FPT - I think the Australia/NZ tariff "row" is a lot of fuss about almost nothing.
We had 7 years to transition away from Commonwealth preference on the way in, and now we're proposing 10 years to transition back to tarriff free on the way out.
Provided meat is properly labelled and it's clear where it came from, so consumers can make a choice, I'm totally relaxed about it. I don't think it threatens British farmers at all.
Agreed 100%
Those who want to buy 100% British (or British and Irish) meat, like McDonald's and many supermarkets, will continue to do so.
Those who don't will find their European imports being competed against with Australian and NZ imports, which can only be a good thing.
F1: it's Monaco, unfortunately, next. However, Perez has a good track record there and one of the Red Bull's main disadvantages is on straight line top end pace. This is not exactly a key feature of the tight processional circuit in Monte Carlo.
Accordingly, I've put tiny sums at 16 and 26 on Perez for the win and pole (both each way, odds with boost at Ladbrokes).
I like Monaco. Qualifying ought to be quite entertaining this year, as there's the potential for any one of four or even five teams to take pole if the nail the setup. (Though in reality it's going to be Hamilton vs Verstappen.)
interesting piece on our current position wrt plague and unlocking.
"SAGE remains seemingly over-influenced by a group of Left-leaning scientists who have been quietly advocating a Zero Covid approach, with little regard for the consequences."
"many have called for a new committee to weigh Sage advice on the risks of lockdown easing against the costs of roadmap delays. It has never materialised."
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Yes that is true there isn't a square foot that doesn't seem to have received planning approval. There is of course a huge pent up demand for housing.
We shall see who can afford the new homes. You can probably tell us some of the affordability/profitability calcs from the perspective of a developer? Would be v interesting - ie marginal costs/revenue & floor sales price that makes it all worthwhile?
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
QTWAIN.
The government won't rule anything out (because never say never) but its not going to happen and this is media hysteria.
Government says "we don't rule out anything" so media responds by saying "do you rule out [insert hysterical suggestion here]" which gets a response of "we don't rule out anything" so media runs with "Government refuses to rule out [hysterical suggestion here]".
It is the media putting local lockdowns on the agenda, not the government.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
This might sound harsh, but restaurants have a high failure rate anyway. I would expect over a year nearly 10% close in normal times.
Yep @PT made the same point. I wonder what the rate is. As I noted the other day, walking down King St Hammersmith it seemed an awful lot of boarded up shops but perhaps that was a pre-May 17th thing.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Business in the hospitality and catering sector (restaurants, pubs and hotels) are around three times more likely to fail than businesses as a whole, according to a study by chartered accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. In a study of over 150,000 UK business failures, it was found revealed that 15.5% of businesses in the UK hospitality and catering sector fail every year, compared to just 5.25% for the economy as a whole.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Yes that is true there isn't a square foot that doesn't seem to have received planning approval. There is of course a huge pent up demand for housing.
We shall see who can afford the new homes. You can probably tell us some of the affordability/profitability calcs from the perspective of a developer? Would be v interesting - ie marginal costs/revenue & floor sales price that makes it all worthwhile?
Alot of it is small commercial, not just domestic.
Around my area, it seems to be the rule of thumb that the businesses that had a natural, solid basis - good footfall etc - used the lockdown (and cheap loans) to do rip out and redo, where they needed it.
The shops and businesses that seemed just to hang didn't and are generally gone.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Back to the Boundary Commission (England) - they are about to launch the new review (June 2021) with a deadline of Jul 2023 which offers an interesting timeline for the GE spotters.... quite a tight elector range 69000-77000.
Why does it take so long to do? The last election was 18 months ago. Surely they can get the whole thing done by early 2022?
Maybe they need the census returns from this Spring? Having seen the howls about the proposed Devon-Cornwall seat it can be quite emotive...
The Boundary Commission does not use census returns. It is based on the electoral register. That is how it is biased in favour of ... well, probably the Conservatives, though not quite as egregiously as under the Cameron/Osborne system.
Here are the numbers of seats in each English region. Hands up who thinks London and the North West have the same population.
I'm guessing that London has a much higher proportion of non-citizens. If they're not eligible to vote, why should they be counted for constituencies?
MPs represent all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them, or who voted at all, or who were on the electoral register.
Again, in theory. The degree of representation varies considerably in reality.
Indeed. And, although there are exceptions, those with safe seats are more likely to live remotely from the constituency (often having been parachuted in in the first place), less likely to visit, less likely to be assiduous with supporting local events or going the extra mile with casework, and more likely to be exploiting their near total job security for their own benefit, with jobs on the side or as we saw during the expenses scandal.
I guess the thing with 'safe' seats is that they're not necessarily safe forever. Who would have thought getting elected as a Labour MP in the red wall in 2015 was not a job for life?
(Said as someone who favours PR, but in the absence of that, safe seats becoming competitive, in both directions, can only be a good thing. The complete erosion of tribal party loyalty would probably be a good thing for democracy, so thank you to Corbyn and Johnson for that!)
I don't think it needs to get any more complicated than that: safe seats are safe until they are not.
As we have seen these past few elections. How anyone can say that certain seats, even in Rutland for goodness sake, and given recent and not so recent election results, are safe forever is beyond me.
I think it merely reflects the general trend in that people have become less loyal to brands and more open to changing their habits / choices, together with more routes to find information. A greater amount of competition has been brought into the market, as in many other areas of life, especially Retail.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
This might sound harsh, but restaurants have a high failure rate anyway. I would expect over a year nearly 10% close in normal times.
That also occurred to me as an odd feature of the story BUT one assumes in normal times that the number closing is matched by the number opening (more or less).
If the 10% is without replacement (or with little replacement) that is quite a big issue. However, the story didn't really tell us that (as far as I saw anyway) and, whilst I assume opening rates have been quite a bit lower than usual, it may not necessarily be the case (oddly enough, several have opened or are in the process of refit near to me).
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
QTWAIN.
The government won't rule anything out (because never say never) but its not going to happen and this is media hysteria.
Government says "we don't rule out anything" so media responds by saying "do you rule out [insert hysterical suggestion here]" which gets a response of "we don't rule out anything" so media runs with "Government refuses to rule out [hysterical suggestion here]".
It is the media putting local lockdowns on the agenda, not the government.
Indeed. I can't stress strongly enough how written in stone 21 June is. There is no risk to it. The politics and the data are aligned. There'll be no delay and no local lockdowns. I'll suck some sweaty socks if I'm wrong.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Business in the hospitality and catering sector (restaurants, pubs and hotels) are around three times more likely to fail than businesses as a whole, according to a study by chartered accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. In a study of over 150,000 UK business failures, it was found revealed that 15.5% of businesses in the UK hospitality and catering sector fail every year, compared to just 5.25% for the economy as a whole.
I suspect part of hospitality's problems is the lack of young Europeans spending a couple of years in UK. Ought to be replaced, of course, by young Brits who can no longer work in Ibiza, but whether being a barman in Torquay is as attractive as being one in Ibiza ........
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
The more I think about it, the more my mad idea to build more land there seems like the only sensible solution.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
The best drama on this was Kominsky’s The Promise, which was shown on Channel Four about ten years back I believe, and is still available on DVD. It cleverly intersperses a narrative from the time of the end of the British mandate with a modern day story, to illustrate the source of many of the current day problems. It is particularly noteworthy how some of the behaviours of the Israelis - for example blowing up the family homes of known terrorists - originated from how the British army dealt with early Jewish terrorists.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
I think there's a lesson here in what rules a government can impose, and which are more effective. I think in general the government have spent too much time on rules they can't enforce and too little on those that they can.
For example, imposing rules on whether people can visit other people's private homes was absurd. Mostly this has been observed by people because they are afraid (sometimes with good reason), or because they're the sort of people who would follow government advice.
These rules have tended to be self-imposed to a degree by people in advance of the government doing so, and also loosened in advance of the official restrictions being lifted. Having these rules enforced by law has made very little difference.
At the other end of the scale, it is relatively easy for the government to regulate whether, and in what conditions, people enter the country, but it's shown very little interest in imposing such rules, or doing so effectively. While people unable to visit a pub may end up drinking at each other's homes, very few people will be finding ways to break border control.
I think there are general lessons about using regulation where it will be most effective, and then not reaching for the law when working with people's cooperation will be more realistic.
That's very fairly-expressed, but I do think it doesn't take age-dependent lifestyle into account. Older people tend to be settled in one place, and get round to registering in due course even if they're not that interested. Young people tend to move frequently (for reasons of job, relationship change, etc.) and don't get round to registering each time unless they're very interested. This introduces a bias to older people (even those who aren't very interested), which nowadays tends to mean Conservatives.
As I've said before, if the Conservatives aggravate the bias by requiring photo ID (we've discussed this endlessly but in reality we know it's what will happen), Labour should consider a balancing act, and asking the Boundary Commission to base its calculations on the estimated number of eligible voters would make a significant difference.
Thanks. Much agreement with this. How do you deal with numbers when millions of students live in two places? In some seats the student population when resident is a massive proportion of the seat. (Cambridge would be an obvious example).
Personally I'd only count them and let them vote where they live most of the time, which would be uni - students are perfectly capable of sorting postal votes. But, widening the discussion, I'd also allow prisoners to vote (unless legislation specifies disenfrannchisement as a punishment for a certain crime, such as electoral fraud!). I think having a few MPs who have to worry about representing lots of students, lots of prisoners, etc. would be good to ensure that neglected issues are raised.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Business in the hospitality and catering sector (restaurants, pubs and hotels) are around three times more likely to fail than businesses as a whole, according to a study by chartered accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. In a study of over 150,000 UK business failures, it was found revealed that 15.5% of businesses in the UK hospitality and catering sector fail every year, compared to just 5.25% for the economy as a whole.
My son got an internship with the FCA last year. It was enlightening. The failure rate for financial services businesses is also much higher than is generally appreciated and the primary role of the regulator was seeking to ensure that these businesses had "good deaths" with the interests of the clients being protected. When you think of regulation the collapse of the business being regulated is not (at least for me) the most obvious concern but hard experience had taught them that this was where to start.
Many pubs and restaurants will not open their doors again under the previous management. But if they have a good location they will open with new ideas and capital.
How about a reverse-gerrymander? Boundary Commission takes polling/population figures and endeavours after each election to reconfigure contiguous constituency boundaries to make each seat as marginal as possible?
Bad for political/MP stability, but would make for much more interesting elections and possibly some interesting constituency names
Would that risk one party winning 90% of the seats, SNP style?
Having safe seats at least guarantees an opposition in parliament, bad though they are for creating disenfranchised voters.
Aye, that's true.
An interesting case-study is York, with the (unique, I think) arrangement of one consituency ("Inner", Labour) completely surrounded by another ("Outer", Conservative). In most cities it would be East and West or North and South. In York those would, I guess, be quite evenly balanced rather than two safe seats, so York might end up with two Labour or two Conservative MPs, which would be a distortion of the local political balance.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
The more I think about it, the more my mad idea to build more land there seems like the only sensible solution.
The only viable solution I see is never suggested, a "three state solution".
The international community recognises Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the bits of the West Bank they've annexed, and Israel's right to exist.
The Gaza Strip returns to Egypt.
The West Bank returns to Jordan.
If a "Palestinian state" is to be created then let the Arab states sort that out rather than the Israelis. They're the ones that prevented a Palestinian state from being created in the first place in 1948, not Israel, afterall.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
It points up a lot of the disinformation that has been spread since Regev took over Israel's PR.
Wikipedia 'The Jewish Chronicle' in the paragraph titled '2020' is worth looking at. I heard the BBC interview Stephen Pollard yesterday and it was pathetic. Walking on eggshells doesn't come close to describing it. The link between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism is now complete.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
It increasingly looks like the momentum of this year and the backlog of work will spill into next year giving reasonable growth then too. Boris should be nervous that 2023 may well be much more difficult as the Treasury try to dry up some of the red ink. A recession is not necessarily fatal to re-election (1992) but it is not great.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Yes that is true there isn't a square foot that doesn't seem to have received planning approval. There is of course a huge pent up demand for housing.
We shall see who can afford the new homes. You can probably tell us some of the affordability/profitability calcs from the perspective of a developer? Would be v interesting - ie marginal costs/revenue & floor sales price that makes it all worthwhile?
We dont really do domestic, just industrial/commercial. What has surprised us is the number of office refurbishments and new developments we are working on and have tendered. Clearly the thinking is that peeple will return to the office.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
It increasingly looks like the momentum of this year and the backlog of work will spill into next year giving reasonable growth then too. Boris should be nervous that 2023 may well be much more difficult as the Treasury try to dry up some of the red ink. A recession is not necessarily fatal to re-election (1992) but it is not great.
I suspect the chance of a recession in 2023 is quite miniscule.
If there is a lot of growth in 2021 and 2022 then that will create forward momentum to take firms and customers forward into 2023. If tax cuts (CT) have inspired a lot of growth and extra revenues then further tax giveaways in 2022 Budget to create more momentum in 2023 would be quite viable too.
You don't often get a new recession just three years after the last one.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Yes that is true there isn't a square foot that doesn't seem to have received planning approval. There is of course a huge pent up demand for housing.
We shall see who can afford the new homes. You can probably tell us some of the affordability/profitability calcs from the perspective of a developer? Would be v interesting - ie marginal costs/revenue & floor sales price that makes it all worthwhile?
We dont really do domestic, just industrial/commercial. What has surprised us is the number of office refurbishments and new developments we are working on and have tendered. Clearly the thinking is that peeple will return to the office.
Thanks and I tend to agree. If people are there even three days a week they will have to be somewhere "clever" to accommodate the new working mode.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
Indeed. Considering that the Arab states conquered and annexed the West Bank and Gaza from 48 to 67, why the Arab states aren't asked to provide part of the solution for the "refugees" almost all of whom were not alive before 48 is beyond me.
Why should the only Jewish state in a sea of Arab states provide the solution to the Arab "refugees"?
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Hearing and been seeing the same thing with the construction industry in London. The rates of pay are soaring....
A problem was that some supply firms furloughed everyone and went home for the duration. When it turned out in the middle of lockdown that there was actually a huge demand for building work (both domestic and small commercial), they tried to only bring back a skeleton staff. At one point the country nearly ran out of plaster board, due to this.... They seem to have woken up now...
Ditto cement.
It will be fascinating to see how many of the 1 in 10 restaurants lost we actually miss. Some no doubt, but my guess is they were the ones who didn't manage takeaway, haven't got customer retention and frankly, were a bit grim. If it's the bottom tenth of the market that goes and is replaced by a bunch of vibrant new efforts - some of which will fail, but some of which will be excellent - that is overall quite a positive for eating out.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
It increasingly looks like the momentum of this year and the backlog of work will spill into next year giving reasonable growth then too. Boris should be nervous that 2023 may well be much more difficult as the Treasury try to dry up some of the red ink. A recession is not necessarily fatal to re-election (1992) but it is not great.
Ideally we will be in a position at the end of 2022 to call the COVID losses a one off and there is no lasting damage with cuts/tax rises necessary to close a lasting deficit. The OBR forecasts look seriously out of date at this point in time, the deficit will come in significantly lower for 2020/21, 21/22 and 22/23 than they have projected. We may end up with around £140-160bn less debt than what is currently forecast.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Hearing and been seeing the same thing with the construction industry in London. The rates of pay are soaring....
A problem was that some supply firms furloughed everyone and went home for the duration. When it turned out in the middle of lockdown that there was actually a huge demand for building work (both domestic and small commercial), they tried to only bring back a skeleton staff. At one point the country nearly ran out of plaster board, due to this.... They seem to have woken up now...
Ditto cement.
It will be fascinating to see how many of the 1 in 10 restaurants lost we actually miss. Some no doubt, but my guess is they were the ones who didn't manage takeaway, haven't got customer retention and frankly, were a bit grim. If it's the bottom tenth of the market that goes and is replaced by a bunch of vibrant new efforts - some of which will fail, but some of which will be excellent - that is overall quite a positive for eating out.
The plague as a vehicle for Schumpeterian creative destruction. .
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
A pal of mine, a former list MSP for Lothian who was dropped down the list because he didn't kowtow adequately to the leadership, is a good example of the deficiencies of a system that gives far too much power to party bosses. This is why I for one have reservations about PR type systems.
David, certainly very obvious when you see the deadweights in Holyrood , a struggle to name more than a handful and half them are crap as well. I would be surprised some of them could tie their shoelaces.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
QTWAIN.
The government won't rule anything out (because never say never) but its not going to happen and this is media hysteria.
Government says "we don't rule out anything" so media responds by saying "do you rule out [insert hysterical suggestion here]" which gets a response of "we don't rule out anything" so media runs with "Government refuses to rule out [hysterical suggestion here]".
It is the media putting local lockdowns on the agenda, not the government.
Indeed. I can't stress strongly enough how written in stone 21 June is. There is no risk to it. The politics and the data are aligned. There'll be no delay and no local lockdowns. I'll suck some sweaty socks if I'm wrong.
I very much hope you're right. Intellectually I think you are, but I'm a bit traumatised by the last year or so.
As for "I'll suck some sweaty socks if I'm wrong", I misread that and did a bit of a double take...
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
I believe there's an expert in London who would point out that Hitler also had a policy of expulsion.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
Except it's not. The Palestinians are not going to disappear - even setting aside the West Bank and Gaza, 10% of Israel's population is Palestinian.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
When you send military/gangs to round up and expel people its rather easy for many of those people to be expelled via a couple of bullets rather than transport.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Business in the hospitality and catering sector (restaurants, pubs and hotels) are around three times more likely to fail than businesses as a whole, according to a study by chartered accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. In a study of over 150,000 UK business failures, it was found revealed that 15.5% of businesses in the UK hospitality and catering sector fail every year, compared to just 5.25% for the economy as a whole.
My son got an internship with the FCA last year. It was enlightening. The failure rate for financial services businesses is also much higher than is generally appreciated and the primary role of the regulator was seeking to ensure that these businesses had "good deaths" with the interests of the clients being protected. When you think of regulation the collapse of the business being regulated is not (at least for me) the most obvious concern but hard experience had taught them that this was where to start.
Many pubs and restaurants will not open their doors again under the previous management. But if they have a good location they will open with new ideas and capital.
Trouble is, most don't have a good location. One reason for high failure rate in catering is that the cheapest way to open a new one is to buy one that has just closed. Most importantly, the professional kitchen is already there. Trouble is, its location has not changed.
There are any number of takeaways round here which change hands every two or three years, once the owners have burned through their savings. And I really don't think they are all money-laundering fronts!
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
Except it's not. The Palestinians are not going to disappear - even setting aside the West Bank and Gaza, 10% of Israel's population is Palestinian.
And the Arabs in Israel can and do vote.
Just as the Arabs in Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. Although Israel's the only proper democracy in the region.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
When you send military/gangs to round up and expel people its rather easy for many of those people to be expelled via a couple of bullets rather than transport.
As many of the Palestinians living in their houses in the West Bank have found out.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
When you send military/gangs to round up and expel people its rather easy for many of those people to be expelled via a couple of bullets rather than transport.
As many of the Palestinians living in their houses in the West Bank have found out.
The Palestinians in the Israeli parts of the West Bank can go to the Courts and follow the rule of law there.
Unlike Tibet, Xinjian, Hong Kong, or anywhere else where this is happening. So lets all bash the Jews because they're the only problem in the world. 🙄
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Peston is a very useful contraindicator.
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
F1: it's Monaco, unfortunately, next. However, Perez has a good track record there and one of the Red Bull's main disadvantages is on straight line top end pace. This is not exactly a key feature of the tight processional circuit in Monte Carlo.
Accordingly, I've put tiny sums at 16 and 26 on Perez for the win and pole (both each way, odds with boost at Ladbrokes).
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
I think a PR operation that not only bombs news operations but gives them an hours warning so they can go outside and film it needs some serious rethinking.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
Business in the hospitality and catering sector (restaurants, pubs and hotels) are around three times more likely to fail than businesses as a whole, according to a study by chartered accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. In a study of over 150,000 UK business failures, it was found revealed that 15.5% of businesses in the UK hospitality and catering sector fail every year, compared to just 5.25% for the economy as a whole.
My son got an internship with the FCA last year. It was enlightening. The failure rate for financial services businesses is also much higher than is generally appreciated and the primary role of the regulator was seeking to ensure that these businesses had "good deaths" with the interests of the clients being protected. When you think of regulation the collapse of the business being regulated is not (at least for me) the most obvious concern but hard experience had taught them that this was where to start.
Many pubs and restaurants will not open their doors again under the previous management. But if they have a good location they will open with new ideas and capital.
Trouble is, most don't have a good location. One reason for high failure rate in catering is that the cheapest way to open a new one is to buy one that has just closed. Most importantly, the professional kitchen is already there. Trouble is, its location has not changed.
There are any number of takeaways round here which change hands every two or three years, once the owners have burned through their savings. And I really don't think they are all money-laundering fronts!
At the risk of over generalising the timing of that may have a lot to do with when the VAT man becomes rather insistent!
But I take your point. So many go into catering or the licensed trade without really thinking about why the last 5 businesses on that site failed and what they are going to be able to do that is so radically different.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Peston is a very useful contraindicator.
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
I missed it but apparently last week he suggested that DUP voters would switch to Sinn Fein?
Breaking down Chameleon's link by the politics he chose:
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither. 87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither 85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
Yes every death can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet. Not the terrorist group Hamas that has been launching thousands of rockets at Israel, they're not a part of the story at all are they? Its all the evil Jew's fault isn't it to you? There's only one side in the wrong and it better be the Jew because terrorists firing thousands of rockets don't cause deaths.
Give it a break. Maybe terrorists should stop launching thousands of rockets at the only Jewish state in the world? Maybe those terrorists should recognise Israel's right to exist? Even Biden rightly recognises Israel has a right to defend its own existance.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
It increasingly looks like the momentum of this year and the backlog of work will spill into next year giving reasonable growth then too. Boris should be nervous that 2023 may well be much more difficult as the Treasury try to dry up some of the red ink. A recession is not necessarily fatal to re-election (1992) but it is not great.
I suspect the chance of a recession in 2023 is quite miniscule.
If there is a lot of growth in 2021 and 2022 then that will create forward momentum to take firms and customers forward into 2023. If tax cuts (CT) have inspired a lot of growth and extra revenues then further tax giveaways in 2022 Budget to create more momentum in 2023 would be quite viable too.
You don't often get a new recession just three years after the last one.
This is not a normal situation and a lot of future expenditure (as well as deferred expenditure) is being brought forward by tax policies designed to make sure the economy gets moving right now. This is the right thing to do but there is a problem with eating the seed corn today.
I also frankly worry about the EU. Greece now has public debt in excess of 200% of GDP, much, much worse than it was in the last Euro crisis. Italy is over 150%. Both of those countries, and some others, have not really recovered from 2008 and not seen much in the way of growth for more than a decade. It is very hard to see this going on indefinitely without significant disruption.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Britain risks mirroring Italy’s economic woes unless it develops a strategy for tackling the five seismic changes that will shape a decisive decade for the country, a report has warned.
A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.
And yet the city consensus for nominal UK GDP growth is coalescing around 8% for this year and about 3% for next year.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
I talked to a chap at JCB - they are at capacity and the orders are pilling in. Seems like the tax write-off for plant and machinery is doing it's thing.
Yes, I've been seeing reports of that all over the economy. I'm worried that we'll go from feast to famine once it's over and CT rises.
It increasingly looks like the momentum of this year and the backlog of work will spill into next year giving reasonable growth then too. Boris should be nervous that 2023 may well be much more difficult as the Treasury try to dry up some of the red ink. A recession is not necessarily fatal to re-election (1992) but it is not great.
I suspect the chance of a recession in 2023 is quite miniscule.
If there is a lot of growth in 2021 and 2022 then that will create forward momentum to take firms and customers forward into 2023. If tax cuts (CT) have inspired a lot of growth and extra revenues then further tax giveaways in 2022 Budget to create more momentum in 2023 would be quite viable too.
You don't often get a new recession just three years after the last one.
This is not a normal situation and a lot of future expenditure (as well as deferred expenditure) is being brought forward by tax policies designed to make sure the economy gets moving right now. This is the right thing to do but there is a problem with eating the seed corn today.
I also frankly worry about the EU. Greece now has public debt in excess of 200% of GDP, much, much worse than it was in the last Euro crisis. Italy is over 150%. Both of those countries, and some others, have not really recovered from 2008 and not seen much in the way of growth for more than a decade. It is very hard to see this going on indefinitely without significant disruption.
The good thing though is that a lot of future investment expenditure is happening right now.
All that planet and machinery that is being invested in right now, all those JCB equipment being invested in etc - that's going to exist in 2023 and people are going to want to be doing something with it.
So the investment today will be creating activity in 2023. It isn't just consuming Chinese tat that expenditure is going on.
I agree that the EU will be facing problems for year's to come, thankfully we are out of that mess now and Brexit is done now, which will help shield us from some of the worst of the problems. Had we been in or worse had we joined the Euro then we'd be much more exposed. Of course its not going to be helpful to us by any means, but its not the be all and end all.
Breaking down Chameleon's link by the politics he chose:
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither. 87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither 85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
You can lose an election by what you say and do on this issue but you can't win one. The don't knows and the neithers must include all the 'boths', all three of which are entirely rational positions.
Politicians are limited in their options about a quarrel in which both sides are right and there are no solutions and the good people on both sides are mostly silent.
Meanwhile in Syria 380,000 people have been killed and 5 million displaced in a war where one side is backed by Russia. The relative silence about this is overwhelming.
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Peston is a very useful contraindicator.
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
I missed it but apparently last week he suggested that DUP voters would switch to Sinn Fein?
Awesome. I need meet Pesto and makes some political bets with him.
From Friday Denmark's opening up begins in earnest - we are well behind on vaccinations but there is a clear agreement across parties that now the vaccinations are happening we need to be free again - our 'coronapas' system for using restaurants etc will be withdrawn by August (except for travel), masks are going and there are sunset clauses for all corona related regulations - there is a determination to normalise, the only people opposed to the pace of unlocking are the Nye Borgerlige - the people who think the Dansk Folkparti aren't nationalist enough and want all rules removed now.
The UK mustn't allow itself to be scared into throwing away the benefit of a great vaccination programme by overreacting to new variants.
Breaking down Chameleon's link by the politics he chose:
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither. 87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither 85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
You can lose an election by what you say and do on this issue but you can't win one. The don't knows and the neithers must include all the 'boths', all three of which are entirely rational positions.
Politicians are limited in their options about a quarrel in which both sides are right and there are no solutions and the good people on both sides are mostly silent.
Indeed which is why politicians like Boris and Biden say the right thing "we want to see a de-escalation", "we want to see peace" - but Chameleon's dreams that Israel is going to be torn down by western public opinion - nope. The typical voter in the west rightly thinks its a mess and hopes it can be sorted out and goes on with their own lives and their own worries.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
Yes every death can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet. Not the terrorist group Hamas that has been launching thousands of rockets at Israel, they're not a part of the story at all are they? Its all the evil Jew's fault isn't it to you? There's only one side in the wrong and it better be the Jew because terrorists firing thousands of rockets don't cause deaths.
Give it a break. Maybe terrorists should stop launching thousands of rockets at the only Jewish state in the world? Maybe those terrorists should recognise Israel's right to exist? Even Biden rightly recognises Israel has a right to defend its own existance.
Wow, that is an utterly disgraceful post, and I hope that the mods look at it, for accusing someone of anti-semitism with absolutely no grounds is reprehensible, and minimisation of the unfortunately very real anti-semitism issues that British Jews have to deal with day in, day out.
Your purposeful muddling up of criticism of Israel and Judaism as a whole is no better than those anti-semites who make the same conflation and start threatening British Jews in the UK.
Netanyahu provoked this conflict in order to collapse the change coalition that involved centrist Israeli parties and Israeli Arab parties that was a couple of days away from ousting him, that is an indisputable fact.
Israel absolutely has a right to exist, and a right to defend themselves, but they also have an obligation to be responsible. We're not in the 1960/70s where Israel is a small state fighting for survival against much larger enemies, Israel is now the predominant regional power, and part of being a responsible regional power isn't using provoking conflict with a desperately poor group of people in order to shore up your domestic position, and then deciding to murder hundreds of them in order to prove a point.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
Except it's not. The Palestinians are not going to disappear - even setting aside the West Bank and Gaza, 10% of Israel's population is Palestinian.
And the Arabs in Israel can and do vote.
Just as the Arabs in Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. Although Israel's the only proper democracy in the region.
Which takes us back to what sparked the current hostilities. The expropriation of the property of Palestinian Israeli citizens under a law which benefits only Jewish Israeli citizens.
It's all very well to attack the Americans for their weird systems, but in the UK in 2019 the SNP got 1.25 m votes and 48 seats; the LDs got 3.67 m votes and 11 seats.
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
Whilst that is, imo at least, undemocratic as well, the fact it is the unfair result of a legacy system not designed by the beneficiary puts it in a completely different category to a new system designed by and for the beneficiary.
It's also a concentration of resources thing. If the Lib Dems had been able to concentrate all of their resources south of Watford Gap then they might have won more seats. Of course they can't because they have aspirations to be a national party in the way the SNP don't
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Peston is a very useful contraindicator.
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
I missed it but apparently last week he suggested that DUP voters would switch to Sinn Fein?
If anything moderate DUP voters would switch to the UUP, now the UUP have elected the relatively liberal Doug Beattie as their new leader. Poots would hope though he would win back more hardliners lost to the TUV than he loses moderates to the UUP and Alliance
Genocide of the Uighurs in China. Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. 400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan. Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
Personally my sympathies lie with both (or neither), Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas attacks and Palestinians have the right to not be evicted from East Jerusalem, hence sensibly more Britons sympathise with neither than Israel and Palestine combined and the rest don't know
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
Any solution has to be within the parameters of what is possible. The expulsion of Palestinians (like the expulsion of ethnic Germans) was horrible. But, had the Arabs won the war, then Palestine would now be entirely Jew-free. Those that were not expelled would have been killed.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
The account of an Egyptian cabinet meeting before 67 is interesting. Nasser was discussing hiring passenger ships to expel the Jews on, once Israel was defeated.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
I think the Arab solution to the Jewish Problem would have been identical to that pursued by Hitler.
No, it wouldn't. The cabinet talk in Egypt was indicative, but the agreed policy between the Arab states was expulsion. It would have been nasty, but that is what it was.
The German policy was strictly speaking, “resettlement.” People resort to euphemisms.
It's all very well to attack the Americans for their weird systems, but in the UK in 2019 the SNP got 1.25 m votes and 48 seats; the LDs got 3.67 m votes and 11 seats.
Gerrymandering takes many forms. I am sure Nicola thinks something should be done about it.
Whilst that is, imo at least, undemocratic as well, the fact it is the unfair result of a legacy system not designed by the beneficiary puts it in a completely different category to a new system designed by and for the beneficiary.
It's also a concentration of resources thing. If the Lib Dems had been able to concentrate all of their resources south of Watford Gap then they might have won more seats. Of course they can't because they have aspirations to be a national party in the way the SNP don't
The SNP are a national party. The clue's in the name.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
Yes every death can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet. Not the terrorist group Hamas that has been launching thousands of rockets at Israel, they're not a part of the story at all are they? Its all the evil Jew's fault isn't it to you? There's only one side in the wrong and it better be the Jew because terrorists firing thousands of rockets don't cause deaths.
Give it a break. Maybe terrorists should stop launching thousands of rockets at the only Jewish state in the world? Maybe those terrorists should recognise Israel's right to exist? Even Biden rightly recognises Israel has a right to defend its own existance.
Wow, that is an utterly disgraceful post, and I hope that the mods look at it, for accusing someone of anti-semitism with absolutely no grounds is reprehensible, and minimisation of the unfortunately very real anti-semitism issues that British Jews have to deal with day in, day out.
Your purposeful muddling up of criticism of Israel and Judaism as a whole is no better than those anti-semites who make the same conflation and start threatening British Jews in the UK.
Netanyahu provoked this conflict in order to collapse the change coalition that involved centrist Israeli parties and Israeli Arab parties that was a couple of days away from ousting him, that is an indisputable fact.
Israel absolutely has a right to exist, and a right to defend themselves, but they also have an obligation to be responsible. We're not in the 1960/70s where Israel is a small state fighting for survival against much larger enemies, Israel is now the predominant regional power, and part of being a responsible regional power isn't using provoking conflict with a desperately poor group of people in order to shore up your domestic position, and then deciding to murder hundreds of them in order to prove a point.
If the shoe fits. I stand by what I wrote and if the Mods want to look into it then let them.
If you're prepared to claim only one side is responsible for every single death in this conflict, rather than there being two sides to the story, then I can only see one reason to take that position.
Israel is a small state, a tiny state, fighting for its survival and Hamas (and it's backers like Iran) literally deny Israel's right to exist. If Israel acted like the Arabs and denied the Gazans right to exist this dispute would have ended decades ago.
Breaking down Chameleon's link by the politics he chose:
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither. 87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither 85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
You can lose an election by what you say and do on this issue but you can't win one. The don't knows and the neithers must include all the 'boths', all three of which are entirely rational positions.
Politicians are limited in their options about a quarrel in which both sides are right and there are no solutions and the good people on both sides are mostly silent.
Indeed which is why politicians like Boris and Biden say the right thing "we want to see a de-escalation", "we want to see peace" - but Chameleon's dreams that Israel is going to be torn down by western public opinion - nope. The typical voter in the west rightly thinks its a mess and hopes it can be sorted out and goes on with their own lives and their own worries.
Please stop putting words into my mouth. I entirely support Israel's right to exist, however Israel needs to act responsibly. And part of acting responsibly is to not provoke conflict with Palestinians in order to solve domestic political issues, and then responding by killing hundreds of them because they can.
Genocide of the Uighurs in China. Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. 400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan. Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
It's just more interesting. It's the international conflict version of El Clasico.
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36% Neither: 34% Palestine: 24% Israel: 9% Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
So 76% don't know, don't care, or say Israel?
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
I agree that Israel/Palestine isn't the sort of platform that wins elections, or even really gets people aside in the UK (and have said so *many* times).
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
Yes every death can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet. Not the terrorist group Hamas that has been launching thousands of rockets at Israel, they're not a part of the story at all are they? Its all the evil Jew's fault isn't it to you? There's only one side in the wrong and it better be the Jew because terrorists firing thousands of rockets don't cause deaths.
Give it a break. Maybe terrorists should stop launching thousands of rockets at the only Jewish state in the world? Maybe those terrorists should recognise Israel's right to exist? Even Biden rightly recognises Israel has a right to defend its own existance.
Wow, that is an utterly disgraceful post, and I hope that the mods look at it, for accusing someone of anti-semitism with absolutely no grounds is reprehensible, and minimisation of the unfortunately very real anti-semitism issues that British Jews have to deal with day in, day out.
Your purposeful muddling up of criticism of Israel and Judaism as a whole is no better than those anti-semites who make the same conflation and start threatening British Jews in the UK.
Netanyahu provoked this conflict in order to collapse the change coalition that involved centrist Israeli parties and Israeli Arab parties that was a couple of days away from ousting him, that is an indisputable fact.
Israel absolutely has a right to exist, and a right to defend themselves, but they also have an obligation to be responsible. We're not in the 1960/70s where Israel is a small state fighting for survival against much larger enemies, Israel is now the predominant regional power, and part of being a responsible regional power isn't using provoking conflict with a desperately poor group of people in order to shore up your domestic position, and then deciding to murder hundreds of them in order to prove a point.
Netanyahu is a shit of the first order, but Hamas bear equal responsibility.
Genocide of the Uighurs in China. Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. 400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan. Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
I don't think it is antisemitism (although some of it probably is). I actually think there is an element of holding democracies and, dare I say it, white people to higher standards.
As it happens I think the Israeli government is behaving pretty badly and stupidly. China generally gets a free pass because sadly it's priced in.
It seems to me that what we want from boundaries is the exact opposite of what politicians want. We want more marginal or swing seats so that our representatives are more accountable and changes in the national mood have practical effect. Safe seats are anathema to meaningful democracy.
What politicians want is job security and the ability to build a career over a couple of decades with a reasonably secure income. How many of us would want to run the risk of getting chucked out of our profession every 4-5 years? I actually have just the tiniest bit of sympathy to our political masters here. Politics has enough trouble attracting talent without increasing this variable.
In Scotland we have the list system. So Mungo Fraser lost to John Swinney in South Perthshire but is still an MSP anyway. Is this a pure democracy? Not really, if you define democracy by the ability to kick the bastards out. But it does allow a form of proportional representation for those that voted for Fraser and it does allow him some degree of certainty in his career.
When you see useless no mark clowns like Murdo who have lost 8 elections, coined in 7 figure sums and done the square root of nothing you realise the crappy Holyrood voting system is as bad if not much worse than FPTP. Just down to who your pals are in the "leadership".
A pal of mine, a former list MSP for Lothian who was dropped down the list because he didn't kowtow adequately to the leadership, is a good example of the deficiencies of a system that gives far too much power to party bosses. This is why I for one have reservations about PR type systems.
David, certainly very obvious when you see the deadweights in Holyrood , a struggle to name more than a handful and half them are crap as well. I would be surprised some of them could tie their shoelaces.
On one view tying shoe laces is more complicated than asking inane questions of imbecilic Ministers to receive banal answers. It's certainly more productive.
Genocide of the Uighurs in China. Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. 400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan. Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
I'd argue that a large part of it is because we fund the Israeli state, so it's something that the UK and US (well, only really the US) could prevent, but choose not to (I suppose Yemen also falls into that bucket, which is why there's still a lot of talk about it).
UK environment secretary George Eustice has not ruled out the prospect of local lockdowns being imposed in response to the coronavirus variant first discovered in India.
PA Media reports Eustice told Sky News that the government could not rule out some areas being held back as restrictions are eased elsewhere.
So we are going to have to endure local lockdowns because Johnson didn't put India on Red List and a load of people don't want to take the vaccine?
Have I got that right?
I'm very tempted to say Eustace can do one. It aint happening.
There’s just too much conjecture at the moment. Yes, variant cases are rising, but in the context of signs that cases overall are dropping. Peston last night appears to have spoken to a member of SAGE and really put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Peston is a very useful contraindicator.
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
I missed it but apparently last week he suggested that DUP voters would switch to Sinn Fein?
If anything moderate DUP voters would switch to the UUP, now the UUP have elected the relatively liberal Doug Beattie as their new leader. Poots would hope though he would win back more hardliners lost to the TUV than he loses moderates to the UUP and Alliance
I suspect that one has to look at the age range of voters. I believe quite a lot of DUP will never vote for anyone else if there isn't an election within a couple of years.
Breaking down Chameleon's link by the politics he chose:
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither. 87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither 85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
You can lose an election by what you say and do on this issue but you can't win one. The don't knows and the neithers must include all the 'boths', all three of which are entirely rational positions.
Politicians are limited in their options about a quarrel in which both sides are right and there are no solutions and the good people on both sides are mostly silent.
Indeed which is why politicians like Boris and Biden say the right thing "we want to see a de-escalation", "we want to see peace" - but Chameleon's dreams that Israel is going to be torn down by western public opinion - nope. The typical voter in the west rightly thinks its a mess and hopes it can be sorted out and goes on with their own lives and their own worries.
Please stop putting words into my mouth. I entirely support Israel's right to exist, however Israel needs to act responsibly. And part of acting responsibly is to not provoke conflict with Palestinians in order to solve domestic political issues, and then responding by killing hundreds of them because they can.
Israel didn't provoke the conflict.
Hamas is attacking Israel because Hamas denies Israel's right to exist.
The Palestinian authorities cancelled their own scheduled elections on a pretence.
The notion Netanyahu is behind Hamas denying Israel's right exist is a stretch even for racists.
So despite Brexit and 16 months of a global pandemic, involving multiple forced business closures during lockdowns, the unemployment rate in this Country is just 4.8% and falling.
Scott must be seething.
Furlough until Sep.
1 in 10 restaurants won't reopen.
Sounds like just a stat but that is a hell of a lot of restaurants.
If you take a moment to walk away from the statistical survey of your wife's hospital occupancy levels (vital to know, these past few months) and down the local high street we would be interested to hear of your findings.
My findings on the Construction Industry which I have been reporting on here for months is that it is booming, wages are massively up, there is huge pent up demand in the Country, lots of people with lots of money to spend, the restaurant industry will recover very quickly.
Hearing and been seeing the same thing with the construction industry in London. The rates of pay are soaring....
A problem was that some supply firms furloughed everyone and went home for the duration. When it turned out in the middle of lockdown that there was actually a huge demand for building work (both domestic and small commercial), they tried to only bring back a skeleton staff. At one point the country nearly ran out of plaster board, due to this.... They seem to have woken up now...
Ditto cement.
It will be fascinating to see how many of the 1 in 10 restaurants lost we actually miss. Some no doubt, but my guess is they were the ones who didn't manage takeaway, haven't got customer retention and frankly, were a bit grim. If it's the bottom tenth of the market that goes and is replaced by a bunch of vibrant new efforts - some of which will fail, but some of which will be excellent - that is overall quite a positive for eating out.
It will vary. One of our favourite places to eat out in Edinburgh threw in the towel early on. But then a previous favourite place was replaced by another tourist cashmere shop years ago, so there's always a degree of attrition of popular restaurants/cafes.
A temporary shortage of competition is likely to mean that some businesses that don't deserve to survive manage to for longer than they otherwise would - but it's the sort of sector where long-term damage is least likely.
It is however, completely unrealistic. It would be like expecting the Poles and Czechs to accept that millions of Germans should return to Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland.
Expecting the Palestinian problem simply to disappear is equally unrealistic.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
The more I think about it, the more my mad idea to build more land there seems like the only sensible solution.
The only viable solution I see is never suggested, a "three state solution".
The international community recognises Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the bits of the West Bank they've annexed, and Israel's right to exist.
The Gaza Strip returns to Egypt.
The West Bank returns to Jordan.
If a "Palestinian state" is to be created then let the Arab states sort that out rather than the Israelis. They're the ones that prevented a Palestinian state from being created in the first place in 1948, not Israel, afterall.
I'm pretty sure the other arab states really don't want that. The Palestinians are a tool to beat Israel for them.
Genocide of the Uighurs in China. Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. 400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan. Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
I don't think it is antisemitism (although some of it probably is). I actually think there is an element of holding democracies and, dare I say it, white people to higher standards.
As it happens I think the Israeli government is behaving pretty badly and stupidly. China generally gets a free pass because sadly it's priced in.
I would agree with that up to a point. Jews are like us. They should know better. There is an underlying racism in the value judgments but the obsessive focus on the problems of that benighted land also seems to be driven by anti-Semitism.
And I agree about the Israeli government. They are acting like a domestic abuser: "look what you made me do now".
Comments
Those who want to buy 100% British (or British and Irish) meat, like McDonald's and many supermarkets, will continue to do so.
Those who don't will find their European imports being competed against with Australian and NZ imports, which can only be a good thing.
Qualifying ought to be quite entertaining this year, as there's the potential for any one of four or even five teams to take pole if the nail the setup. (Though in reality it's going to be Hamilton vs Verstappen.)
And room for upsets in Q1.
"SAGE remains seemingly over-influenced by a group of Left-leaning scientists who have been quietly advocating a Zero Covid approach, with little regard for the consequences."
"many have called for a new committee to weigh Sage advice on the risks of lockdown easing against the costs of roadmap delays. It has never materialised."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/17/variant-caution-risks-becoming-excuse-never-return-normality/
We shall see who can afford the new homes. You can probably tell us some of the affordability/profitability calcs from the perspective of a developer? Would be v interesting - ie marginal costs/revenue & floor sales price that makes it all worthwhile?
The government won't rule anything out (because never say never) but its not going to happen and this is media hysteria.
Government says "we don't rule out anything" so media responds by saying "do you rule out [insert hysterical suggestion here]" which gets a response of "we don't rule out anything" so media runs with "Government refuses to rule out [hysterical suggestion here]".
It is the media putting local lockdowns on the agenda, not the government.
https://www.cabi.org/leisuretourism/news/16715#:~:text=Annual rate of failure three times all-business average&text=In a study of over,the economy as a whole.
The academics and think tank people always forget to take real people and real behaviour into account for their forecasting.
Around my area, it seems to be the rule of thumb that the businesses that had a natural, solid basis - good footfall etc - used the lockdown (and cheap loans) to do rip out and redo, where they needed it.
The shops and businesses that seemed just to hang didn't and are generally gone.
The article might present no compelling solutions, but it does give a rather more balanced narrative about how we arrived at the present situation.
If the 10% is without replacement (or with little replacement) that is quite a big issue. However, the story didn't really tell us that (as far as I saw anyway) and, whilst I assume opening rates have been quite a bit lower than usual, it may not necessarily be the case (oddly enough, several have opened or are in the process of refit near to me).
For example, imposing rules on whether people can visit other people's private homes was absurd. Mostly this has been observed by people because they are afraid (sometimes with good reason), or because they're the sort of people who would follow government advice.
These rules have tended to be self-imposed to a degree by people in advance of the government doing so, and also loosened in advance of the official restrictions being lifted. Having these rules enforced by law has made very little difference.
At the other end of the scale, it is relatively easy for the government to regulate whether, and in what conditions, people enter the country, but it's shown very little interest in imposing such rules, or doing so effectively. While people unable to visit a pub may end up drinking at each other's homes, very few people will be finding ways to break border control.
I think there are general lessons about using regulation where it will be most effective, and then not reaching for the law when working with people's cooperation will be more realistic.
Many pubs and restaurants will not open their doors again under the previous management. But if they have a good location they will open with new ideas and capital.
An interesting case-study is York, with the (unique, I think) arrangement of one consituency ("Inner", Labour) completely surrounded by another ("Outer", Conservative). In most cities it would be East and West or North and South. In York those would, I guess, be quite evenly balanced rather than two safe seats, so York might end up with two Labour or two Conservative MPs, which would be a distortion of the local political balance.
The international community recognises Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the bits of the West Bank they've annexed, and Israel's right to exist.
The Gaza Strip returns to Egypt.
The West Bank returns to Jordan.
If a "Palestinian state" is to be created then let the Arab states sort that out rather than the Israelis. They're the ones that prevented a Palestinian state from being created in the first place in 1948, not Israel, afterall.
Wikipedia 'The Jewish Chronicle' in the paragraph titled '2020' is worth looking at. I heard the BBC interview Stephen Pollard yesterday and it was pathetic. Walking on eggshells doesn't come close to describing it. The link between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism is now complete.
If there is a lot of growth in 2021 and 2022 then that will create forward momentum to take firms and customers forward into 2023. If tax cuts (CT) have inspired a lot of growth and extra revenues then further tax giveaways in 2022 Budget to create more momentum in 2023 would be quite viable too.
You don't often get a new recession just three years after the last one.
When two peoples fight over land, one side wins and the other loses, and it’s a zero sum.
Why should the only Jewish state in a sea of Arab states provide the solution to the Arab "refugees"?
It will be fascinating to see how many of the 1 in 10 restaurants lost we actually miss. Some no doubt, but my guess is they were the ones who didn't manage takeaway, haven't got customer retention and frankly, were a bit grim. If it's the bottom tenth of the market that goes and is replaced by a bunch of vibrant new efforts - some of which will fail, but some of which will be excellent - that is overall quite a positive for eating out.
Other members of the cabinet suggest using cattle transport ships. And not many of those - since there wouldn't be that many passengers...
As for "I'll suck some sweaty socks if I'm wrong", I misread that and did a bit of a double take...
The Palestinians are not going to disappear - even setting aside the West Bank and Gaza, 10% of Israel's population is Palestinian.
Anyhow I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s gone more cloudy
There are any number of takeaways round here which change hands every two or three years, once the owners have burned through their savings. And I really don't think they are all money-laundering fronts!
Just as the Arabs in Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. Although Israel's the only proper democracy in the region.
Unlike Tibet, Xinjian, Hong Kong, or anywhere else where this is happening. So lets all bash the Jews because they're the only problem in the world. 🙄
Their approval levels in the UK are sub-Corbyn (https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/sympathies-for-the-israelis-palestinian-conflict)
Thinking only of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, do your own sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?
DK: 36%
Neither: 34%
Palestine: 24%
Israel: 9%
Breaking it down by politics, 19% of Con voters' sympathies lie with Israel, 16% of Leave, 22% of 65+.
And similar things are happening in the US, you can already see it in the Dem party. What happens when US support gets cut off?
If he says that 21 June is going ahead, then panic. Otherwise, relax.
I think that Israel can live with that. Maybe British voters simply give a shit about issue that affect Britons? Maybe banging on about Israel isn't an election winning platform?
However the point I was making is that Israel exists at the mercy of the US, and if they want to retain that (increasingly wavering) support, maybe they should stop murdering hundreds of children because of an internal power struggle (coalition building).
Every death in this conflict, be they Palestinian or Israeli, can be laid directly at Netanyahu's feet.
But I take your point. So many go into catering or the licensed trade without really thinking about why the last 5 businesses on that site failed and what they are going to be able to do that is so radically different.
Not a bet I'd take.
88% of Con voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
87% of Leave voters say Israel, Don't Know or Neither
85% of 65+ say Israel, Don't Know or Neither.
I suspect Israel can live with that. Maybe part and parcel of why having your MPs banging on about Palestine all the time doesn't win elections.
Although the lout has spun much less since I backed him to DNF.
Give it a break. Maybe terrorists should stop launching thousands of rockets at the only Jewish state in the world? Maybe those terrorists should recognise Israel's right to exist? Even Biden rightly recognises Israel has a right to defend its own existance.
I also frankly worry about the EU. Greece now has public debt in excess of 200% of GDP, much, much worse than it was in the last Euro crisis. Italy is over 150%. Both of those countries, and some others, have not really recovered from 2008 and not seen much in the way of growth for more than a decade. It is very hard to see this going on indefinitely without significant disruption.
All that planet and machinery that is being invested in right now, all those JCB equipment being invested in etc - that's going to exist in 2023 and people are going to want to be doing something with it.
So the investment today will be creating activity in 2023. It isn't just consuming Chinese tat that expenditure is going on.
I agree that the EU will be facing problems for year's to come, thankfully we are out of that mess now and Brexit is done now, which will help shield us from some of the worst of the problems. Had we been in or worse had we joined the Euro then we'd be much more exposed. Of course its not going to be helpful to us by any means, but its not the be all and end all.
Politicians are limited in their options about a quarrel in which both sides are right and there are no solutions and the good people on both sides are mostly silent.
Meanwhile in Syria 380,000 people have been killed and 5 million displaced in a war where one side is backed by Russia. The relative silence about this is overwhelming.
The UK mustn't allow itself to be scared into throwing away the benefit of a great vaccination programme by overreacting to new variants.
Your purposeful muddling up of criticism of Israel and Judaism as a whole is no better than those anti-semites who make the same conflation and start threatening British Jews in the UK.
Netanyahu provoked this conflict in order to collapse the change coalition that involved centrist Israeli parties and Israeli Arab parties that was a couple of days away from ousting him, that is an indisputable fact.
Israel absolutely has a right to exist, and a right to defend themselves, but they also have an obligation to be responsible. We're not in the 1960/70s where Israel is a small state fighting for survival against much larger enemies, Israel is now the predominant regional power, and part of being a responsible regional power isn't using provoking conflict with a desperately poor group of people in order to shore up your domestic position, and then deciding to murder hundreds of them in order to prove a point.
The expropriation of the property of Palestinian Israeli citizens under a law which benefits only Jewish Israeli citizens.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/new-uup-leader-doug-beattie-pledges-to-bring-party-into-21stcentury-with-new-liberal-vision-40437771.html
Unspeakable barbarity by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen.
400k dead and 2m refugees in the Sudan.
Several million Syrians still in refugee camps.
But let's talk about Israel. Again. And again. To the exclusion of so much else. Why is that exactly?
If you're prepared to claim only one side is responsible for every single death in this conflict, rather than there being two sides to the story, then I can only see one reason to take that position.
Israel is a small state, a tiny state, fighting for its survival and Hamas (and it's backers like Iran) literally deny Israel's right to exist. If Israel acted like the Arabs and denied the Gazans right to exist this dispute would have ended decades ago.
As it happens I think the Israeli government is behaving pretty badly and stupidly. China generally gets a free pass because sadly it's priced in.
The Monégasque marshals are very good at cleaning things up quickly using the VSC, unless there’s a big crash.
Hamas is attacking Israel because Hamas denies Israel's right to exist.
The Palestinian authorities cancelled their own scheduled elections on a pretence.
The notion Netanyahu is behind Hamas denying Israel's right exist is a stretch even for racists.
A temporary shortage of competition is likely to mean that some businesses that don't deserve to survive manage to for longer than they otherwise would - but it's the sort of sector where long-term damage is least likely.
And I agree about the Israeli government. They are acting like a domestic abuser: "look what you made me do now".