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Break open your cage and VOOM: New policies for the Lib Dems – politicalbetting.com
Break open your cage and VOOM: New policies for the Lib Dems – politicalbetting.com
Margaret Thatcher’s only good joke – maybe her *only* joke – was likening the Liberal Democrats to Monty Python’s dead parrot.
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https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/1365914137897803776
For those of us who like to talk Britain down, all this good news is hard to take. The vaccination figures are shocking. Nearly 20 million first doses administered. A forward-thinking procurement plan. The leading large nation, far ahead of the US and, more gallingly for us frothing Remoaners, miles ahead of Europe. Nothing could be more depressing for the honest self-loathing liberal Brit. You know the type. Recycle assiduously but fly once a fortnight.
The bitterest pill is that we’re beating Germany. Germany, the nation self-loathing Brits revere more than any other. Germany, which welcomes every immigrant, has sensible governments, and has only ever craved peaceful European integration.
It transpires that several of the dozen or so vaccines Germany thought to order have been ensnared in red tape. Surely the pandemic can’t have exposed shortcomings in having a pan-continental uber-bureaucracy?
Wasn’t all that technik meant to lead to a bit of vorsprung? The front page of Bild, one of Germany’s main tabloids, last Wednesday read “Britain, We Envy You”. While Eeyorish Mrs Merkel warns of yet another lockdown, with less than 10% of her population vaccinated, our flaxen-haired prime minister leads his nation towards a summer of Weimar excess. Mutti, how could you forsake your fans in Islington like this?
Liverpool Labour councillors fail to abolish role of city mayor
Motion to revert to leader and cabinet model followed scrapping of all-female mayoral shortlist
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/28/liverpool-labour-councillors-fail-abolish-city-mayor
Also: Brave to put the words ‘VOOM’ and ‘Lib Dems’ in the same headline.
Government need a slogan around this and be screaming this again and again and again....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNCrzOl2PfA
Their (what I shall generously call) 'localism' is also quite important to a recovery (i.e. promising diametrically opposite things to different constituencies, based on local concerns).
If they can use that to claw their way back up to 30-to-50-odd MPs over the next few parliaments, they can start worrying about being a national party again.
Or am I being unfair?
Point 2 - Drug legalisation must no be the stupid version - where consumption is legal but supply is left in the hands of criminals. What is required is a complete supply chain legalisation, from manufacture to consumption, with quality controls and taxation carefully considered in its effects.
Already in the US, some legalisation efforts have run into taxation high enough that illegal drugs are cheaper. Fail.
Part of the problem there is that legalisation hasn't been done federally, so business financing is impossible to do properly. Which raises costs and encourages the participation of those with suitcases of cash....
A sensible drug legalisation structure would drop the costs of production and supply by an order of magnitude. Which would allow plenty of "space" for sensible taxation.
I assumed it would be a lot more than this. If that is all it is I am all for abolition.
So the question is, just like the Tories will the boost last?
I don't agree with all your points but have sympathy for most of them. Its a shame to see the LDs embrace illiberalism in recent years as well as their opposition to democracy - it would make a refreshing change if they did become unabashedly liberal.
Deep fakes. They are now so good they are close to being perfect. Another year?
Imagine the chaos they might cause, the crimes that come with. And fret.
https://twitter.com/damianburns/status/1365247515898097667?s=21
This is the Welsh realising how lucky they are to have Drakeford as First Minister.
I'd like to see a vote match bet between the SNP and Welsh Labour in May's devolved elections.
https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1366013716328828928?s=21
https://www.statista.com/statistics/875015/students-enrolled-in-higher-education-in-the-uk/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-LkbsFpC7I&list=FLg5SdxeHca5JpoZ1j9-RpJg&index=4
https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1366030787720728579
One of the important things to remember about tuition fees, is graduates don't suddenly become debt free if you cancel them. They still need to fund their living expenses while at University somehow, so they could still end up with ~£20k of debt, which under the current regime, a sizeable proportion would still not even be covering the interest payments. A much greater proportion would be paying it off before it gets written off, but it would still be a drag on their ability to save for a decade or two after graduation.
One easy quick fix is to put the interest rate all the way down to BoE base. This would currently cost almost nothing, since almost no one pays off the whole debt anyway, but it have a positive psychological effect as the debt wouldn't be spiralling year on year.
The risk however is that it’s the sort of list that could end up with them riding two horses. Yes, I get that they’re ‘not trying to appeal to Red Wallers’ but they’re hardly going to attract the pensioner vote over the licence fee by simultaneously rejoining EFTA.
And while two horses worked very well indeed for the Liberal Democrats for 25 years, it also led them to fall very flat in the mud over tuition fees.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
Should be at negligible levels before the end of March.
It is hard for the LDs to get attention, so they do need to just hammer home a few memorable ideas every single time they can get in front of the camera.
That you'd rather throw accusations at others instead of saying Jews count and anti-racism must include fighting anti-Semitism is sickening.
Is saying Jews do count really so difficult for you?
But let’s stick to politics first. If you can create perfect videos of Politician X saying Terrible Thing Y, then careers and countries can be changed/ruined by a bit of tech. Equally, every embarrassing video that emerges will now be blamed on deepfakery
Slappy Moran would have got them some attention, not necessarily good attention but perhaps even bad attention is better than being invisible.
Ed Davey needs to set himself against the Lib Dem stupidity of the recent past.
Locally they are also firmly on the NIMBY side in terms of opposing new developments and new housing which while narrowly populist and hypocritical given the 2019 LD commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year may help them win some councillors in the Home Counties
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
At this rate the lockdown ending is going to look far too slow.
I still think that for the foreseeable future, the LibDems should withdraw from Westminster. Localism is where their power lies. They should put their energies and funding into winning councils again. Whether they could extract some of these policies by standing aside in the General and urging voters to go Labour is perhaps also worthy of more thought.
Also VOOM? If I were being cruel to Sir Ed Davey, I would suggest that is the shorthand equation for the LibDem prospects:
Vote = 0.0 million
or VOOM.....
Ed is good. But he needs to ditch the suit and tie, and be seen out and about.
Not easy in these Covid times, true.
Lordy
LVT: deferring payment until point of sale will simply serve to reduce the already poor liquidity of the uk housing stock.
Tuition Fees: what is liberal about asking lower paid non graduates to subsidise the further education of people who choose to go to Uni?
Covid Restrictions: yes. It blows my mind the so called liberal party has not been making the government crawl over the coals to justify each and every restriction with transparent analysis of the costs and benefits.
Weed: a no brainer. Mysterious it hasn’t gained more traction in the uk political debate.
Yes, VOOM is a bit of tough ask for the LDs.
But it’s a direct lift from the dead parrot sketch so perhaps can/should be read tongue in cheek.
The Tories could reanimate Churchill, or reactivate Mrs Thatcher. Labour could revive Sir Kir ‘Royale’ Starmer, and make him appear as if he’s alive
So the cost to consider is how much is actually getting repaid. Not the total cost.
The future is here.
(I think that might have been the policy of the Enclave in Fallout, thinking about it).
The AI Economist: Improving Equality and Productivity with AI-Driven Tax Policies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2ga3BBMTc&t=80s
It’s doesn’t say much about the party that he became leader because he beat Simon Hughes (argh) and Chris Huhne (double argh).
What Clegg did get right is positioning the Libs as a moderating force on either Con or Lab: Swindon was very very stupid to pretend she was “the next PM”.
Based on workers rights, persecution of minorities, environmental protection and such like.
It would link into International Aid and trade policies and would, for example, bring trade with China to an effective halt.
Generate all the policies by computer algorithms so they have the perfect mix of populism and effectiveness. Then present them to the people via a deepfake of Alexander the Great, or JFK minus the sexual issues
I’m only half joking. Or not joking at all. This is probably our future. Real politicians have human failings. Deepfakes will be better
So actually, the government has borrowed money to pay for services that it will not be refunded for that it reclaims through a complicated, expensive and badly managed system which will never reclaim more than about a third of it, in order to keep that borrowing off the books and fund universities most of whom fail to spend that money intelligently.
If your head hurts, I’ve explained it right.
It was a daft proposal, and entirely typical of Lord Browne - a man who, let it not be forgotten, could very easily have been doing jail time for perjury at the time he wrote it.
Excellent stuff. I like a lot of it and the bits I don't I can live with. If the LDs adopt this, and Starmer keeps on with the flags and the Red Wally focus groups to guide Labour Party policy, I could possibly be turning yellow.
Although I would need some sort of medication before going to the polling station.
https://twitter.com/oldnorthroad/status/1365790044875874307?s=20
Second ex-aide accuses Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/28/second-ex-aide-accuses-andrew-cuomo-of-sexual-harassment
I may have to pour my angst into a new rhyolite strap-on
But there are two things to say here:
1) Schools reopening and seven hundred and fifty gazillion tests a week that go with it will inevitably see cases rise even if hospitalisations etc keep going on the right track, so people will still be nervous until they get that second jab;
2) It’s a damn sight easier and more sensible to operate in the worst case scenario for lockdown and then please everyone by saying you can go more quickly than saying ‘we’ll open next week’ followed by another three months of lockdown which happened no longer ago than December.
France’s eastern Moselle region has been listed as an area “at particularly high risk of infection due to widespread occurrence of Sars-CoV-2 virus variants”, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute for disease control announced.
From Tuesday, cross-border travellers from Moselle will need to be able to show a recent negative coronavirus test.
Germany has already introduced tough checks at its borders with the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tyrol region, ignoring calls from Brussels to keep borders within the bloc open. The checks at the Moselle crossing will be less strict, with random stops and requests for negative tests rather than every vehicle being stopped.
https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1366040790401748992?s=20
Tricky for Biden.
Every day hundreds of thousands more people feel safe because its now two weeks since they were vaccinated.
And every day millions more people feel safer because new infections are falling.
But better to hope for that and promise July than the other way around.
Interestingly, they are already slightly softening their stance on school reopening - masks are now set to be ‘strongly advised’ not ‘compulsory.’ Hopefully, that is a sign of the greater optimism.
If it’s like it was fortnight ago...
How much harder are they going to lockdown?