Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
Philip is lots of things but he is not a liberal or a Liberal.
Philip is one of if not the most Consistent supporters of Freedom in all its forms on the site.
given that the word liberal means 'off and pertaining to freedom' I think it is a very accurate description.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are more of a liberal than a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
I should hope not, being pubbed was one of the grievances raised in Magna Carta.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
Philip is lots of things but he is not a liberal or a Liberal.
He is certainly a libertarian, even if a pro Brexit one
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final year to only pay £1k per year in fees, my wife went to university in Switzerland and got paid an annual grant and then got a grant here for her master's degree. The freedom of not having £50k in debt the day you graduate is definitely something the current generation are missing. The politicians and old c**** who decided that getting an 8% pension increase was more important than keeping university affordable. Even when I speak to my juniors about it the £45-50k debt they've got definitely figures into their subconscious way of life. It's £35k I didn't have to pay back which helped me get on the housing ladder and these lot are all on relatively decent salaries for their age but the idea of them actually saving any money let alone buying a flat seems completely out of reach.
Along with the fear of social media cancellation I can see why they're so boring. My years as a junior banker and before that a software developer were incredible. I would never have met my wife without them as I would simply have not had the social skills to attract her. One of my juniors is 24 and basically "holy shit, cheat on your wife" worthy (not that I would, of course, though you probably would lol) but she just has no social skills and is incapable of holding even the most basic conversation without looking at her phone or worrying about what people on her social media are saying. I don't see any guy being interested in her for more than two minutes and it's sad because she's really lovely otherwise, super smart, funny in her own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehaviour so funny?
It's an odd thing, but certainly true. At lunch yesterday I was swapping stories with a friend, and the one that really cracked him up was the one, a couple of weeks ago in Spain, where I was at an official wine tasting and I got so drunk I decided to take a "short cut" back to the hotel THROUGH the vineyard as it seemed the quickest way, and when I woke up I only realised what I'd done when I saw my car was covered with crushed grapes
We told lots of stories but that one got the biggest laugh, despite it being really quite juvenile and wanky
So, why do we laugh so hard at bad behaviour? And how will young people make each other laugh, in that hard, satisfying way, if they have no outrageous stories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
Pubs serve beer.
If anyone is genuinely interested, this is an article that offers an explanation of it:
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
Philip is lots of things but he is not a liberal or a Liberal.
He is certainly a libertarian, even if a pro Brexit one
Almost by definition, a libertarian would be pro-Brexit
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Could this be Libertarians moving/returning to the LD because of there opposition to COVID Passports?
or just noise?
Probably just noise,
It would be great to see the Lib Dems actually embrace liberalism.
I'm getting increasingly fed up with my own party turning its back on it.
It would feel great to have a party to that one could fully embrace and though support behind. however I fear that as libertarians we are and probably always will be a minority. Is it better to be in minority and compromise in a party that has power, or be more consistent advocates of policy's that are retinal, but outside government. I don't know,
But I left the Conservatives over the lockdowns, I suspect ill still vote for them next time, but by vote and support are up for grabs, all the LD need to do is look at what liberalism means and stick to it, at least some of the time, which to be fair they are with this.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
Huge attention in the media does not equate to the nation paying attention to a venal embittered man.
The largely Remain-voting media hated Dom with a passion. Witness his road trip to Barnard Castle and their collective glee at putting the boot in.
And NOW they hang on his every word.
Funny old world, Greavsie.....
Because they hate Johnson too. It's not that paradoxical.
Ah, "Dr" Walter Mitty (Oxon) I assume? How are ya?
Ah! Captain nanopenis, as I live and breathe.
I have an Oxford degree, a PhD from Exeter. You think I am lying about that, and I have bet you £10k that I am telling the truth. And ooh, it turns out that you "don't bet", just as I assume that people who go to the pub with you soon learn that you don't buy rounds.
Take the bet, or admit that your penis is converging on the Planck length. I mean why wouldn't you? Free money, surely?
Took a while to respond Walter! I couldn't give a shit about your very small minded life and your qualifications you pompous little creep or where you got them from.
By the way, why are you ashamed you didn't get your PhD from Oxford? Was mummy disappointed? I have spent a good part of my recent career using a methodology to spot charlatans and bullshitters, for which I have been paid sums that would disturb your sense of entitlement. The corporations that paid for them would be no doubt unconcerned that a pathetic and unpleasant little weasel with a penis size fixation from PB who wanted to pretend he had a PhD from an Oxford college though I was "not very bright" Lol.
You are a pathetic specimen. Whatever your PhD is in from Exeter it clearly wasn't studying anything that has made you a decent human being. Keep taking the tablets Walter!
Sorry, microdick, you can't do this. At all, but especially not on a wagering website. You call me a liar, you take the bet. I suspect the original sum was a bit more overfacing for you than it is for me, so shall we say £100?
Oxford does not award PhDs. Oxford colleges don't award degrees at all, the University does. I'd expect you to know both those facts, if you interview job applicants with Oxford doctorates? My guess is that in reality you are the paid secretary of a failing downmarket golf club in the shittier end of Essex, on a commensurate salary.
But you really need to take that bet. No way round it.
haha, dream on you sad little man. You are so desperate about your qualifications, and guess what no one cares! I didn't call you a liar, you admitted you pretended to have a doctorate from Oxford, when you don't. How sad is that? What next would you like us to believe? member of SAS? MI6? Nope, I have got it, GCHQ. That should suit someone who is obsessed by qualifications. Oh, hang on, Exeter! Oxbridge only old bean!
Here is a bit of advice from this "not very bright " chap. 1) Don't boast about qualifications: it just makes you look like a wanker. 2) Don't pretend you have had experience you haven't; someone will spot it even on an anonymous site, and you will look like a wanker 3) if you really want people to think you are clever try using humour; this is clearly difficult for you, 4) stop being jealous of others because your PhD (assuming you have one) has been such a disappointment to you. Try not to spare with people who are clearly better debaters than you are (most on this site) you will always lose and look an even bigger dickhead than you are.
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
Huge attention in the media does not equate to the nation paying attention to a venal embittered man.
The largely Remain-voting media hated Dom with a passion. Witness his road trip to Barnard Castle and their collective glee at putting the boot in.
And NOW they hang on his every word.
Funny old world, Greavsie.....
Because they hate Johnson too. It's not that paradoxical.
Ah, "Dr" Walter Mitty (Oxon) I assume? How are ya?
Ah! Captain nanopenis, as I live and breathe.
I have an Oxford degree, a PhD from Exeter. You think I am lying about that, and I have bet you £10k that I am telling the truth. And ooh, it turns out that you "don't bet", just as I assume that people who go to the pub with you soon learn that you don't buy rounds.
Take the bet, or admit that your penis is converging on the Planck length. I mean why wouldn't you? Free money, surely?
Took a while to respond Walter! I couldn't give a shit about your very small minded life and your qualifications you pompous little creep or where you got them from.
By the way, why are you ashamed you didn't get your PhD from Oxford? Was mummy disappointed? I have spent a good part of my recent career using a methodology to spot charlatans and bullshitters, for which I have been paid sums that would disturb your sense of entitlement. The corporations that paid for them would be no doubt unconcerned that a pathetic and unpleasant little weasel with a penis size fixation from PB who wanted to pretend he had a PhD from an Oxford college though I was "not very bright" Lol.
You are a pathetic specimen. Whatever your PhD is in from Exeter it clearly wasn't studying anything that has made you a decent human being. Keep taking the tablets Walter!
Sorry, microdick, you can't do this. At all, but especially not on a wagering website. You call me a liar, you take the bet. I suspect the original sum was a bit more overfacing for you than it is for me, so shall we say £100?
Oxford does not award PhDs. Oxford colleges don't award degrees at all, the University does. I'd expect you to know both those facts, if you interview job applicants with Oxford doctorates? My guess is that in reality you are the paid secretary of a failing downmarket golf club in the shittier end of Essex, on a commensurate salary.
But you really need to take that bet. No way round it.
haha, dream on you sad little man. You are so desperate about your qualifications, and guess what no one cares! I didn't call you a liar, you admitted you pretended to have a doctorate from Oxford, when you don't. How sad is that? What next would you like us to believe? member of SAS? MI6? Nope, I have got it, GCHQ. That should suit someone who is obsessed by qualifications. Oh, hang on, Exeter! Oxbridge only old bean!
Here is a bit of advice from this "not very bright " chap. 1) Don't boast about qualifications: it just makes you look like a wanker. 2) Don't pretend you have had experience you haven't; someone will spot it even on an anonymous site, and you will look like a wanker 3) if you really want people to think you are clever try using humour; this is clearly difficult for you, 4) stop being jealous of others because your PhD (assuming you have one) has been such a disappointment to you. Try not to spare with people who are clearly better debaters than you are (most on this site) you will always lose and look an even bigger dickhead than you are.
And on that bombshell, good night!
Is there a private forum somewhere for you two to continue your spat?
Surprisingly good news for restaurants and pubs in June 2021 (not so good for bars alone). In comparison with June 2019, overall sales were UP for restaurants, and down only a couple of percent for pubs. Bars down 10%.
What's the difference between a pub and a bar?
You can get barred from a pub, but I’ve never been pubbed from a bar.
Pubs serve beer.
So what do bars serve?
Expensive beer?
Yes. AKA lager.
That’s not expensive beer, that’s overpriced cat piss.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Cummings goes on about red teams, but he himself would make a brilliant devil's advocate. "The prime minister’s only agenda is buy more trains, buy more buses, have more bikes and build the world’s most stupid tunnel to Ireland. That’s it." In itself that's not particularly interesting, but it's exactly the kind of attitude you want from a political advocatus diaboli. Less kind words include "fool" and "jester".
PS Is there anything accurate in his angle on Carrie? Or did he just not see her coming and then start to imagine stuff?
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Hmmm...that’s a hard one.
At least he came to a happy ending.
They should have landed in the same place as Yuri Gargarin.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Judging by the polls, 71% of my fellow citizens are happy to turn me into a second class citizen with vaxx passports. No clubs (as if), pubs, theatres or maybe even work for me come the autumn.
I think my last hope is the economy. Can the Johnson regime get Britain up to anything like full speed under this settlement?
We shall see.
Some would argue you have chosen to be a second class citizen. If one choses not to have internet connectivity and/or a smartphone one denies oneself services. This is not the majority denying the person. It is a simple self-imposed refusal to adapt to the times.
3G will be turned off in the next few years so those of us (including me) who use dumb phones will need to start saving up hundreds of pounds for an iphone or Galaxy.
Judging by the polls, 71% of my fellow citizens are happy to turn me into a second class citizen with vaxx passports. No clubs (as if), pubs, theatres or maybe even work for me come the autumn.
I think my last hope is the economy. Can the Johnson regime get Britain up to anything like full speed under this settlement?
We shall see.
Some would argue you have chosen to be a second class citizen. If one choses not to have internet connectivity and/or a smartphone one denies oneself services. This is not the majority denying the person. It is a simple self-imposed refusal to adapt to the times.
3G will be turned off in the next few years so those of us (including me) who use dumb phones will need to start saving up hundreds of pounds for an iphone or Galaxy.
So you will go from a dumb phone to a dumber phone?
Judging by the polls, 71% of my fellow citizens are happy to turn me into a second class citizen with vaxx passports. No clubs (as if), pubs, theatres or maybe even work for me come the autumn.
I think my last hope is the economy. Can the Johnson regime get Britain up to anything like full speed under this settlement?
We shall see.
Some would argue you have chosen to be a second class citizen. If one choses not to have internet connectivity and/or a smartphone one denies oneself services. This is not the majority denying the person. It is a simple self-imposed refusal to adapt to the times.
3G will be turned off in the next few years so those of us (including me) who use dumb phones will need to start saving up hundreds of pounds for an iphone or Galaxy.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Hmmm...that’s a hard one.
At least he came to a happy ending.
They should have landed in the same place as Yuri Gargarin.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Point of order: it was peasants at the end of Yuri Gagarin's flight. It was the Yank astronauts who had the joy of a matelots' welcome (after the chimps before them, admittedly).
It would be great to see the Lib Dems actually embrace liberalism.
I'm getting increasingly fed up with my own party turning its back on it.
It would feel great to have a party to that one could fully embrace and though support behind. however I fear that as libertarians we are and probably always will be a minority. Is it better to be in minority and compromise in a party that has power, or be more consistent advocates of policy's that are retinal, but outside government. I don't know,
But I left the Conservatives over the lockdowns, I suspect ill still vote for them next time, but by vote and support are up for grabs, all the LD need to do is look at what liberalism means and stick to it, at least some of the time, which to be fair they are with this.
Ah, yes, the "I'd vote for the Liberal Democrats if they were really liberal" excuse.
It's been my experience everyone has their own "definition" of liberalism (the same seems to be true of conservatism currently as well). What it is to be a liberal has changed a lot in the past 150 years - whether you read Mill or not.
I may not be a paid-up member any longer but the win at Chesham & Amersham was encouraging and I've been broadly happy with the Party's approach on coronavirus - there's clearly a majority in the country for restrictions but the argument for individual responsibility and personal choice has to be made. The current Conservative "nanny state" interventionist approach is a world away from past Conservative incarnations.
I am quite sure that Cummo’s account is accurate and correct, and that any thinking person should consider the failings in the way that our PM has been running the country most seriously.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
Anarchist band Scritti Politti used to live in a squat at 1 Carol Street, Camden Town back in the late 70s / early 80s. Useless fact.
Nothing useless about that fact at all. I'll tell you a useless fact. There's a strong correlation between life expectancy and being able to sit in the lotus position.
As in if you desire to sit in the lotus position you are probably tired off life?
From that, I'm sensing you can't. A great pity. There are downsides but the benefits outweigh them easily.
I wouldn't know because never bothered trying or wanted to try....why the hell would I.....hey here is an idea sit in a totally unnatural and uncomfortable position because....why?
Because it's great for both body and spirit. If you persevere it ends up feeling completely natural, so no problem there. And it does add years to life. Not that I should talk, I can't manage it either. If I'd started doing it whilst young and kept it up - just a few minutes a day - I'd be able to do it now, but I didn't, so I can't. It's too late for me, sadly, but perhaps for you it isn't.
Source of a reputable study showing it adds years to life or are you merely another rural voter peddling snake oil
There are studies - good ones - but tbf they show correlation not causation. Take 100 people who can and do sit in the lotus position and cf with 100 of the same age who can't or don't. The 1st group live quite a bit longer. But this could to an extent be because of other factors, eg if you are very lazy and unfit you'll be both more likely to die early AND be unable to do the lotus. So it's next to impossible to unravel the bollocks from the real impact. I did say it was a useless fact. 🙃
I think it is fairly easy to explain. The average person capable of doing the lotus position is likely to be lean and probably fairly fit. In UK, 28% of people are obese, and 36% are overweight. The longer life expectancy of a lotus position practitioner is likely to be considerably longer than 64% of the population.
Yes fair enough. But I do think there's something in it and if I had my time over again this is one of the many things I'd change about how I've approached things - more lotus position and start it young.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Hmmm...that’s a hard one.
At least he came to a happy ending.
They should have landed in the same place as Yuri Gargarin.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Point of order: it was peasants at the end of Yuri Gagarin's flight. It was the Yank astronauts who had the joy of a matelots' welcome (after the chimps before them, admittedly).
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
I am quite sure that Cummo’s account is accurate and correct, and that any thinking person should consider the failings in the way that our PM has been running the country most seriously.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
But it begs one obvious question - if he was trying to remove the PM within weeks of the election, how come he was not only still running his own agenda (exhibit A: Sajid Javid) but clearly also working through the PM for months afterwards?
If it was to limit the damage, then it backfired. Possibly partly because Cummings himself while arrogant and ambitious is neither especially intelligent nor very well informed, But also because, as with Henry VI, a dud leader is a dud leader.
Indeed, the most striking evidence against Cummings’ narrative that he’s wonderful and Johnson is hopeless and only he stood between the country and disaster is that things have been running rather more smoothly since he left.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Oh great, so in your eyes it is right that people should pay even more tax in order to protect the inheritance a few people might get?
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Dead easy to do, unfortunately. All you need is a phone with the date and time manually altered.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
Judging by the polls, 71% of my fellow citizens are happy to turn me into a second class citizen with vaxx passports. No clubs (as if), pubs, theatres or maybe even work for me come the autumn.
I think my last hope is the economy. Can the Johnson regime get Britain up to anything like full speed under this settlement?
We shall see.
Some would argue you have chosen to be a second class citizen. If one choses not to have internet connectivity and/or a smartphone one denies oneself services. This is not the majority denying the person. It is a simple self-imposed refusal to adapt to the times.
3G will be turned off in the next few years so those of us (including me) who use dumb phones will need to start saving up hundreds of pounds for an iphone or Galaxy.
3G can go, but I'd hope that 2G will stay. There's a lot of devices out there with embedded 2G radios (emergency alarms, remote monitoring etc etc).
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Temp was 30 plus in our office today, never felt as uncomfortably hot working as I have today. Windows open but it felt like there was just no fresh air coming in and Fans just recirculating warm air. Horrible.
Judging by the polls, 71% of my fellow citizens are happy to turn me into a second class citizen with vaxx passports. No clubs (as if), pubs, theatres or maybe even work for me come the autumn.
I think my last hope is the economy. Can the Johnson regime get Britain up to anything like full speed under this settlement?
We shall see.
Some would argue you have chosen to be a second class citizen. If one choses not to have internet connectivity and/or a smartphone one denies oneself services. This is not the majority denying the person. It is a simple self-imposed refusal to adapt to the times.
3G will be turned off in the next few years so those of us (including me) who use dumb phones will need to start saving up hundreds of pounds for an iphone or Galaxy.
Or just opt out altogether I don't really have to have a phone its only for the convenience of my father when he goes I have no more need of one as plenty of online ways to message
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Dead easy to do, unfortunately. All you need is a phone with the date and time manually altered.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
*I’m not going bail for Hitler or Himmler there.
Yes I know that you can fake a text message. So why has Number 10 not destroyed this "evidence" as a fabrication? Because it isn't a fabrication...
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Dead easy to do, unfortunately. All you need is a phone with the date and time manually altered.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
*I’m not going bail for Hitler or Himmler there.
Remember when he edited his blog to make it look like he predicted the pandemic.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
No-one is forcing anyone. If you want to turn down the government provided social care you can do. If you want to pay for that social care out of pocket you can do.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
But if the last six years have shown us anything, it's that feels beats evidence. Traumatic for those of us who believe in objective reality, but there you are.
If Dom really wants to set cats among pigeons, I can think of two things he could try saying.
1 "I made a mistake supporting Boris".
2 "Brexit could have worked, but the PM has driven us down a bad path and we have to reverse."
Neither of those will happen, because they would involve Cummings acknowledging that he's been outplayed.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Oh great, so in your eyes it is right that people should pay even more tax in order to protect the inheritance a few people might get?
More than 70% of over 65s now own their own home, most will now get an inheritance
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Hyufd sounds like a mad socialist authoritarian day by day.
Temp was 30 plus in our office today, never felt as uncomfortably hot working as I have today. Windows open but it felt like there was just no fresh air coming in and Fans just recirculating warm air. Horrible.
I got to work outside for an hour or so today, which was wonderful until the battery died on my laptop halfway through the Live deployment.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Since when was it a case of taxing others in order to protect your inheritance. That is a novel and disreputable idea.
If the Tories go for that, then they deserve to lose. We don't tax millions in order to fund a few people's inheritance.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Hyufd sounds like a mad socialist authoritarian day by day.
No, if I was I would be all for increasing NI and the state taking the family home
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Of course, which is why No 10 was careful not to deny any of his allegations.
For as long as so many are unconcerned at the country being run by a sh1t, it won’t make any difference.
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final year to only pay £1k per year in fees, my wife went to university in Switzerland and got paid an annual grant and then got a grant here for her master's degree. The freedom of not having £50k in debt the day you graduate is definitely something the current generation are missing. The politicians and old c**** who decided that getting an 8% pension increase was more important than keeping university affordable. Even when I speak to my juniors about it the £45-50k debt they've got definitely figures into their subconscious way of life. It's £35k I didn't have to pay back which helped me get on the housing ladder and these lot are all on relatively decent salaries for their age but the idea of them actually saving any money let alone buying a flat seems completely out of reach.
Along with the fear of social media cancellation I can see why they're so boring. My years as a junior banker and before that a software developer were incredible. I would never have met my wife without them as I would simply have not had the social skills to attract her. One of my juniors is 24 and basically "holy shit, cheat on your wife" worthy (not that I would, of course, though you probably would lol) but she just has no social skills and is incapable of holding even the most basic conversation without looking at her phone or worrying about what people on her social media are saying. I don't see any guy being interested in her for more than two minutes and it's sad because she's really lovely otherwise, super smart, funny in her own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehaviour so funny?
It's an odd thing, but certainly true. At lunch yesterday I was swapping stories with a friend, and the one that really cracked him up was the one, a couple of weeks ago in Spain, where I was at an official wine tasting and I got so drunk I decided to take a "short cut" back to the hotel THROUGH the vineyard as it seemed the quickest way, and when I woke up I only realised what I'd done when I saw my car was covered with crushed grapes
We told lots of stories but that one got the biggest laugh, despite it being really quite juvenile and wanky
So, why do we laugh so hard at bad behaviour? And how will young people make each other laugh, in that hard, satisfying way, if they have no outrageous stories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Kids today
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Since when was it a case of taxing others in order to protect your inheritance. That is a novel and disreputable idea.
If the Tories go for that, then they deserve to lose. We don't tax millions in order to fund a few people's inheritance.
May almost lost to Corbyn by going for the dementia tax you are so desperate for
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
But if the last six years have shown us anything, it's that feels beats evidence. Traumatic for those of us who believe in objective reality, but there you are.
If Dom really wants to set cats among pigeons, I can think of two things he could try saying.
1 "I made a mistake supporting Boris".
2 "Brexit could have worked, but the PM has driven us down a bad path and we have to reverse."
Neither of those will happen, because they would involve Cummings acknowledging that he's been outplayed.
I am quite sure that Cummo’s account is accurate and correct, and that any thinking person should consider the failings in the way that our PM has been running the country most seriously.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
But it begs one obvious question - if he was trying to remove the PM within weeks of the election, how come he was not only still running his own agenda (exhibit A: Sajid Javid) but clearly also working through the PM for months afterwards?
If it was to limit the damage, then it backfired. Possibly partly because Cummings himself while arrogant and ambitious is neither especially intelligent nor very well informed, But also because, as with Henry VI, a dud leader is a dud leader.
Indeed, the most striking evidence against Cummings’ narrative that he’s wonderful and Johnson is hopeless and only he stood between the country and disaster is that things have been running rather more smoothly since he left.
Cummo is probably on the spectrum and while particularly able at identifying the failings of current arrangements and able to envisage some sort of perfect world where everyone does whatever it is that he thinks needs doing, has not the faintest clue how to go about getting other people to buy into changing things from the former to the latter.
I am quite sure that Cummo’s account is accurate and correct, and that any thinking person should consider the failings in the way that our PM has been running the country most seriously.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
LOLs. Telling the truth when it is inconvenient is important for your credibility when you need it.
I tend to agree with both OGH and Cyclefree. What Cummings comments are important insofar as 1) they are valid criticisms of this government and 2) the media will not let go of this bone, but for the vast majority of the voting public, this will go unnoticed as they go on with their busy daily lives, and ignored by most who vote Conservative.
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Of course, which is why No 10 was careful not to deny any of his allegations.
For as long as so many are unconcerned at the country being run by a sh1t, it won’t make any difference.
I'm sure Johnson did say many or all of the things being attributed to him. Whether he was saying it because he believed them or (and as his way in flowery ways) to argue things out internally or externally is another matter. It is also the case that a hell of a lot of the things that Cummings seems to be accusing him are in relation to his reasoning for implementing policies/actions which he, er, didn't do. Which seems to me to make it more likely that most tend towards the latter.
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final year to only pay £1k per year in fees, my wife went to university in Switzerland and got paid an annual grant and then got a grant here for her master's degree. The freedom of not having £50k in debt the day you graduate is definitely something the current generation are missing. The politicians and old c**** who decided that getting an 8% pension increase was more important than keeping university affordable. Even when I speak to my juniors about it the £45-50k debt they've got definitely figures into their subconscious way of life. It's £35k I didn't have to pay back which helped me get on the housing ladder and these lot are all on relatively decent salaries for their age but the idea of them actually saving any money let alone buying a flat seems completely out of reach.
Along with the fear of social media cancellation I can see why they're so boring. My years as a junior banker and before that a software developer were incredible. I would never have met my wife without them as I would simply have not had the social skills to attract her. One of my juniors is 24 and basically "holy shit, cheat on your wife" worthy (not that I would, of course, though you probably would lol) but she just has no social skills and is incapable of holding even the most basic conversation without looking at her phone or worrying about what people on her social media are saying. I don't see any guy being interested in her for more than two minutes and it's sad because she's really lovely otherwise, super smart, funny in her own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehaviour so funny?
It's an odd thing, but certainly true. At lunch yesterday I was swapping stories with a friend, and the one that really cracked him up was the one, a couple of weeks ago in Spain, where I was at an official wine tasting and I got so drunk I decided to take a "short cut" back to the hotel THROUGH the vineyard as it seemed the quickest way, and when I woke up I only realised what I'd done when I saw my car was covered with crushed grapes
We told lots of stories but that one got the biggest laugh, despite it being really quite juvenile and wanky
So, why do we laugh so hard at bad behaviour? And how will young people make each other laugh, in that hard, satisfying way, if they have no outrageous stories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Kids today
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
Perhaps they rely on the tourists to keep the shortcut through the vineyard reasonably well trampled...
Yes, but Dom is so convinced of his own brilliance that he thinks everyone a moron. His is a Tech-bros vision of the future, where the world is run by brilliant geniuses, and that the people are just there to be manipulated and bought off by bread and circuses.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Hyufd sounds like a mad socialist authoritarian day by day.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Hyufd sounds like a mad socialist authoritarian day by day.
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
Monarchy is the essence of British conservatism as is preservation of estates and the landed interest
I am quite sure that Cummo’s account is accurate and correct, and that any thinking person should consider the failings in the way that our PM has been running the country most seriously.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
But it begs one obvious question - if he was trying to remove the PM within weeks of the election, how come he was not only still running his own agenda (exhibit A: Sajid Javid) but clearly also working through the PM for months afterwards?
If it was to limit the damage, then it backfired. Possibly partly because Cummings himself while arrogant and ambitious is neither especially intelligent nor very well informed, But also because, as with Henry VI, a dud leader is a dud leader.
Indeed, the most striking evidence against Cummings’ narrative that he’s wonderful and Johnson is hopeless and only he stood between the country and disaster is that things have been running rather more smoothly since he left.
Cummo is probably on the spectrum and while particularly able at identifying the failings of current arrangements and able to envisage some sort of perfect world where everyone does whatever it is that he thinks needs doing, has not the faintest clue how to go about getting other people to buy into changing things from the former to the latter.
I disagree. He is not, and never has been, able at identifying failings. Rather, he is able at identifying what he thinks should be done differently, which is not the same thing.
Sometimes, of course, he does identify genuine failings. Civil Servants at the DfE. Or LEAs. But even then his cures have been worse than the initial problem.
ETA - I am sure his character dissections of Johnson and Hancock are pretty accurate, BTW, but his narrative of events doesn’t stand up to even cursory scrutiny. Therefore, no doubt historians will consider his stories on the former, and point and laugh at the latter.
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Of course, which is why No 10 was careful not to deny any of his allegations.
For as long as so many are unconcerned at the country being run by a sh1t, it won’t make any difference.
I'm sure Johnson did say many or all of the things being attributed to him. Whether he was saying it because he believed them or (and as his way in flowery ways) to argue things out internally or externally is another matter. It is also the case that a hell of a lot of the things that Cummings seems to be accusing him are in relation to his reasoning for implementing policies/actions which he, er, didn't do. Which seems to me to make it more likely that most tend towards the latter.
So the prime minister ran ideas past his adviser which his adviser then advised him against. And there's a scintillating story about not going to see the queen. Oooh, and Carrie!! Cummings should get a job.
I reckon he thought Gove would turn on Johnson the way he did after the referendum and then got the surprise of his life when Gove didn't.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Yes, I think that correct. Toryism has always been about protecting privilege, financial, status and generational. Usually it has done this by buying off enough aspirational middle class.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
From the Guardian - so now we have policy so nonsensical that the government itself won’t implement it:
Border officials are no longer required to make basic Covid checks on people arriving in England from green and amber list countries, according to leaked instructions that have prompted claims that the government is turning a blind eye to the risk of importing Covid cases.
A change that came into effect on Monday means Border Force officers no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test, have booked a test within coming days, or have a passenger locator form showing an address where they will isolate if necessary.
A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
I observe that despite the thread header, the conversation is about tax . Noone gives a fuck about Cummings. The left hates him but want to use him... the right loathe him.. end of story.
From the Guardian - so now we have policy so nonsensical that the government itself won’t implement it:
Border officials are no longer required to make basic Covid checks on people arriving in England from green and amber list countries, according to leaked instructions that have prompted claims that the government is turning a blind eye to the risk of importing Covid cases.
A change that came into effect on Monday means Border Force officers no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test, have booked a test within coming days, or have a passenger locator form showing an address where they will isolate if necessary.
Yes, one of our nurses recently returned from visiting her folks in Spain. None of her covid documentation were checked at either end.
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Of course, which is why No 10 was careful not to deny any of his allegations.
For as long as so many are unconcerned at the country being run by a sh1t, it won’t make any difference.
I'm sure Johnson did say many or all of the things being attributed to him. Whether he was saying it because he believed them or (and as his way in flowery ways) to argue things out internally or externally is another matter. It is also the case that a hell of a lot of the things that Cummings seems to be accusing him are in relation to his reasoning for implementing policies/actions which he, er, didn't do. Which seems to me to make it more likely that most tend towards the latter.
So the prime minister ran ideas past his adviser which his adviser then advised him against. And there's a scintillating story about not going to see the queen. Oooh, and Carrie!! Cummings should get a job.
Please no, given how bad he’s been at all the ones he’s had.
London (CNN) Boris Johnson's former chief adviser has claimed that the Prime Minister tried to maintain his weekly face-to-face audiences with Queen Elizabeth during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the elderly monarch being vulnerable to the virus.
Dominic Cummings, who resigned late last year, told the BBC that he had to convince Johnson not to visit the Queen, who was then 93, at the outset of the pandemic in the UK in March 2020.
According to Cummings, Johnson said: "I'm going to see the Queen ... that's what I do every Wednesday. Sod this. I'm going to go and see her."
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final yea own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehavitories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Kids today
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
Perhaps they rely on the tourists to keep the shortcut through the vineyard reasonably well trampled...
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
Comments
I'm getting increasingly fed up with my own party turning its back on it.
given that the word liberal means 'off and pertaining to freedom' I think it is a very accurate description.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are more of a liberal than a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/politics/two-thirds-of-brits-think-some-restrictions-should-remain-after-19-july
https://zythophile.co.uk/2018/12/08/so-what-is-the-difference-between-a-pub-and-a-bar/
Expensive beer?
But I left the Conservatives over the lockdowns, I suspect ill still vote for them next time, but by vote and support are up for grabs, all the LD need to do is look at what liberalism means and stick to it, at least some of the time, which to be fair they are with this.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
Here is a bit of advice from this "not very bright " chap. 1) Don't boast about qualifications: it just makes you look like a wanker. 2) Don't pretend you have had experience you haven't; someone will spot it even on an anonymous site, and you will look like a wanker 3) if you really want people to think you are clever try using humour; this is clearly difficult for you, 4) stop being jealous of others because your PhD (assuming you have one) has been such a disappointment to you. Try not to spare with people who are clearly better debaters than you are (most on this site) you will always lose and look an even bigger dickhead than you are.
And on that bombshell, good night!
PS Is there anything accurate in his angle on Carrie? Or did he just not see her coming and then start to imagine stuff?
When do Labour start to worry about all these polls on the 30-31 region which is absolute bedrock territory for Tory or Labour.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
@DailyMailUK
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1417508266616266755
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/feature-phones
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
It's been my experience everyone has their own "definition" of liberalism (the same seems to be true of conservatism currently as well). What it is to be a liberal has changed a lot in the past 150 years - whether you read Mill or not.
I may not be a paid-up member any longer but the win at Chesham & Amersham was encouraging and I've been broadly happy with the Party's approach on coronavirus - there's clearly a majority in the country for restrictions but the argument for individual responsibility and personal choice has to be made. The current Conservative "nanny state" interventionist approach is a world away from past Conservative incarnations.
The problem is that Cummo has twice played fast and loose with facts and the truth - during the referendum and again after his mobile eye test - and his sudden interest in facts and accuracy doesn’t play well with an unsympathetic public.
I suspect historians will draw rather more on Cummo’s critiques than will current day public opinion.
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
If it was to limit the damage, then it backfired. Possibly partly because Cummings himself while arrogant and ambitious is neither especially intelligent nor very well informed, But also because, as with Henry VI, a dud leader is a dud leader.
Indeed, the most striking evidence against Cummings’ narrative that he’s wonderful and Johnson is hopeless and only he stood between the country and disaster is that things have been running rather more smoothly since he left.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
*I’m not going bail for Hitler or Himmler there.
I think I'm falling in love with Cummings!
If Dom really wants to set cats among pigeons, I can think of two things he could try saying.
1 "I made a mistake supporting Boris".
2 "Brexit could have worked, but the PM has driven us down a bad path and we have to reverse."
Neither of those will happen, because they would involve Cummings acknowledging that he's been outplayed.
If the Tories go for that, then they deserve to lose. We don't tax millions in order to fund a few people's inheritance.
For as long as so many are unconcerned at the country being run by a sh1t, it won’t make any difference.
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
I tend to agree with both OGH and Cyclefree. What Cummings comments are important insofar as 1) they are valid criticisms of this government and 2) the media will not let go of this bone, but for the vast majority of the voting public, this will go unnoticed as they go on with their busy daily lives, and ignored by most who vote Conservative.
Tories 39%
Labour 35%
LDs 11%
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1417559489700630541?s=20
'Moron' flatters him
Sometimes, of course, he does identify genuine failings. Civil Servants at the DfE. Or LEAs. But even then his cures have been worse than the initial problem.
ETA - I am sure his character dissections of Johnson and Hancock are pretty accurate, BTW, but his narrative of events doesn’t stand up to even cursory scrutiny. Therefore, no doubt historians will consider his stories on the former, and point and laugh at the latter.
I reckon he thought Gove would turn on Johnson the way he did after the referendum and then got the surprise of his life when Gove didn't.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
Border officials are no longer required to make basic Covid checks on people arriving in England from green and amber list countries, according to leaked instructions that have prompted claims that the government is turning a blind eye to the risk of importing Covid cases.
A change that came into effect on Monday means Border Force officers no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test, have booked a test within coming days, or have a passenger locator form showing an address where they will isolate if necessary.
So Starmer could be PM with SNP, LD and Green and PC support, the Tories would certainly need the DUP to have a chance of staying in office.
IDS, Raab, Villiers and Steve Baker would lose their seats
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=39&LAB=35&LIB=11&Reform=3&Green=5&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=23&SCOTLAB=19.6&SCOTLIB=6&SCOTReform=0.4&SCOTGreen=2.1&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=47.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019base
Dominic Cummings, who resigned late last year, told the BBC that he had to convince Johnson not to visit the Queen, who was then 93, at the outset of the pandemic in the UK in March 2020.
According to Cummings, Johnson said: "I'm going to see the Queen ... that's what I do every Wednesday. Sod this. I'm going to go and see her."
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling