses not the success of their economy. And given I am not an apologist for our history of accruing great wealth based upon the systematic exploitation of others, I feel I can criticize China for same with a level gaze and clear complexion. Are you jealous?
Sounds like Starmer wants a lot more... oh what do you call them 'Public Private Partnerships?'
I'm impressed you can pull that out of his speech. I hear a lot of what he's against, not a lot of what he's for.
Well it's a reach, but apart from that and a 'bond bung' for savers what else is there?
Labour has forgotten how to win. Blair didn’t win on a platform of “we’ll spend a bit more than the other lot and generally be a bit kinder” which seems to be what the team round Starmer thinks it remembers.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
My guess is that they were asked to do so by an advocacy group, and didn't have a good reason for not bothering. I think I find political speeches hard to follow mainly because they're boring, rather than because of sign-language distraction.
Texts of speeches are routinely made available online. HMG have been good at doing this for Johnson's briefings.
There always used to be live subtitles available on standard broadcast TV - are they still done? Some of the mistypings could be fun.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
No it`s not just you. It`s fucking irritating. Another example of virtue-signalling (hum) I`m afraid. I`m partially deaf and I can assure you that people like me, and also old people who have age-related hearing loss, rely on hearing aids and lip reading, know no more about sign-language that you do, and find this trend by corporations and others as quite bizarre.
My view is simple: I see Russia as a serious but containable threat and China as a potentially uncontainable threat, unless we take additional concerted action now.
For me the "Chinese threat" routinely conflates 2 things and the difference between them is greater than all the tea in ... China.
That they become the biggest and most successful economy on earth - closing and possibly even reversing the wealth gap with the West.
That they subjugate other nations and minorities within their own borders - e.g. Hong Kong, the Uighurs, parts of Africa.
I'm more concerned about the second. Indeed I'm not sure I'm bothered at all about the first. We have no god-given right to remain many times richer than the developing world. We've had a good run and much of it was based on exploitation of those now seeking to catch up.
Your not concerned that a power who think genocide is a perfectly satisfactory tool of state, who has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, human rights or freedom of expression and an arrogant disregard for our IP property rights might become the most powerful economy on the planet?
I mean, wow. I would respectfully direct you towards @ydoethur's summer school.
I'm saying that's the aspect I am concerned about.
But you are not acknowledging that it is the economic power that makes it a concern. Read Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers". Its a truly brilliant history book but economic power and the ability to force others to comply to your will are just 2 sides of the same coin.
Obviously it is a good thing that the third world is catching up with the west. But China becoming economically dominant is a real and present danger to our way of life.
Still not real significant expansion from lots of the big rich nations like France and Germany.... nothing like we saw here.
I presume comical Dave has dropped his charts where he decided when proper vaccine rollout began and that showed UK weren't doing any better than the likes of these countries.
Jesus, thats the worst relaunch speech since Corbyn's in 2016
Shall I put you down as a maybe?
His analysis of what is wrong is spot on. Its what he's going to do about it that's missing. It needs to be bold, saleable as simple to understand, and buzzable where the person offering it has enough umph about them that you believe they can do it.
British Recovery bond. Aren't those known as gilts ?
Maybe, but sold directly to the public as war bonds were, I believe, during the World Wars.
I wondered whether they would be a good idea, but the problem is that it puts the government in competition with the banks for capital from personal savings.
And we don't have any problems raising money on the markets right now, in fact our latest bond sales have been massively oversubscribed. Bonds of that nature only make sense if money needs to be raised from domestic markets because we're frozen out of international ones for some reason.
It's flagshagging economics that would probably result in lesser economic growth for the reason you outline - they're competing with banks and equity markets if they offer a retail bond.
We abandoned National Savings certificates for good reasons. If his big idea is to bring them back heaven help us (in fairness I did not listen to the speech).
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
Richard, as someone who can use sign language, the grammar of BSL is completely different to written English.
Subtitles for live broadcasts really don't work for deaf people, they've been excluded from TV for far too long.
The logic in the decision seems a little strange. Drawing from the quotes on the report above.
Court seem to be creating an imaginary world making decision on the basis of what they thoughts she *should* have done. When she had already done something different.
She had taken part in a similar production, she had the script, and knowing that a lesbian relationship was at least one interpretation, she should have considered much earlier whether a red line was to be crossed."
The panel also rejected Ms Omooba's demands for compensation for loss of earnings, future losses and reputational damage as a result of her agency contract being terminated.
"There is no financial loss because she would not have played the part," it said.
"There is no loss of opportunity to enhance her reputation by performing, because she would not have played the part.
"If there is damage to her reputation, it was not caused by being dropped from the production but by an unconnected person's tweeting... of her Facebook post and the outcry resulting from that."
Yet she *had* accepted the part, and was planning to play it ... until terminated.
I wonder, is a white woman signer allowed to sign the n word, because obviously with some artists that would mean missing out half the lyrics of their songs
My view is simple: I see Russia as a serious but containable threat and China as a potentially uncontainable threat, unless we take additional concerted action now.
For me the "Chinese threat" routinely conflates 2 things and the difference between them is greater than all the tea in ... China.
That they become the biggest and most successful economy on earth - closing and possibly even reversing the wealth gap with the West.
That they subjugate other nations and minorities within their own borders - e.g. Hong Kong, the Uighurs, parts of Africa.
I'm more concerned about the second. Indeed I'm not sure I'm bothered at all about the first. We have no god-given right to remain many times richer than the developing world. We've had a good run and much of it was based on exploitation of those now seeking to catch up.
You're not concerned that a power who think genocide is a perfectly satisfactory tool of state, who has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, human rights or freedom of expression and an arrogant disregard for our IP property rights might become the most powerful economy on the planet?
I mean, wow. I would respectfully direct you towards @ydoethur's summer school.
The problem for China is that no-one in the Rest of the World, just no-one, would rather live in a society like China's rather than, say, the US, UK, EU or other countries that share our values. Ultimately that will tell.
You deal with a threat by having the power to overcome it, not by collywobbling all the time. It is rather silly to see portentous warnings about 'global threats' on PB, but any suggestion of what we can do amounting to little more than - nothing unless America is doing it and tells us to help.
The lesson of history tells us we need to build up the Navy. I am not experienced in defence matters, but I would suggest that small carriers and crafts capable of moving fast and mounting effective, quick operations would be better than vast carriers that we can't afford the aircraft for. A truly independent and usable nuclear capability would also be a plus.
IANAE either but I think all militaries should be reviewing the Azerbaijan conflict very carefully. Cheap unmanned drones turned out to be key. I suspect that is the future of warfare with on the ground human involvement rapidly becoming less significant and less effective. We should probably be investing accordingly.
Are, not should... https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/02/17/pentagon-funds-killer-robots-but-ethics-are-under-debate/?arc404=true ...Advanced AI means weapons operating faster, leaving human operators and their molasses reflexes behind. Roper said that because of the way AI capabilities are accelerating, being behind means the United States might never catch up, which is why he’s pushing to move fast and get AI out into combat. “It doesn’t make sense to study anything in the era of AI,” he said. “It’s better to let the AI start doing and learning, because it’s a living, breathing system, very much like a human, just silicon based.”...
...Shanahan said the project was too new to discuss in detail; even if it weren’t, he probably wouldn’t say much in order to shield secrets from countries like China and Russia that are aggressively pursuing AI themselves. The military is going to put AI into its weapons despite debates about morality, Shanahan told me: “We are going to do it. We’re going to do it deliberately. We’re going to follow policy.”
In 2019, Shanahan summarized what AI warfare would look like, speaking at a government-sponsored conference. “We are going to be shocked by the speed, the chaos, the bloodiness and the friction of a future fight in which this will be playing out in microseconds at times,” he said, in what sounded like a warning as much as a forecast....
I'd also point out some people who have been deaf from birth/a very early age are more accustomed to using sign language than they are using written English. There's a huge distinction between hard of hearing and those who are deaf (from birth.)
Plus, with the hand gestures, you can stress certain parts of speeches in a way subtitles cannot.
I also recall live subtitles have a 26% error rate in them, which is also not good.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
That might well be true, but your insouciance about the strategic threat is equally silly.
I didn’t have you down as a Brexity idiot, but I guess you must be.
I’m not insouciant.
I am reminding the PB Brexit incel group-thinkers that obsessing over China and military deployments to the Far East is not a substitute for a defence strategy.
This is bad Gardenwalker. Idiot? Incel? Really?
You're better than this.
It is very frustrating to be called insouciant about China. That’s not my case at all.
I am *more* worried about China than the average PBer, but not at the expense of more near and present dangers.
I withdraw idiot, but not incel which is currently my favourite term of vituperation.
Yes, I've noticed you running with that one quite gleefully in recent times.
The logic in the decision seems a little strange. Drawing from the quotes on the report above.
Court seem to be creating an imaginary world making decision on the basis of what they thoughts she *should* have done. When she had already done something different.
She had taken part in a similar production, she had the script, and knowing that a lesbian relationship was at least one interpretation, she should have considered much earlier whether a red line was to be crossed."
The panel also rejected Ms Omooba's demands for compensation for loss of earnings, future losses and reputational damage as a result of her agency contract being terminated.
"There is no financial loss because she would not have played the part," it said.
"There is no loss of opportunity to enhance her reputation by performing, because she would not have played the part.
"If there is damage to her reputation, it was not caused by being dropped from the production but by an unconnected person's tweeting... of her Facebook post and the outcry resulting from that."
Yet she *had* accepted the part, and was planning to play it ... until terminated.
Am I misunderstanding here?
IIRC she said she didn't the character she was playing was gay, if she had known she wouldn't have played it.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
Sounds like he's nicked the idea that Cummings nicked from McDonnell.
@TheScreamingEagles, @TOPPING and other financial services people, we might have easy money coming in 2024 with Starmer's flagshagging bonds. Time to start a consultancy and stick the fees up!
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
Sounds like he's nicked the idea that Cummings nicked from McDonnell.
It was shit idea on those occasions too. The only winners from this will be the fund managers and other assorted hangers on who get to charge mega fees for their services.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
And when it goes wrong, it can go really wrong, as it famously (and hilariously) did with the interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial service:
The logic in the decision seems a little strange. Drawing from the quotes on the report above.
Court seem to be creating an imaginary world making decision on the basis of what they thoughts she *should* have done. When she had already done something different.
She had taken part in a similar production, she had the script, and knowing that a lesbian relationship was at least one interpretation, she should have considered much earlier whether a red line was to be crossed."
The panel also rejected Ms Omooba's demands for compensation for loss of earnings, future losses and reputational damage as a result of her agency contract being terminated.
"There is no financial loss because she would not have played the part," it said.
"There is no loss of opportunity to enhance her reputation by performing, because she would not have played the part.
"If there is damage to her reputation, it was not caused by being dropped from the production but by an unconnected person's tweeting... of her Facebook post and the outcry resulting from that."
Yet she *had* accepted the part, and was planning to play it ... until terminated.
Am I misunderstanding here?
IIRC she said she didn't the character she was playing was gay, if she had known she wouldn't have played it.
And the theatre seems to have done its best to reach a reasonable settlement to a situation which would otherwise have completely sabotaged the production. The virtual hearing of the Central London Employment Tribunal heard it sparked a social media backlash and she was sacked by Leicester Theatre Trust Ltd six days later following discussions in which Ms Omooba stood by her views... ...The panel was told she had been "unconditionally" offered her full salary for the role by the theatre but refused to invoice the trust, instead bringing legal action on the grounds she had suffered extensive career damage for espousing her religious beliefs...
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
My view is simple: I see Russia as a serious but containable threat and China as a potentially uncontainable threat, unless we take additional concerted action now.
For me the "Chinese threat" routinely conflates 2 things and the difference between them is greater than all the tea in ... China.
That they become the biggest and most successful economy on earth - closing and possibly even reversing the wealth gap with the West.
That they subjugate other nations and minorities within their own borders - e.g. Hong Kong, the Uighurs, parts of Africa.
I'm more concerned about the second. Indeed I'm not sure I'm bothered at all about the first. We have no god-given right to remain many times richer than the developing world. We've had a good run and much of it was based on exploitation of those now seeking to catch up.
You're not concerned that a power who think genocide is a perfectly satisfactory tool of state, who has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, human rights or freedom of expression and an arrogant disregard for our IP property rights might become the most powerful economy on the planet?
I mean, wow. I would respectfully direct you towards @ydoethur's summer school.
The problem for China is that no-one in the Rest of the World, just no-one, would rather live in a society like China's rather than, say, the US, UK, EU or other countries that share our values. Ultimately that will tell.
In the long run it could tell in 2 ways. It could drag them down. Or it could lead to liberalization. I won't pretend to have much of a clue as to which will win out.
I once went (inadvertently) to a "signing" performance of Don Giovanni at Covent Garden. The woman was quite unobtrusive on the edge of the stage and during one of Don Giovanni's arias he walked over and started singing to her. Much appreciated and applauded by all and a very, but nicely embarrassed signer.
Where has this insistence on having sign-language interpreters for speeches come from? It seems to be de rigeur for Nicola Sturgeon, and for the Irish politicians, and now for Starmer. Am I the only one who finds it so absurdly distracting that I can't actually watch the speech?
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
I remember I was once flipping between TV channels and came across some poor signer signing the "squeak piggy squeak" scene in Deliverance.
The logic in the decision seems a little strange. Drawing from the quotes on the report above.
Court seem to be creating an imaginary world making decision on the basis of what they thoughts she *should* have done. When she had already done something different.
She had taken part in a similar production, she had the script, and knowing that a lesbian relationship was at least one interpretation, she should have considered much earlier whether a red line was to be crossed."
The panel also rejected Ms Omooba's demands for compensation for loss of earnings, future losses and reputational damage as a result of her agency contract being terminated.
"There is no financial loss because she would not have played the part," it said.
"There is no loss of opportunity to enhance her reputation by performing, because she would not have played the part.
"If there is damage to her reputation, it was not caused by being dropped from the production but by an unconnected person's tweeting... of her Facebook post and the outcry resulting from that."
Yet she *had* accepted the part, and was planning to play it ... until terminated.
Am I misunderstanding here?
IIRC she said she didn't the character she was playing was gay, if she had known she wouldn't have played it.
And the theatre seems to have done its best to reach a reasonable settlement to a situation which would otherwise have completely sabotaged the production. The virtual hearing of the Central London Employment Tribunal heard it sparked a social media backlash and she was sacked by Leicester Theatre Trust Ltd six days later following discussions in which Ms Omooba stood by her views... ...The panel was told she had been "unconditionally" offered her full salary for the role by the theatre but refused to invoice the trust, instead bringing legal action on the grounds she had suffered extensive career damage for espousing her religious beliefs...
I haven't seen anything about her refusing to play the character, and a view that the character was ambiguous, not gay:
@TheScreamingEagles, @TOPPING and other financial services people, we might have easy money coming in 2024 with Starmer's flagshagging bonds. Time to start a consultancy and stick the fees up!
LOL I'm in!
Meanwhile retail is piling like crazy into BTC. Just off the phone with a broker who can't move for the retail guys buying it.
Jesus, thats the worst relaunch speech since Corbyn's in 2016
Shall I put you down as a maybe?
His analysis of what is wrong is spot on. Its what he's going to do about it that's missing. It needs to be bold, saleable as simple to understand, and buzzable where the person offering it has enough umph about them that you believe they can do it.
Great diagnosis, chicken out on the remedy - that would be an Ed remix.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Correct. The absolute focus of the nation is bringing COVID under long term control which means completing the vaccination programme as soon as possible together with a prudent unlocking with some form of continued but appropriately targeted economic economic measures during the remainder of 2020.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
Yep, been there, got the T-shirt, lived through it and through the long hard slog to undo the damage:
I'd also point out some people who have been deaf from birth/a very early age are more accustomed to using sign language than they are using written English. There's a huge distinction between hard of hearing and those who are deaf (from birth.)
Plus, with the hand gestures, you can stress certain parts of speeches in a way subtitles cannot.
I also recall live subtitles have a 26% error rate in them, which is also not good.
To be fair, tats not too bad, my posts seem to have a smilar typo rat in them.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
Buy shares in Deere & Co in advance of the govt looking to acquire a majority stake.
My view is simple: I see Russia as a serious but containable threat and China as a potentially uncontainable threat, unless we take additional concerted action now.
For me the "Chinese threat" routinely conflates 2 things and the difference between them is greater than all the tea in ... China.
That they become the biggest and most successful economy on earth - closing and possibly even reversing the wealth gap with the West.
That they subjugate other nations and minorities within their own borders - e.g. Hong Kong, the Uighurs, parts of Africa.
I'm more concerned about the second. Indeed I'm not sure I'm bothered at all about the first. We have no god-given right to remain many times richer than the developing world. We've had a good run and much of it was based on exploitation of those now seeking to catch up.
You're not concerned that a power who think genocide is a perfectly satisfactory tool of state, who has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, human rights or freedom of expression and an arrogant disregard for our IP property rights might become the most powerful economy on the planet?
I mean, wow. I would respectfully direct you towards @ydoethur's summer school.
The problem for China is that no-one in the Rest of the World, just no-one, would rather live in a society like China's rather than, say, the US, UK, EU or other countries that share our values. Ultimately that will tell.
In the long run it could tell in 2 ways. It could drag them down. Or it could lead to liberalization. I won't pretend to have much of a clue as to which will win out.
As an eternal optimist I think evolutionary liberalisation will win out. How long it takes is anyone's guess. It took the UK a very long time to move from absolute monarchy to oligarchy to something that just about passes for democracy. The important piece in the UKs development was the development of the system of law, which originally evolved to ensure property rights. China might get there in about 100 years perhaps. Then maybe in another hundred years and they will still have hereditary "People's Representatives" in their Upper House and an hereditary "Chairperson", but otherwise might have a relatively benign democracy lol.
God this is embarrassing. Here I am pontificating about the dangers of a one party state with a complete disregard for civil liberties....from Scotland. Motes and beams come to mind, they really do. At least China doesn't waste so much time on the hypocrisy.
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
Buy shares in Deere & Co in advance of the govt looking to acquire a majority stake.
God this is embarrassing. Here I am pontificating about the dangers of a one party state with a complete disregard for civil liberties....from Scotland. Motes and beams come to mind, they really do. At least China doesn't waste so much time on the hypocrisy.
The Salmond case is very worrying on so many levels
My view is simple: I see Russia as a serious but containable threat and China as a potentially uncontainable threat, unless we take additional concerted action now.
For me the "Chinese threat" routinely conflates 2 things and the difference between them is greater than all the tea in ... China.
That they become the biggest and most successful economy on earth - closing and possibly even reversing the wealth gap with the West.
That they subjugate other nations and minorities within their own borders - e.g. Hong Kong, the Uighurs, parts of Africa.
I'm more concerned about the second. Indeed I'm not sure I'm bothered at all about the first. We have no god-given right to remain many times richer than the developing world. We've had a good run and much of it was based on exploitation of those now seeking to catch up.
You're not concerned that a power who think genocide is a perfectly satisfactory tool of state, who has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, human rights or freedom of expression and an arrogant disregard for our IP property rights might become the most powerful economy on the planet?
I mean, wow. I would respectfully direct you towards @ydoethur's summer school.
The problem for China is that no-one in the Rest of the World, just no-one, would rather live in a society like China's rather than, say, the US, UK, EU or other countries that share our values. Ultimately that will tell.
I doubt that. So long as they can remain stable and relatively prosperous societies can get by just fine under the heel of a horrifically oppressive state. And the Chinese regime seems particularly ruthless is ensuring stability, at any cost. There's no natural evolution toward a benign state.
I missed Keith's speech but just heard a "highlight" - is his "big idea" seriously that people put their money into gilts, in order for the government to then invest in the private sector? 😱
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
Yep, been there, got the T-shirt, lived through it and through the long hard slog to undo the damage:
The electrical engineering companies might well have thrived had they avoided the government imposed GEC monopoly, but would our car and computer industries have turned out much different ?
Hold on, Starmer is saying that the government will raise the money and then use it to invest in the private sector? Is he proposing a sovereign wealth fund? Who is going to do the investing, will he have fund managers that get paid £1m+ salaries/bonuses on staff to do it? Is he going to hand the civil service this money and have people with no experience in investing be put in charge of a multi-billion fund?
This raises so many questions.
I think you can be very confident that if this ever were to happen under a Labour government, the investing policy would be such that the quality of the actual investment case would be entirely irrelevant.
The idea of a domestically focussed sovereign wealth fund is hilarious to me. I don't see how anyone could take it seriously. You'd end up with a million and one agendas on how to invest the money and ultimately it ends up as a gigantic tracker fund or just gets wasted propping up failing business models.
One area it might be useful is house building. Council houses are already effectively a form of sovereign wealth fund. Moving the windfall gains from grant of planning permission from the private sector to the public sector makes sense to me.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Correct. The absolute focus of the nation is bringing COVID under long term control which means completing the vaccination programme as soon as possible together with a prudent unlocking with some form of continued but appropriately targeted economic economic measures during the remainder of 2020.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
The chances of starting to pay money back (ie reduce the debt - namely reduce the annual deficit - currently about £300,000,000,000 - to nil and have the money to pay off some debt) in 2022 is zero. It is something we were regularly promised post the 2008 crisis but never materialised. Then the time came when the next crisis (now) meant it never would materialise. This will be put off until the next crisis makes it impossible again.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
God this is embarrassing. Here I am pontificating about the dangers of a one party state with a complete disregard for civil liberties....from Scotland. Motes and beams come to mind, they really do. At least China doesn't waste so much time on the hypocrisy.
The Salmond case is very worrying on so many levels
I read somehwere yesterday that Starmer is planning to pitch himself as the new Atlee - as was suggested by some on here several weeks ago. He will need more than just an image of a ghost of the past. Above all he needs some ideas and policies to catch the mood. We'll see.
Good luck with that. Starmer and Attlee are not two individuals that I necessarily associate together. Attlee led a great reforming government (I say this as a Conservative), Starmer is, well he couldn't reform a lemonade!
I don't agree about Attlee's government - many of the major reforms, especially the health service and education, were in the pipeline anyway, and lots of the others, such as his nationalisations, were self-defeating or actively harmful. He and the Churchill government after him kept rationing and other wartime controls for much too long. And the bloodbath in India over partition occurred on his indifferent watch. The one good thing he did was stand to the Russians. But that was probably inevitable.
But, anyway, what let Attlee do as much as he did was his very strong team, which Starmer doesn't have (Annelise who?).
Bit harsh to blame Attlee for a series of atrocious harvests due partly to the war and partly to bad weather.
Squandering Marshall Aid I will give you.
Bad harvests in Britain just after the war don't explain why Labour kept e.g. sugar or clothes rationing, nor why they campaigned in 1950 on continuing rationing indefinitely. They were addicted to controls for their own sake, and terrified of ending them, like those who want lockdown to continue forever.
My understanding is they were trying to conserve foreign currency and earnings (this is a time of Bretton Woods, and exchange controls) to pay for debt, military equipment and large armed forces, including the cost of the Korean War. This was extremely expensive after WW2 and the military manpower challenge pronounced after the loss of India.
Of course, a better way would simply have been to ditch socialism and go for domestic modernisation of industry and free markets.
Yes, and ditch the fixed exchange rate, which would have ended the need to conserve foreign currency. If there has to be rationing of non-essentials, like sugar, it should be done by the purse not by the state.
The same mania for state control whatever the cost caused us to set up an overcentralised and unresponsive health service and planning controls that mean only big developers can build (ugly, low quality) houses.
The Attlee government was rather crap.
Fixed exchange rates were not really in their power to end, as anyone who wanted American loans had to accept American rules, which were set by Bretton Woods. And without American loans, there would have been no imports at all.
There was in fact a substantial devaluation in 1948 - 31% against the dollar, IIIRC - but it didn’t exactly help. It just led to major inflation.
Devaluations don't help unless they're accompanied by supply-side reforms, otherwise Italy's economy would have been the most successful in Europe, and Germany's and Switzerland's the least.
Fixed exchange rates - certainly we could have ended them. We might have had to do without the American loan (even that's not certain) but its importance, and that of Marshall Aid, has been overrated.
But this is straying rather far into counterfactuals. I still say Attlee's government is hugely overrated, doubtless because it is one of only two or three modern British governments that have moved this country significantly leftwards in many areas.
I’m no starry eyed fan of Attlee’s government, but I honestly think your solutions don’t match the very real problems they faced.
Yes, a government dedicated to investment over health might have done better in the long term, but it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘devalue and do without American loans.’ I really don’t see, with 25% of Britain’s entire national wealth destroyed by the war, how that could have worked.
I think the misallocation of resources is a key problem, and of socialism more broadly.
At a time when everyone else was developing diesel and electric technology, post-war we launched a national roll-out of... new steam locomotives. We were still building new ones in 1960.
It's because we made some really shit economic decisions post WW2, and tried to live as a superpower beyond our means (which had gone in WW2 anyway) for too long.
Sounds familiar.
I asked a few days ago why folks were so keen to deploy military force to the Far East and eventually @Philip_Thompson claimed it was because, “the world is our neighbourhood”.
We are going to have to be a helluva lot smarter, post Brexit, if we want to prosper.
I agree that Gove would be well suited to a national infrastructure role (which sadly cannot he left to Treasury), but there is the small matter of the Union to deal with as well.
I also said that is where our enemies/threats are.
The world is our neighborhood, it takes seconds to hours for telecommunications or people/missiles to get from any part of the planet to any other. Geography doesn't matter that much anymore, which is why we need to target where our enemies and allies are.
Risk assessment says Asia is a bigger risk than Europe. You can't say what enemy/risk/threat in western Europe we're supposed to be tackling that we aren't.
No one seriously believes our biggest risks are in East Asia.
Unless you are talking more Wu-Flu, to which the best response is probably not to deploy an aircraft carrier.
You realise the majority of the world's advanced chip manufacturing is situated in Taiwan - and a good slug of the rest in South Korea ?
What you might see as regional issues on the other side of the globe have global consequences. Irrespective of any superpower ambitions China might have.
He literally said the other day that China invading Taiwan would not affect the UK. 🤦🏻♂️
How to deal with that level of mindboggling ignorance?
PB Brexiters love to talk about deploying their divisions (how many do they have?) into the Far East because it fits their ideology that Europe - ie the continent we live in - can be ignored.
It’s sheer fantasy, and does not bode well for the U.K.’s future prosperity which has to be based on the world as it is.
The "world as it is " is one where the EU accounts for a declining portion of world trade. How does that align with future prosperity?
The world as it is for U.K. trade is very roughly as follows:
Europe (inc EU) 50% USA 15% APAC 15% (China about half) Middle East 5% ROW 15%
In terms of Europe’s share, it’s no different to 2010 as far as I can tell from some quick eyeballing.
UK exports of goods and services to the EU had fallen to 43% by 2016. It was still 48% of goods but that was the part that was falling fastest. These numbers will bounce around a bit but post Brexit I will be surprised if the EU remains more than 40% of our exports for long, if at all. Still very important of course.
My numbers are for imports AND exports, and include Switzerland and Norway.
Which is relevant in terms of defence strategy, ie they are in our neighbourhood (whether Philip Thompson agrees or not).
I do expect to see trade % with EU decline, not least because we have just put up trade barriers with it; and indeed because of higher relative growth in APAC.
But Europe will remain our main trading arena long after I’m retired (I’m 42).
I missed Keith's speech but just heard a "highlight" - is his "big idea" seriously that people put their money into gilts, in order for the government to then invest in the private sector? 😱
It wasn't even a new idea - he really is piss poor
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Correct. The absolute focus of the nation is bringing COVID under long term control which means completing the vaccination programme as soon as possible together with a prudent unlocking with some form of continued but appropriately targeted economic economic measures during the remainder of 2020.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
The chances of starting to pay money back (ie reduce the debt - namely reduce the annual deficit - currently about £300,000,000,000 - to nil and have the money to pay off some debt) in 2022 is zero. It is something we were regularly promised post the 2008 crisis but never materialised. Then the time came when the next crisis (now) meant it never would materialise. This will be put off until the next crisis makes it impossible again.
Absolutely 'in 2022'. We can start 'from 2022' as I posted but we need to apply some control to the deficit.
I missed Keith's speech but just heard a "highlight" - is his "big idea" seriously that people put their money into gilts, in order for the government to then invest in the private sector? 😱
He's been banging on about a new 'age of insourcing' or similar, has he not?
I missed Keith's speech but just heard a "highlight" - is his "big idea" seriously that people put their money into gilts, in order for the government to then invest in the private sector? 😱
It wasn't even a new idea - he really is piss poor
No its absolutely not a new idea, its a very old discredited idea.
That it is what he chooses to lead on as his big idea. Wow.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Correct. The absolute focus of the nation is bringing COVID under long term control which means completing the vaccination programme as soon as possible together with a prudent unlocking with some form of continued but appropriately targeted economic economic measures during the remainder of 2020.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
The chances of starting to pay money back (ie reduce the debt - namely reduce the annual deficit - currently about £300,000,000,000 - to nil and have the money to pay off some debt) in 2022 is zero. It is something we were regularly promised post the 2008 crisis but never materialised. Then the time came when the next crisis (now) meant it never would materialise. This will be put off until the next crisis makes it impossible again.
Absolutely 'in 2022'. We can start 'from 2022' as I posted but we need to apply some control to the deficit.
To control the deficit is to increase the debt, until it reached zero. (I have a feeling there are MPs who don't know this!) Yes, it should, all being well in 2022-3 to have a deficit lower than £300,000,000,000, and thus increase the debt by, say, £100,000,000,000 instead. That far we are agreed.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
Wake me up when he does. Gilts are not a new policy.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
Correct. The absolute focus of the nation is bringing COVID under long term control which means completing the vaccination programme as soon as possible together with a prudent unlocking with some form of continued but appropriately targeted economic economic measures during the remainder of 2020.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
The chances of starting to pay money back (ie reduce the debt - namely reduce the annual deficit - currently about £300,000,000,000 - to nil and have the money to pay off some debt) in 2022 is zero. It is something we were regularly promised post the 2008 crisis but never materialised. Then the time came when the next crisis (now) meant it never would materialise. This will be put off until the next crisis makes it impossible again.
It's a bit like taking out a mortgage, converting to interest-only, and then going for equity release after you retire. When your grandchildren find out, they stop being nice to you.
@TheScreamingEagles, @TOPPING and other financial services people, we might have easy money coming in 2024 with Starmer's flagshagging bonds. Time to start a consultancy and stick the fees up!
Hah, I'm getting paid my Brexit bonus next month, (no really I am for making sure the firm was wonderfully prepared for Brexit with fewer than seven days notice of the agreement being published) and I was looking for a career change.
I was headhunted for a job in professional sports management (as I have some experience in sports tv rights) and would have taken the job but for the location), but I have been looking for change into that sector, perhaps I'll stay now.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
Wake me up when he does. Gilts are not a new policy.
The electrical engineering companies might well have thrived had they avoided the government imposed GEC monopoly, but would our car and computer industries have turned out much different ?
The car industry: no, not whilst the union thugs were still in place.
The computer industry? Difficult to say. It's unlikely that English Electric and ICT would have escaped the fate of Sperry Univac, Burroughs, Xerox etc even if they hadn't been shoehorned into ICL.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
Wake me up when he does. Gilts are not a new policy.
You addressed the policy at least unlike most of the other posters who were offended he had a policy after being offended he had none. Not sure any policies that a mainstream party come up with are ever new though, they are (nearly) all recycled and adapted.
1. Labour is a policy void. Starmer needs to set out a vision of what Labour will do in a post-Covid world. And he needs to get on with it.
2. No, not now. Nobody's interested in anything other than vaccinations/Covid. Nobody's listening. Shut up Starmer.
Rinse and repeat. This seems to be the view of Dan Hodges and many on here. Poor chap can't win. (Oh, and even if we do listen it's rubbish).
He really can't win, can he?
He's simply setting out the mood music at this stage, trying to reassure both left and right of his party, and setting out the markers for a beginning of a rebranding exercise that isn't New Labour or Corbynism. As the Tories will well know, that's what he needs to do for the moment, rather than outline a completed and costed package so far out from an election, as their leaders haven't generally at any similar stages of the electoral cycle, either.
The broad direction of travel is clear - Wilsonism, and, even if he isn't going explicitly oppose Brexit or create any expectation of rejoining, also a broadly more European model of business and social co-operation.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
Wake me up when he does. Gilts are not a new policy.
You addressed the policy at least unlike most of the other posters who were offended he had a policy after being offended he had none. Not sure any policies that a mainstream party come up with are ever new though, they are (nearly) all recycled and adapted.
I don't object to him coming up with policies, he should. Hodges is wrong on that.
This is not a wise policy though. Its really worrying if he can't come up with something better than this.
1. Labour is a policy void. Starmer needs to set out a vision of what Labour will do in a post-Covid world. And he needs to get on with it.
2. No, not now. Nobody's interested in anything other than vaccinations/Covid. Nobody's listening. Shut up Starmer.
Rinse and repeat. This seems to be the view of Dan Hodges and many on here. Poor chap can't win. (Oh, and even if we do listen it's rubbish).
He really can't win, can he?
Yes. Always the same.
So. What do you think? Does it form the basis for the development of a policy programme that might sweep Labour back to government on a tide of collective optimism?
1. Labour is a policy void. Starmer needs to set out a vision of what Labour will do in a post-Covid world. And he needs to get on with it.
2. No, not now. Nobody's interested in anything other than vaccinations/Covid. Nobody's listening. Shut up Starmer.
Rinse and repeat. This seems to be the view of Dan Hodges and many on here. Poor chap can't win. (Oh, and even if we do listen it's rubbish).
He really can't win, can he?
Certainly not with stupid ideas like a "recovery bond".
Why is this a stupid idea? I have a large amount of money in my savings account for which my bank offers me 0.01%. I'll take some Recovery Bonds assuming they can do better than that. Of course, they can't do any worse.
I think this is right. No one I know gives a flying f about anything much other than when they can get the jab and this nightmare starts coming to an end.
When was he supposed to do it though? He cannot wait forever, but he can say stuff now and hammer it home so it sticks in the mind when people are paying more attention.
You are doing this wrong.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
Wake me up when he does. Gilts are not a new policy.
You addressed the policy at least unlike most of the other posters who were offended he had a policy after being offended he had none. Not sure any policies that a mainstream party come up with are ever new though, they are (nearly) all recycled and adapted.
I don't object to him coming up with policies, he should. Hodges is wrong on that.
This is not a wise policy though. Its really worrying if he can't come up with something better than this.
Others do object downthread, not every post is about your posts.
Comments
It's flagshagging economics that would probably result in lesser economic growth for the reason you outline - they're competing with banks and equity markets if they offer a retail bond.
I am *more* worried about China than the average PBer, but not at the expense of more near and present dangers.
I withdraw idiot, but not incel which is currently my favourite term of vituperation.
It doesn't make any sense on an equalities/inclusivity basis. The number of people who can understand sign language is tiny (around 125,000 deaf people in the UK), but there are many, many more people who are deaf or partially deaf (around 11 million), who would find it hard to follow the spoken words, but aren't helped at all by the sign-language. Why not just add subtitles, which would be far more helpful?
UK exports of goods and services to the EU had fallen to 43% by 2016. It was still 48% of goods but that was the part that was falling fastest. These numbers will bounce around a bit but post Brexit I will be surprised if the EU remains more than 40% of our exports for long, if at all. Still very important of course.
As for 'incel', up yours.
Which is relevant in terms of defence strategy, ie they are in our neighbourhood (whether Philip Thompson agrees or not).
I do expect to see trade % with EU decline, not least because we have just put up trade barriers with it; and indeed because of higher relative growth in APAC.
But Europe will remain our main trading arena long after I’m retired (I’m 42).
https://twitter.com/gregjamesbarton/status/1362352532673032195?s=20
For a TV audience yes, subtitles would be much more effective than a signer.
Texts of speeches are routinely made available online. HMG have been good at doing this for Johnson's briefings.
There always used to be live subtitles available on standard broadcast TV - are they still done? Some of the mistypings could be fun.
Obviously it is a good thing that the third world is catching up with the west. But China becoming economically dominant is a real and present danger to our way of life.
I presume comical Dave has dropped his charts where he decided when proper vaccine rollout began and that showed UK weren't doing any better than the likes of these countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRl2uLh4Ru0&ab_channel=ABC13Houston
Subtitles for live broadcasts really don't work for deaf people, they've been excluded from TV for far too long.
Court seem to be creating an imaginary world making decision on the basis of what they thoughts she *should* have done. When she had already done something different.
She had taken part in a similar production, she had the script, and knowing that a lesbian relationship was at least one interpretation, she should have considered much earlier whether a red line was to be crossed."
The panel also rejected Ms Omooba's demands for compensation for loss of earnings, future losses and reputational damage as a result of her agency contract being terminated.
"There is no financial loss because she would not have played the part," it said.
"There is no loss of opportunity to enhance her reputation by performing, because she would not have played the part.
"If there is damage to her reputation, it was not caused by being dropped from the production but by an unconnected person's tweeting... of her Facebook post and the outcry resulting from that."
Yet she *had* accepted the part, and was planning to play it ... until terminated.
Am I misunderstanding here?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/02/17/pentagon-funds-killer-robots-but-ethics-are-under-debate/?arc404=true
...Advanced AI means weapons operating faster, leaving human operators and their molasses reflexes behind. Roper said that because of the way AI capabilities are accelerating, being behind means the United States might never catch up, which is why he’s pushing to move fast and get AI out into combat. “It doesn’t make sense to study anything in the era of AI,” he said. “It’s better to let the AI start doing and learning, because it’s a living, breathing system, very much like a human, just silicon based.”...
...Shanahan said the project was too new to discuss in detail; even if it weren’t, he probably wouldn’t say much in order to shield secrets from countries like China and Russia that are aggressively pursuing AI themselves. The military is going to put AI into its weapons despite debates about morality, Shanahan told me: “We are going to do it. We’re going to do it deliberately. We’re going to follow policy.”
In 2019, Shanahan summarized what AI warfare would look like, speaking at a government-sponsored conference. “We are going to be shocked by the speed, the chaos, the bloodiness and the friction of a future fight in which this will be playing out in microseconds at times,” he said, in what sounded like a warning as much as a forecast....
Plus, with the hand gestures, you can stress certain parts of speeches in a way subtitles cannot.
I also recall live subtitles have a 26% error rate in them, which is also not good.
At least it makes sense for a live, as opposed to TV, audience.
This raises so many questions.
My dank meme game is strong.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1362366273422848000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-DxGoIVUWo
The virtual hearing of the Central London Employment Tribunal heard it sparked a social media backlash and she was sacked by Leicester Theatre Trust Ltd six days later following discussions in which Ms Omooba stood by her views...
...The panel was told she had been "unconditionally" offered her full salary for the role by the theatre but refused to invoice the trust, instead bringing legal action on the grounds she had suffered extensive career damage for espousing her religious beliefs...
"Miss Omooba had claimed the character's sexuality was ambiguous and she would have refused the role if she had considered her gay."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55885720
Meanwhile retail is piling like crazy into BTC. Just off the phone with a broker who can't move for the retail guys buying it.
We will need to pay the money back. But it won't start in the 2021 Budget. Rishi and HMT then need to start doing this on a sensible but substantive basis from 2022.
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/17/the-industrial-reorganisation-corporation-and-the-1968-reorganisation-of-british-manufacturing/
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1362305434460258306?s=20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Pay_for_the_War
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1958-07-31a.1731.2
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/salmond-accuser-dismisses-conspiracy-claims-as-absurd-and-hits-out-at-holyrood-inquiry/ar-BB1dFYbU
https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/1362282644386418688?s=21
The electrical engineering companies might well have thrived had they avoided the government imposed GEC monopoly, but would our car and computer industries have turned out much different ?
It must have been poor for Sky to have a go
And of course why now, when as others have said, vaccinations are the only topic of conversation
That it is what he chooses to lead on as his big idea. Wow.
If Starmer says little its "When will Captain Hindsight come up with any policies?"
If Starmer says something its "Now is not the time for new policies!"
1. Labour is a policy void. Starmer needs to set out a vision of what Labour will do in a post-Covid world. And he needs to get on with it.
2. No, not now. Nobody's interested in anything other than vaccinations/Covid. Nobody's listening. Shut up Starmer.
Rinse and repeat. This seems to be the view of Dan Hodges and many on here. Poor chap can't win. (Oh, and even if we do listen it's rubbish).
He really can't win, can he?
I was headhunted for a job in professional sports management (as I have some experience in sports tv rights) and would have taken the job but for the location), but I have been looking for change into that sector, perhaps I'll stay now.
Now you're getting it...
And nobody is saying shut up Starmer, but he needs to choose his moments and not in an empty room, according to Sky
The computer industry? Difficult to say. It's unlikely that English Electric and ICT would have escaped the fate of Sperry Univac, Burroughs, Xerox etc even if they hadn't been shoehorned into ICL.
Before Labour's recovery bond bounce. 😹
The broad direction of travel is clear - Wilsonism, and, even if he isn't going explicitly oppose Brexit or create any expectation of rejoining, also a broadly more European model of business and social co-operation.
This is not a wise policy though. Its really worrying if he can't come up with something better than this.
So. What do you think? Does it form the basis for the development of a policy programme that might sweep Labour back to government on a tide of collective optimism?
yikes
But it appears the content of Keir’s speech seems to have disappointed (if PB is any yardstick which it probably isn’t).