The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far up the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
With child number 8 or 10 or whatever it is, two toddlers, no money and shit to hit the fan politically with all sorts of tough decisions...if I was Boris, be very tempting to exit stage left to "write" some books and give £100k a pop speeches.
Even if Boris wants to do that - he is rapidly running out of runway to do that and for everything to be settled before 1/1/2022...
Which is the other reason why I said 2022 (and probably late 2022) to allow whoever will be the next leader sometime before an October / November 2023 election.
I don't think Boris wants to be a flash in the pan PM: he wants to win two General Elections, and put Brexit behind the UK.
So, that means (absent events), he'll be off 18 months after the next General Election.
While PM, he will be able to borrow handsomely against future speech revenues.
Astonishing that Frosty is rated so highly. Other than inflicting profound and lasting damage on British foreign policy what's he ever done? That the contemporary Tory party regards this as laudable is a chilling indictment.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
We were in a similar situation over the care home costs of my in-laws...... F-i-l was in a similar case to yours and steadily deteriorating, and M-i-l, as a result of a massive stroke could only use her right arm, and that not enough to feed herself. Eventually we won a contribution towards the care of both, but it was only after bitter battles, and it was a lot easier with m-i-l than f-i-l, because, apparently, mental 'confusion' in the case of Alzheimers and the like leaves the patient more 'able'. Allegedly. Much more support and assistance was available for my daughter, who died of MND.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
Spite is no way to run a country. Sooner or later the boot will be on the other foot.
It's been on the other foot for as long as I've been alive mate, destroying the EU lovers who wanted to sell out the country to Brussels was definitely one of the better parts of winning. We keep on winning too because you lot can't seem to get over losing for the first time and want to keep replaying it. You'll keep replaying it all the way to 2024 and you'll lose again.
With child number 8 or 10 or whatever it is, two toddlers, no money and shit to hit the fan politically with all sorts of tough decisions...if I was Boris, be very tempting to exit stage left to "write" some books and give £100k a pop speeches.
Even if Boris wants to do that - he is rapidly running out of runway to do that and for everything to be settled before 1/1/2022...
Which is the other reason why I said 2022 (and probably late 2022) to allow whoever will be the next leader sometime before an October / November 2023 election.
I don't think Boris wants to be a flash in the pan PM: he wants to win two General Elections, and put Brexit behind the UK.
So, that means (absent events), he'll be off 18 months after the next General Election.
While PM, he will be able to borrow handsomely against future speech revenues.
Or, if we're still assuming it's based solely on his final position in the "UK's longest serving PM" list, soon after he overtakes Cameron.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
I was just teasing Max for being a touch hyperbolic - I didn't mean to spark off PB Brexit wars again!
On-topic, I can't see Johnson getting defenestrated this year. There's no hurry and the potential assassins will be wary about moving too early, I think. I also think he'll want to hang on at least a bit longer, beat May etc. But I find it hard to judge the value in odds on something I really don't think will happen - less than 10/1 chance I'd think, but 15/1, not sure...
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
Spite is no way to run a country. Sooner or later the boot will be on the other foot.
It's been on the other foot for as long as I've been alive mate, destroying the EU lovers who wanted to sell out the country to Brussels was definitely one of the better parts of winning. We keep on winning too because you lot can't seem to get over losing for the first time and want to keep replaying it. You'll keep replaying it all the way to 2024 and you'll lose again.
More like a Pyrrhic victory, or should I say a victory of pricks....
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
There were no complaints, IIRC, when a Brit, Roy Jenkins, was President of the Commission. Maybe if we'd had another Brit as President this century things would have been different. TBH, not sure they would if had been Mandelson, though!
The last PM who was consistently in the lead mid term was Tony Blair. He had some problems with his party too and it eventually did for him. Took a while though.
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
The last PM who was consistently in the lead mid term was Tony Blair. He had some problems with his party too and it eventually did for him. Took a while though.
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
Much as I never liked Tony Blair, I can say, with some certainty, Boris Johnson is no Tony Blair.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
We were in a similar situation over the care home costs of my in-laws...... F-i-l was in a similar case to yours and steadily deteriorating, and M-i-l, as a result of a massive stroke could only use her right arm, and that not enough to feed herself. Eventually we won a contribution towards the care of both, but it was only after bitter battles, and it was a lot easier with m-i-l than f-i-l, because, apparently, mental 'confusion' in the case of Alzheimers and the like leaves the patient more 'able'. Allegedly. Much more support and assistance was available for my daughter, who died of MND.
The situation needs reform.
Indeed it does, but if HYUFD doesn't see a vote coming from such a reform, we can all whistle.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
We have a longstanding intelligence and military partnership with the US, we have never been able to trust any EU nation to the same extent to have that. The EU was a passing interest that some people saw personal and political gain from, either for the EU gravy train or to cement the liberal order within the UK. Too many people saw and still see the EU as a way to get around the electorate and the reaction to the leave vote with that class trying to overturn it are call it merely "advisory" and that the MPs should just overturn it shows how deep that kind of fifth columnist thinking runs.
I have a deep loathing of the EU and it's structures and their malign influence over the UK political body who were all to happy to hand over responsibility for running the country which moved the centre of politics and accountability one step further away from the voters. For good or ill the politicians in the UK are now properly accountable to the voters in a way that hasn't been the case since the early 90s. We finally have a way to fuck the top of the pyramid off in a way we never could to the likes of Junker or Ursula.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
We have a longstanding intelligence and military partnership with the US, we have never been able to trust any EU nation to the same extent to have that. The EU was a passing interest that some people saw personal and political gain from, either for the EU gravy train or to cement the liberal order within the UK. Too many people saw and still see the EU as a way to get around the electorate and the reaction to the leave vote with that class trying to overturn it are call it merely "advisory" and that the MPs should just overturn it shows how deep that kind of fifth columnist thinking runs.
I have a deep loathing of the EU and it's structures and their malign influence over the UK political body who were all to happy to hand over responsibility for running the country which moved the centre of politics and accountability one step further away from the voters. For good or ill the politicians in the UK are now properly accountable to the voters in a way that hasn't been the case since the early 90s. We finally have a way to fuck the top of the pyramid off in a way we never could to the likes of Junker or Ursula.
OMG calm down, Max. Were you frightened by a straight banana when you were young?
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
The IHT allowances implemented in recent years are also worth a look. They greatly favour those of Tory-approved nuclear families who happen to have houses in now expensive areas - classic Tory demographics. I cannot see why a house can be rationally given priority over any other assets in the probate listing such that it attracts its own whackign great chunk of tax free allowance.
And (of longer standing) the IHT system also pampers those who donate via legacies to political parties (as if they were the RNLI).
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
There were no complaints, IIRC, when a Brit, Roy Jenkins, was President of the Commission. Maybe if we'd had another Brit as President this century things would have been different. TBH, not sure they would if had been Mandelson, though!
Possibly, though that (Woy Jenkins era) was a very different time. I think Mandelson might have been very good. Part of the EU's problem in the UK was that a lot of people didn't quite see the benefit, and the EU as an organisation didn't notice that because like many bureaucracies it has a tin ear, largely because it assumes it doesn't need to make it's case. Mandelson would have changed that approach.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
The upside was a KFC in Mildenhall, before anyone had ever heard of KFC.
I often wonder what happened to all those blue Morris Marina pick up trucks the US airman used to drive around in.
The last PM who was consistently in the lead mid term was Tony Blair. He had some problems with his party too and it eventually did for him. Took a while though.
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
Yes and look how well getting rid of Blair went for Labour, they lost 4 consecutive general elections after and 14 years later are still out of power
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
Spite is no way to run a country. Sooner or later the boot will be on the other foot.
They won! Why are they still so angry?
Careful, they'll be shaving your head and parading you in disgrace down The Mall before you can say Will of the People.
Interestingly the comedy SpaceForce seemed to have a bit of an identity problem, in that it seemed very likely it was greenlit on the basis of it being hilarious Trump set up such a thing, and the offscreen president referred to was clearly meant to be Trump, but from time to time the episodes treated the idea through the main character with a bit more seriousness or optimism (a scene with the lead countering an AOC stand in over the budget springs to mind), as if the they couldn't decide whether, joke or not, they should give the idea more dignity.
Space Force got pretty poor ratings. I'm a bit surprised it was renewed.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fell below £23,250 the local authority would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either as long as they did not go into residential care, their children could inherit it
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
The IHT allowances implemented in recent years are also worth a look. They greatly favour those of Tory-approved nuclear families who happen to have houses in now expensive areas - classic Tory demographics. I cannot see why a house can be rationally given priority over any other assets in the probate listing such that it attracts its own whackign great chunk of tax free allowance.
And (of longer standing) the IHT system also pampers those who donate via legacies to political parties (as if they were the RNLI).
Indeed.
IHT would be my proposed solution to the social care funding problem. I doubt it’ll happen though.
@DavidL The Craig Murray trial seems bonkers to me. As he said, Kafkaesque.
He was told what crime he was accused of, and which of his actions was said to have constituted the said crime.
The biggest cad in the story is Alex Salmond. Believing that Salmond was about to return to office in a Third Coming, Murray stuck his neck out to help him. But in fact Salmond, realistic and skilled c*** politician that he is, avoided saying a single word in Murray's support and, more than that, he accepted a role as Nicola Sturgeon's helper - in the Alba "super-majority" operation that failed. Murray was left beached, surprised after being found to have acted in contempt of court that he wouldn't be let off with a non-custodial (that really is some disconnect!), and leaving his wife to tell everyone that she is "saddened and shocked to learn he could be placed among criminals". What does she think prisons are for?
Interestingly the comedy SpaceForce seemed to have a bit of an identity problem, in that it seemed very likely it was greenlit on the basis of it being hilarious Trump set up such a thing, and the offscreen president referred to was clearly meant to be Trump, but from time to time the episodes treated the idea through the main character with a bit more seriousness or optimism (a scene with the lead countering an AOC stand in over the budget springs to mind), as if the they couldn't decide whether, joke or not, they should give the idea more dignity.
Space Force got pretty poor ratings. I'm a bit surprised it was renewed.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
We have a longstanding intelligence and military partnership with the US, we have never been able to trust any EU nation to the same extent to have that. The EU was a passing interest that some people saw personal and political gain from, either for the EU gravy train or to cement the liberal order within the UK. Too many people saw and still see the EU as a way to get around the electorate and the reaction to the leave vote with that class trying to overturn it are call it merely "advisory" and that the MPs should just overturn it shows how deep that kind of fifth columnist thinking runs.
I have a deep loathing of the EU and it's structures and their malign influence over the UK political body who were all to happy to hand over responsibility for running the country which moved the centre of politics and accountability one step further away from the voters. For good or ill the politicians in the UK are now properly accountable to the voters in a way that hasn't been the case since the early 90s. We finally have a way to fuck the top of the pyramid off in a way we never could to the likes of Junker or Ursula.
For someone who is clearly otherwise intelligent, you do talk some unbalanced shit sometimes. I can assure you that our "longstanding intelligence and military partnership with the US" is highly asymmetrical and demonstrably not always in the UK national interest. Your phobia of the EU is disproportionate, and despite the odd spat, they have been just as reliable, if not more so than our so-called "cousins", and in spite of our own recent period of petulance, have, I am reliably informed, continued to be so.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The last PM who was consistently in the lead mid term was Tony Blair. He had some problems with his party too and it eventually did for him. Took a while though.
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
Much as I never liked Tony Blair, I can say, with some certainty, Boris Johnson is no Tony Blair.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
Well, you're more than welcome to campaign for that as us Brexiteers did.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
Well, you're more than welcome to campaign for that as us Brexiteers did.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
Interestingly the comedy SpaceForce seemed to have a bit of an identity problem, in that it seemed very likely it was greenlit on the basis of it being hilarious Trump set up such a thing, and the offscreen president referred to was clearly meant to be Trump, but from time to time the episodes treated the idea through the main character with a bit more seriousness or optimism (a scene with the lead countering an AOC stand in over the budget springs to mind), as if the they couldn't decide whether, joke or not, they should give the idea more dignity.
Space Force got pretty poor ratings. I'm a bit surprised it was renewed.
Didn't it get renewed before Trump lost. I guess the second season was going to be more "orange man drumpf lol" humour but now I wonder how they'll handle Biden. If they really go for it they could have a really funny show but risk alienating a lot of liberal Netflix subscribers in the US who will take to Twitter and get on a boycott wagon with other corporate brands like Ben and Jerry's publicly shaming them etc...
I was just teasing Max for being a touch hyperbolic - I didn't mean to spark off PB Brexit wars again!
On-topic, I can't see Johnson getting defenestrated this year. There's no hurry and the potential assassins will be wary about moving too early, I think. I also think he'll want to hang on at least a bit longer, beat May etc. But I find it hard to judge the value in odds on something I really don't think will happen - less than 10/1 chance I'd think, but 15/1, not sure...
One day a Brexit tease will not cause the cold war to burst into a hot one - then we will know we have adapted to the new era (I don't say move on, as its not about getting past it, but dealing with it without refighting the old battles)
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
Big news on the 'pingdemic". Govt announces change to the NHS App. It currently looks for close contacts FIVE days prior to a positive test. This will be updated to look back at contacts TWO days prior to a positive test.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
Well, you're more than welcome to campaign for that as us Brexiteers did.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
That would rule out most of their specialist kit, right up to the cruise missile transporters of late lamented memory.
I meant specifically on our roads (i.e. they can do what they want on their bases). Or do they move that sort of kit on our roads? I'd make an exception for special movements, but regular driving around should be done in right hand drive cars.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
Well, I guess if upsetting remainers was a core aim, then it has indeed been a pretty resounding success!
I was a remainer. I have moved on. I wish Brexiters would. Imagine if they had lost, the sulking would have been unprecedented.
It seems odd on the face of it, now Brexit is done, quite a hard one too, total victory thus achieved, that many Leavers seem to still need the fight. But it isn't odd really. When you look at their post match analysis, so much of it picks out the humbling of this Construct they call the "Remainer Class" (que?) as being the beauty of it and pretty much the point of it all. In which case you want to keep pissing on these people, don't you. These Remainer Class types. Whoever they are.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
Well, you're more than welcome to campaign for that as us Brexiteers did.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
That would rule out most of their specialist kit, right up to the cruise missile transporters of late lamented memory.
I meant specifically on our roads (i.e. they can do what they want on their bases). Or do they move that sort of kit on our roads? I'd make an exception for special movements, but regular driving around should be done in right hand drive cars.
It is in general quite legal to drive LHD vehicles on British roads. Anyone (with the right licence) can do it. I believe you can even import and register an LHD car. And would you really want to be banned from driving on holiday in most other countries?
Seems like he tested it out, as did press, before simply making an accusation, so the nursery had better be squeaky clean or it is in big trouble.
He does rather have form though...he is Mr "why are nearly all the top jobs dominated by white people"...its because of racism and discrimination....definitely not because the country that is 98% white...
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
It's not a thing to push- except, perhaps for "here are some trivial things that nobody could possibly object to" stuff like simplifying visas for performing artists on tour. But there's no need, really.
Have you ever seen teenagers have a real deep falling out? (Most of what I know of human frailty has come from teaching.) It's followed by an indeterminate period of sullen resentment. Until, for no good reason, it stops. "You wanna come to the party?" "Yeah, alright."
And I suspect it will be like that. No need to titter at the blimps, many of them will be past tittering at. But a wry smile as life goes on.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
We have a longstanding intelligence and military partnership with the US, we have never been able to trust any EU nation to the same extent to have that. The EU was a passing interest that some people saw personal and political gain from, either for the EU gravy train or to cement the liberal order within the UK. Too many people saw and still see the EU as a way to get around the electorate and the reaction to the leave vote with that class trying to overturn it are call it merely "advisory" and that the MPs should just overturn it shows how deep that kind of fifth columnist thinking runs.
I have a deep loathing of the EU and it's structures and their malign influence over the UK political body who were all to happy to hand over responsibility for running the country which moved the centre of politics and accountability one step further away from the voters. For good or ill the politicians in the UK are now properly accountable to the voters in a way that hasn't been the case since the early 90s. We finally have a way to fuck the top of the pyramid off in a way we never could to the likes of Junker or Ursula.
Well come polling day, be it 23 or 24, I will most certainly be doing my bit to fuck the top of the pyramid off.
The last PM who was consistently in the lead mid term was Tony Blair. He had some problems with his party too and it eventually did for him. Took a while though.
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
Much as I never liked Tony Blair, I can say, with some certainty, Boris Johnson is no Tony Blair.
Boris Tories voteshare 2019 43.6%, Blair Labour voteshare 1997 43.2%
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The LA can only sell the property if the patient needs residential care, they cannot sell the property which remains with the patient's family even after death if they only need at home care.
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
Seems like he tested it out, as did press, before simply making an accusation, so the nursery had better be squeaky clean or it is in big trouble.
He does rather have form though...he is Mr "why are nearly all the top jobs dominated by white people"...its because of racism and discrimination....definitely not because the country that is 98% white...
He also skipped around Sheriff Principal Anwar for some reason.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
If something was long-term economically ruinous, but politically popular, would you recommend it?
Back in the 1980s, there was a thing called State Earnings Related Pensions (SERPs). It had been passed by the Wilson/Callaghan government and it basically involved the government taking over the role of providing pensions to people according to how much they'd earned (and therefore how much tax they'd paid) over their lifetimes.
It was extremely popular.
After all, who doesn't like free money.
But is was also economically ruinous in the medium to long term. Simply tax payers couldn't support dramatically higher pension payments for tens of millions of people.
Mrs Thatcher and her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, took the economically correct and politically unpopular decision to bin SERPs.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
Well, I guess if upsetting remainers was a core aim, then it has indeed been a pretty resounding success!
I was a remainer. I have moved on. I wish Brexiters would. Imagine if they had lost, the sulking would have been unprecedented.
It seems odd on the face of it, now Brexit is done, quite a hard one too, total victory thus achieved, that many Leavers seem to still need the fight. But it isn't odd really. When you look at their post match analysis, so much of it picks out the humbling of this Construct they call the "Remainer Class" (que?) as being the beauty of it and pretty much the point of it all. In which case you want to keep pissing on these people, don't you. These Remainer Class types. Whoever they are.
What is more more treacherous than a willingness to risk the economic well-being of your country out of hatred for your fellow countrymen and women?
Interestingly the comedy SpaceForce seemed to have a bit of an identity problem, in that it seemed very likely it was greenlit on the basis of it being hilarious Trump set up such a thing, and the offscreen president referred to was clearly meant to be Trump, but from time to time the episodes treated the idea through the main character with a bit more seriousness or optimism (a scene with the lead countering an AOC stand in over the budget springs to mind), as if the they couldn't decide whether, joke or not, they should give the idea more dignity.
Space Force got pretty poor ratings. I'm a bit surprised it was renewed.
Didn't it get renewed before Trump lost. I guess the second season was going to be more "orange man drumpf lol" humour but now I wonder how they'll handle Biden. If they really go for it they could have a really funny show but risk alienating a lot of liberal Netflix subscribers in the US who will take to Twitter and get on a boycott wagon with other corporate brands like Ben and Jerry's publicly shaming them etc...
Biden's not super popular with online progressives is he, I'm sure its be fine.
Once you have the initial joke of the Space Force being Trumps idea done, they could make something much more interesting out of it, as i think they were beginning to.
The whole thing with Kudrow in prison was an odd creative choice though.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
If something was long-term economically ruinous, but politically popular, would you recommend it?
Back in the 1980s, there was a thing called State Earnings Related Pensions (SERPs). It had been passed by the Wilson/Callaghan government and it basically involved the government taking over the role of providing pensions to people according to how much they'd earned (and therefore how much tax they'd paid) over their lifetimes.
It was extremely popular.
After all, who doesn't like free money.
But is was also economically ruinous in the medium to long term. Simply tax payers couldn't support dramatically higher pension payments for tens of millions of people.
Mrs Thatcher and her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, took the economically correct and politically unpopular decision to bin SERPs.
And you would have castigated her.
Thatcher was then toppled a few years after and had to back down on implementing many of the original SERPs proposals anyway.
Even Thatcher however did not get rid of the state pension and as more people got private pensions for most voters SERPS was less of an issue.
A dementia tax would destroy the Tories majority and electoral prospects for years and obviously no Tory leader would ever be stupid enough to contemplate it again.
We are elected to look after our base and our base is home owners, certainly more so than those reliant on SERPs were our base
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
I should have said some, obviously the vast majority of people who voted remain weren't fifth columnists. I was specifically referring to those who relished the idea of the UK becoming part of a European state and would give keys of Westminster to Ursula and Merkel. People like FF34 who is clearly so far IP the EU's arse that when he spits it comes out Ursula's mouth.
There are those that would have us do the same to the United States. I used to live not far from "RAF" Lakenheath. I have always found it odd that those of a Brexity fanaticism who bang on about sovereignty never complain about the US having airbases on our soil. Perhaps that is OK, and maybe we should be grateful they are here, but the truth is we are much more the utensil of the US than we ever were of the EU.
Well, you're more than welcome to campaign for that as us Brexiteers did.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
That would rule out most of their specialist kit, right up to the cruise missile transporters of late lamented memory.
I meant specifically on our roads (i.e. they can do what they want on their bases). Or do they move that sort of kit on our roads? I'd make an exception for special movements, but regular driving around should be done in right hand drive cars.
It is in general quite legal to drive LHD vehicles on British roads. Anyone (with the right licence) can do it. I believe you can even import and register an LHD car. And would you really want to be banned from driving on holiday in most other countries?
Oh I know, I overtook Zac Brown in a LHD AC Cobra on the A3 last year. Personally I don't think you should be able to register them here for use on our public roads.
Obviously we allow it for tourists, but I think there should be a 28 day time limit on it.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The LA can only sell the property if the patient needs residential care, they cannot sell the property which remains with the patient's family even after death if they only need at home care.
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
There are some interesting edge cases though. if someone is put into long term care but the house is jointly owned by their spouse then they can't force a sale of the property. if the spouse then sells the house the proceeds of the sale becomes available for the payment of the care.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The LA can only sell the property if the patient needs residential care, they cannot sell the property which remains with the patient's family even after death if they only need at home care.
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
There are some interesting edge cases though. if someone is put into long term care but the house is jointly owned by their spouse then they can't force a sale of the property. if the spouse then sells the house the proceeds of the sale becomes available for the payment of the care.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
Brexit is with us until it is age 18
Nah. We'll send the ugly so-and-so to boarding school at the first opportunity. Age 7?
(Beginning to unpick the madder bits in 2025, "sod it, we might as well have MEPs then" in 2040? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I suspect there's very little that anyone in UK politics can do to accelerate or retard that process.)
On topic, I've tried to look for some numerical or statistical evidence to back up these constant assertions that BoJo is in trouble, or that the Government is in some kind of weak position, and I'm not getting very far.
Looking at average Opinion Polls around 20 months after every General Election since 1979, the following are the average positions:
Now (20 mths after the Dec 2019 Election - Con Gov't, Con lead of around 5-6%, no crossover in polls
20 mths after the Jun 2017 Election - Con-led Coalition, Con lead of 5-6%, occasional crossover, next gov't Con albeit with a new leader.
After the May 2015 Election - Con Government, Con lead of 11-12%, no crossover, next gov't Con-led coalition.
After the May 2010 Election - Con/LD Coalition, Lab lead of 1-2%, some crossover, next gov't Con majority.
After the May 2005 Election - Lab Gov't, Con lead of 5-6%, no crossover, next gov't Con/LD coalition.
After the Jun 2001 Election - Lab Gov't, Lab lead of 5-6%, occasional crossover, next gov't Lab.
After the May 1997 Election - Lab Gov't, Lab lead of 25-30%, next government Lab.
After the April 1992 Election - Con Gov't, Lab lead of 15-20%, next government Lab.
After the June 1987 Election - Con Gov't, Con lead of 1-3%, some crossover, next gov't Con albeit with a new leader.
After the Jun 1983 Election, Con Gov't, Con lead of 2-3%, some crossover, next gov't Con.
After the May 1979 Election, Con Gov't, Lab lead of 9-12%, next gov't Con.
The only part of this that might remotely suggest a change of PM, let alone a change of Government, is around the 2017 election, but this was with a PM who had presided over a needless loss of a majority, exacerbated by the Dementia Tax and lack of delivery of Brexit. Otherwise the picture is clear, there have been exactly zero instances of sitting Governments leading in the opinion polls and going on to lose the next General Election. There are however several instances of the opposition leading in opinion polls and failing to win the next General Election.
Looking at the two clear changes of party at the top of Government is telling - in December 1993, labour led the conservatives by 15-20% and romped home at the next election. In January 2007, the Conservatives led by 5-6% and only got into Government with the Lib Dem's help.
I'm afraid all the evidence at this point, from a statistical point of view, points to another Conservative government led by BoJo. Effectively Mike is betting on a seismic event to change that narrative, which is possible, but not to the point where 15/1 seem ludicrously attractive odds. It is clear that Mike hates BoJo with a passion, but that alone is not enough for anyone to form a betting position. The gradual erosion in leader ratings and polls at this point is commonplace (and often much more pronounced than this), so I'm left wondering what aside from this visceral hatred is driving this belief - I can't find any actual evidence to back it up.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
Brexit is with us until it is age 18
Nah. We'll send the ugly so-and-so to boarding school at the first opportunity. Age 7?
(Beginning to unpick the madder bits in 2025, "sod it, we might as well have MEPs then" in 2040? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I suspect there's very little that anyone in UK politics can do to accelerate or retard that process.)
No, because the EU will now evolve further away from us, and become something increasingly less enticing. Look at the polls in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, they are wildly against joining the EU, and anti-EU sentiment, in these countries, is growing even further. Switzerland has just told the EU to eff off.
We will become like these countries. For good or ill Brexit has sent us on a totally different geopolitical trajectory to the EU. It will be an interesting journey
That said, I can see some softening around the edges, but it will be quite small things.
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The LA can only sell the property if the patient needs residential care, they cannot sell the property which remains with the patient's family even after death if they only need at home care.
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
There are some interesting edge cases though. if someone is put into long term care but the house is jointly owned by their spouse then they can't force a sale of the property. if the spouse then sells the house the proceeds of the sale becomes available for the payment of the care.
Half of the proceeds?...
The sanest edge case is that the elderly couple move house prior to things becoming too bad / obvious with the new house only in the name of the healthy parent.
Many of us would like risk sharing for care costs. How about offering a voluntary but "nudged" scheme where you agree to pay £20K now (say) or commit £25K out of your estate and then future fees are capped at no more than another £20K. Scheme members will pay a minimum but never have to pay more than a maximum sum. All figures just examples but the principle is the key. Also reduce the amount that can be left in the estate for those who don't join the scheme?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
In which universe do you live? We left as a result of a narrow majority, on a 72% poll, as opposed to a 2-1 majority, admittedly on a lower turnout (65%) when we confirmed membership. What is more, in 1975 information to the public was much more clearly set out. apart from the somewhat hazy idea of 'leaving'
Remainers like me have every right to try and get the situation reversed. And I didn't get 'sent' to a nice school, I didn't have my way to Uni 'padded', and my living standards didn't depend on cheap labour.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
In which universe do you live? We left as a result of a narrow majority, on a 72% poll, as opposed to a 2-1 majority, admittedly on a lower turnout (65%) when we confirmed membership. What is more, in 1975 information to the public was much more clearly set out. apart from the somewhat hazy idea of 'leaving'
Remainers like me have every right to try and get the situation reversed. And I didn't get 'sent' to a nice school, I didn't have my way to Uni 'padded', and my living standards didn't depend on cheap labour.
You absolutely have the right to get the situation reversed, and have us rejoin, if you can do that democratically
But in the real world, how likely is it? Almost impossible in your lifetime, I would suggest, and perhaps impossible for the far and foreseeable future. The scars of the Brexit vote will be with us for a long time, how many want to reopen them?
Remainers are surely better off campaigning for incremental moves closer to the EU. A new kind of FOM, maybe the SM in the end.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
In which universe do you live? We left as a result of a narrow majority, on a 72% poll, as opposed to a 2-1 majority, admittedly on a lower turnout (65%) when we confirmed membership. What is more, in 1975 information to the public was much more clearly set out. apart from the somewhat hazy idea of 'leaving'
Remainers like me have every right to try and get the situation reversed. And I didn't get 'sent' to a nice school, I didn't have my way to Uni 'padded', and my living standards didn't depend on cheap labour.
Fcuk knows, but it sounds as though he's suffering his own form of religious certainty.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
Brexit is with us until it is age 18
Nah. We'll send the ugly so-and-so to boarding school at the first opportunity. Age 7?
(Beginning to unpick the madder bits in 2025, "sod it, we might as well have MEPs then" in 2040? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I suspect there's very little that anyone in UK politics can do to accelerate or retard that process.)
No, because the EU will now evolve further away from us, and become something increasingly less enticing. Look at the polls in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, they are wildly against joining the EU, and anti-EU sentiment, in these countries, is growing even further. Switzerland has just told the EU to eff off.
We will become like these countries. For good or ill Brexit has sent us on a totally different geopolitical trajectory to the EU. It will be an interesting journey
That said, I can see some softening around the edges, but it will be quite small things.
Also the general narrative has been so hostile to Brexit that random events are bound to crop up that will serve as a corrective and appear to vindicate it. Suddenly the 2016 vote won't look like a populist aberration but an example of the foresight of the British public.
Seems like he tested it out, as did press, before simply making an accusation, so the nursery had better be squeaky clean or it is in big trouble.
It was an investigative reporter on the Record that took over the details from him and ran the story.
From what he said in an interview on WaW the owners of the nursery in question are of Asian descent themselves; since all the rejected names were identifiably Muslim, the implication was that that was the problem rather than out and out racism.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
You're not though.
You lot are whining about the fact that not everybody loves your ugly bastard child.
This bit might help their marketing to some sceptical sections of the populace... ...In 1931, Winston Churchill proclaimed that technology would one day allow humans to “escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”. As recently as the late 90s, the remark could be cited as an example of the futility of futurology. But a rapid development of biotechnology and medical science is making cellular agriculture a reality. Stem cells, the basic building blocks of most organisms, were identified in the 60s. Growing in vitro muscle tissue became possible in the 70s, and the first peer-reviewed research on the possibility of in vitro meat production was published in 2005...
In the Torygraph as well which we know the party leadership reads. I'm genuinely shocked that this policy is even under consideration. The cost of social care needs to be paid for by the oldies.
That policy cost the Tories their majority in 2017, it is political suicide, especially as it lost the middle aged vote too who stood to inherit.
If you are going to raise extra funds for social care NI is the only politically viable way to do so
No it isn't, the Tories will lose far too many working age voters. The key metric from 2017 vs 2019 was the age of becoming a Tory voter. In 2017 it was 49 and the party lost its majority and n 2019 the age was 37 and you got an 80 seat majority. Push working age voters away again with a rise in NI (a tax only paid by working age people) and that age will rise to over 45 again and the majority goes with it.
Rubbish, the single most popular Tory policy this millennium was raising the IHT threshold, the most unpopular one the dementia tax. 40 to 60 year olds are the group most likely to benefit from an inheritance which was why the dementia tax was so disastrous, Boris rightly ruled out taking the family home for at home social care in 2019 and got a landslide, May ruled it in and lost her majority.
Tories have always been about protecting estates and inheritance in the family above all, if you want to tax estates more rather than income then you are a liberal, if you want to tax both a socialist
Meanwhile back in the real world, the policy you espouse doesn't work in the way you believe it does.
In England care costs are taken out of the estate until the estate drops to £27,000 (it is around £50K in Wales) when the state takes over. So sitting on the family property worth say £325,000 means either it needs to be sold to fund care home rental plus care costs, or the costs are supplemented by a loved one over and above annual earnings on the rental of said property, until it is sold.
So in order to fund my in-law, who couldn't tell you how many children she has, let alone hazard a guess at who the PM may be and how many children he has (yet the LA consider her compos mentis enough not to qualify for any nursing cost assistance) she has to pay funding in full from her pension, and income taxed at 40% for her property to be rented out, any shortfall is covered by me.
Had she partied on down for the last 40 years with nothing to show for it she would have got to keep her pension to spend (in her case on fags) and the LA would be coughing for the £1000 a week care home costs. Of around 50 residents she is the only fee payer.
So in summary, by the time any inheritance is due there will be nothing left to inherit. Now I am not criticising that, just saying I don't think your eye catching headline bears scrutiny.
Only in terms of residential care, not at home care.
It was May proposing to tax the family home to pay for at home care too that cost her her majority
Yeah but... unless one dies at the family home in hitherto perfect health your model is irrelevant.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
Actually if their savings ever fall below £23,350 the state would pay for their at home care anyway and they still would not have to sell their family home either, their children could inherit it
What? But the saving include the property.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
The LA can only sell the property if the patient needs residential care, they cannot sell the property which remains with the patient's family even after death if they only need at home care.
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
There are some interesting edge cases though. if someone is put into long term care but the house is jointly owned by their spouse then they can't force a sale of the property. if the spouse then sells the house the proceeds of the sale becomes available for the payment of the care.
Half of the proceeds?...
The sanest edge case is that the elderly couple move house prior to things becoming too bad / obvious with the new house only in the name of the healthy parent.
It's not always possible. the condition of the person going into care, not always Dementia and mostly with other co-morbidities, mostly means that you can't move beforehand. (I have family in this position)
yes it should have said half the proceeds, but half the proceeds of selling a house is rarely enough to buy another house (even a smaller one).
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
The problem with this is that it's not possible to make Brexit go away and pretend it never happened. We are outside the EU now, and it will take an even bigger political earthquake to change that.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
Brexit is with us until it is age 18
Nah. We'll send the ugly so-and-so to boarding school at the first opportunity. Age 7?
(Beginning to unpick the madder bits in 2025, "sod it, we might as well have MEPs then" in 2040? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I suspect there's very little that anyone in UK politics can do to accelerate or retard that process.)
No, because the EU will now evolve further away from us, and become something increasingly less enticing. Look at the polls in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, they are wildly against joining the EU, and anti-EU sentiment, in these countries, is growing even further. Switzerland has just told the EU to eff off.
We will become like these countries. For good or ill Brexit has sent us on a totally different geopolitical trajectory to the EU. It will be an interesting journey
That said, I can see some softening around the edges, but it will be quite small things.
Also the general narrative has been so hostile to Brexit that random events are bound to crop up that will serve as a corrective and appear to vindicate it. Suddenly the 2016 vote won't look like a populist aberration but an example of the foresight of the British public.
Yes. The next eurocrisis can't be far away. They still haven't solved that problem
In fact the only solution to that problem is true Federalisation of the EU: EU wide taxes, EU wide debt (already coming), which surely means directly elected EU president, commission, a real EU army, a proper country, you can see it taking shape right now in plain sight
Which makes it even less likely we will ever return.
This is not to say a truly Federal EU is a good or bad thing, just that it is a thing we would not like to join. A couple of other countries might peel away, as well. Poland, perhaps. Sweden? But not many
We will be to the EU what Canada is to the USA. Not necessarily a comfortable position, but there aren't many Canadians who wish to be politically absorbed into the USA
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
In which universe do you live? We left as a result of a narrow majority, on a 72% poll, as opposed to a 2-1 majority, admittedly on a lower turnout (65%) when we confirmed membership. What is more, in 1975 information to the public was much more clearly set out. apart from the somewhat hazy idea of 'leaving'
Remainers like me have every right to try and get the situation reversed. And I didn't get 'sent' to a nice school, I didn't have my way to Uni 'padded', and my living standards didn't depend on cheap labour.
You absolutely have the right to get the situation reversed, and have us rejoin, if you can do that democratically
But in the real world, how likely is it? Almost impossible in your lifetime, I would suggest, and perhaps impossible for the far and foreseeable future. The scars of the Brexit vote will be with us for a long time, how many want to reopen them?
Remainers are surely better off campaigning for incremental moves closer to the EU. A new kind of FOM, maybe the SM in the end.
Rejoin is a 50 year long pipe dream
I fear you may be right; that the Single Market would be a good interim target. Something has to be done though, in the sort term, to allow some sort of FOM, without, as is indeed the case in most the EU, access to social security in the short-term for the 'movers'.
Given the attitudes, especially in the Home Office, I suspect we're going to have a few more Windrush type cases before too long.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
You're not though.
You lot are whining about the fact that not everybody loves your ugly bastard child.
We don't need everybody to love it. We have already won. Utterly and entirely. Your anger and bitterness is because, deep down, you know that is the case.
Andrew Bowie MP @AndrewBowie_MP 1. Pretty poor show, utterly unprofessional (although par for the course with our First Minister) and against all standard security considerations if the PM is coming North to announce it on twitter in advance. 2. Even if he is, he's not "visiting", he's Scotland's Prime Minister
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
Yes, we have now had the Brexit baby. One of the parents is still mightily unhappy about it, as they never wanted the child, the other is still happy and cooing.
You're not though.
You lot are whining about the fact that not everybody loves your ugly bastard child.
Mate, you have issues. Get them sorted professionally. We've tried our best here
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico The key reason the iSage folk got their Roadmap predictions so wildly, catastrophically wrong at Step 1a, Step 3 & Step 4 is that they didn't attempt any actual modelling at all, AFAICS. I don't know why. Some of them must have been capable of it.
Comments
So, that means (absent events), he'll be off 18 months after the next General Election.
While PM, he will be able to borrow handsomely against future speech revenues.
Eventually we won a contribution towards the care of both, but it was only after bitter battles, and it was a lot easier with m-i-l than f-i-l, because, apparently, mental 'confusion' in the case of Alzheimers and the like leaves the patient more 'able'. Allegedly.
Much more support and assistance was available for my daughter, who died of MND.
The situation needs reform.
On-topic, I can't see Johnson getting defenestrated this year. There's no hurry and the potential assassins will be wary about moving too early, I think. I also think he'll want to hang on at least a bit longer, beat May etc. But I find it hard to judge the value in odds on something I really don't think will happen - less than 10/1 chance I'd think, but 15/1, not sure...
TBH, not sure they would if had been Mandelson, though!
Health permitting, I think its very likely that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election and win, albeit with a reduced majority.
A long slow dementia-ridden death sees the individual in penury whilst they are still going, there again, mad old people seldom vote. However your hope is that the offspring of those lucky enough to spend their twilight years at home, who do vote, can divvy up the unearned proceeds from the family home.
People's Republic of China China / Taiwan
People's Republic of Korea North Korea / South Korea
Chinese Taipei = Korean Seoul !
I have a deep loathing of the EU and it's structures and their malign influence over the UK political body who were all to happy to hand over responsibility for running the country which moved the centre of politics and accountability one step further away from the voters. For good or ill the politicians in the UK are now properly accountable to the voters in a way that hasn't been the case since the early 90s. We finally have a way to fuck the top of the pyramid off in a way we never could to the likes of Junker or Ursula.
And (of longer standing) the IHT system also pampers those who donate via legacies to political parties (as if they were the RNLI).
I often wonder what happened to all those blue Morris Marina pick up trucks the US airman used to drive around in.
IHT would be my proposed solution to the social care funding problem. I doubt it’ll happen though.
The biggest cad in the story is Alex Salmond. Believing that Salmond was about to return to office in a Third Coming, Murray stuck his neck out to help him. But in fact Salmond, realistic and skilled
c***politician that he is, avoided saying a single word in Murray's support and, more than that, he accepted a role as Nicola Sturgeon's helper - in the Alba "super-majority" operation that failed. Murray was left beached, surprised after being found to have acted in contempt of court that he wouldn't be let off with a non-custodial (that really is some disconnect!), and leaving his wife to tell everyone that she is "saddened and shocked to learn he could be placed among criminals". What does she think prisons are for?Has Russia Today written this up yet?
Would I expect him to bounce back? Yes.
But is it newsworthy on a site like this? Absolutely yes.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
The LA will be quite content to take on the sale of the property on behalf of the resident in exchange for funding the care, but aren't we then back at the same end result anyway?
Personally it doesn't bother me too much, but I wouldn't allow them to drive left-hand drive vehicles on our roads:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8505301/Harry-Dunns-friends-hit-American-car-driving-wrong-road.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-58056234
Govt announces change to the NHS App.
It currently looks for close contacts FIVE days prior to a positive test. This will be updated to look back at contacts TWO days prior to a positive test.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1422210142850924548?s=20
The three most recent days were 758, 650 and 593 vs 827, 725 and 734 the previous week.
The seven day average drops to 744 from a peak of 793 last Tuesday
https://twitter.com/fact_covid/status/1422211074116435975?s=20
Have you ever seen teenagers have a real deep falling out? (Most of what I know of human frailty has come from teaching.) It's followed by an indeterminate period of sullen resentment. Until, for no good reason, it stops.
"You wanna come to the party?"
"Yeah, alright."
And I suspect it will be like that. No need to titter at the blimps, many of them will be past tittering at. But a wry smile as life goes on.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4540991/boris-johnson-bute-house-back-door-nicola-sturgeon/
If an individual's savings fall below £23,350 then the LA would pay for their at home care even if they owned their own property
Back in the 1980s, there was a thing called State Earnings Related Pensions (SERPs). It had been passed by the Wilson/Callaghan government and it basically involved the government taking over the role of providing pensions to people according to how much they'd earned (and therefore how much tax they'd paid) over their lifetimes.
It was extremely popular.
After all, who doesn't like free money.
But is was also economically ruinous in the medium to long term. Simply tax payers couldn't support dramatically higher pension payments for tens of millions of people.
Mrs Thatcher and her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, took the economically correct and politically unpopular decision to bin SERPs.
And you would have castigated her.
Once you have the initial joke of the Space Force being Trumps idea done, they could make something much more interesting out of it, as i think they were beginning to.
The whole thing with Kudrow in prison was an odd creative choice though.
Even Thatcher however did not get rid of the state pension and as more people got private pensions for most voters SERPS was less of an issue.
A dementia tax would destroy the Tories majority and electoral prospects for years and obviously no Tory leader would ever be stupid enough to contemplate it again.
We are elected to look after our base and our base is home owners, certainly more so than those reliant on SERPs were our base
How many parents, in that situation, will agree to give the baby up for adoption, or something *even worse*?
Brexit is with us until it is age 18
Obviously we allow it for tourists, but I think there should be a 28 day time limit on it.
The Americans should be driving RHD.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
(Beginning to unpick the madder bits in 2025, "sod it, we might as well have MEPs then" in 2040? Wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I suspect there's very little that anyone in UK politics can do to accelerate or retard that process.)
Looking at average Opinion Polls around 20 months after every General Election since 1979, the following are the average positions:
Now (20 mths after the Dec 2019 Election - Con Gov't, Con lead of around 5-6%, no crossover in polls
20 mths after the Jun 2017 Election - Con-led Coalition, Con lead of 5-6%, occasional crossover, next gov't Con albeit with a new leader.
After the May 2015 Election - Con Government, Con lead of 11-12%, no crossover, next gov't Con-led coalition.
After the May 2010 Election - Con/LD Coalition, Lab lead of 1-2%, some crossover, next gov't Con majority.
After the May 2005 Election - Lab Gov't, Con lead of 5-6%, no crossover, next gov't Con/LD coalition.
After the Jun 2001 Election - Lab Gov't, Lab lead of 5-6%, occasional crossover, next gov't Lab.
After the May 1997 Election - Lab Gov't, Lab lead of 25-30%, next government Lab.
After the April 1992 Election - Con Gov't, Lab lead of 15-20%, next government Lab.
After the June 1987 Election - Con Gov't, Con lead of 1-3%, some crossover, next gov't Con albeit with a new leader.
After the Jun 1983 Election, Con Gov't, Con lead of 2-3%, some crossover, next gov't Con.
After the May 1979 Election, Con Gov't, Lab lead of 9-12%, next gov't Con.
The only part of this that might remotely suggest a change of PM, let alone a change of Government, is around the 2017 election, but this was with a PM who had presided over a needless loss of a majority, exacerbated by the Dementia Tax and lack of delivery of Brexit. Otherwise the picture is clear, there have been exactly zero instances of sitting Governments leading in the opinion polls and going on to lose the next General Election. There are however several instances of the opposition leading in opinion polls and failing to win the next General Election.
Looking at the two clear changes of party at the top of Government is telling - in December 1993, labour led the conservatives by 15-20% and romped home at the next election. In January 2007, the Conservatives led by 5-6% and only got into Government with the Lib Dem's help.
I'm afraid all the evidence at this point, from a statistical point of view, points to another Conservative government led by BoJo. Effectively Mike is betting on a seismic event to change that narrative, which is possible, but not to the point where 15/1 seem ludicrously attractive odds. It is clear that Mike hates BoJo with a passion, but that alone is not enough for anyone to form a betting position. The gradual erosion in leader ratings and polls at this point is commonplace (and often much more pronounced than this), so I'm left wondering what aside from this visceral hatred is driving this belief - I can't find any actual evidence to back it up.
2nd is more hopeful though.
We will become like these countries. For good or ill Brexit has sent us on a totally different geopolitical trajectory to the EU. It will be an interesting journey
That said, I can see some softening around the edges, but it will be quite small things.
We left as a result of a narrow majority, on a 72% poll, as opposed to a 2-1 majority, admittedly on a lower turnout (65%) when we confirmed membership. What is more, in 1975 information to the public was much more clearly set out. apart from the somewhat hazy idea of 'leaving'
Remainers like me have every right to try and get the situation reversed. And I didn't get 'sent' to a nice school, I didn't have my way to Uni 'padded', and my living standards didn't depend on cheap labour.
But in the real world, how likely is it? Almost impossible in your lifetime, I would suggest, and perhaps impossible for the far and foreseeable future. The scars of the Brexit vote will be with us for a long time, how many want to reopen them?
Remainers are surely better off campaigning for incremental moves closer to the EU. A new kind of FOM, maybe the SM in the end.
Rejoin is a 50 year long pipe dream
From what he said in an interview on WaW the owners of the nursery in question are of Asian descent themselves; since all the rejected names were identifiably Muslim, the implication was that that was the problem rather than out and out racism.
You lot are whining about the fact that not everybody loves your ugly bastard child.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/29/lab-grown-meat-factory-farms-industrial-agriculture-animals
This bit might help their marketing to some sceptical sections of the populace...
...In 1931, Winston Churchill proclaimed that technology would one day allow humans to “escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”. As recently as the late 90s, the remark could be cited as an example of the futility of futurology. But a rapid development of biotechnology and medical science is making cellular agriculture a reality. Stem cells, the basic building blocks of most organisms, were identified in the 60s. Growing in vitro muscle tissue became possible in the 70s, and the first peer-reviewed research on the possibility of in vitro meat production was published in 2005...
yes it should have said half the proceeds, but half the proceeds of selling a house is rarely enough to buy another house (even a smaller one).
In fact the only solution to that problem is true Federalisation of the EU: EU wide taxes, EU wide debt (already coming), which surely means directly elected EU president, commission, a real EU army, a proper country, you can see it taking shape right now in plain sight
Which makes it even less likely we will ever return.
This is not to say a truly Federal EU is a good or bad thing, just that it is a thing we would not like to join. A couple of other countries might peel away, as well. Poland, perhaps. Sweden? But not many
We will be to the EU what Canada is to the USA. Not necessarily a comfortable position, but there aren't many Canadians who wish to be politically absorbed into the USA
Given the attitudes, especially in the Home Office, I suspect we're going to have a few more Windrush type cases before too long.
1. Pretty poor show, utterly unprofessional (although par for the course with our First Minister) and against all standard security considerations if the PM is coming North to announce it on twitter in advance.
2. Even if he is, he's not "visiting", he's Scotland's Prime Minister
https://twitter.com/AndrewBowie_MP/status/1422216798615842823?s=20
Spite is no basis for Government.
@andrew_lilico
The key reason the iSage folk got their Roadmap predictions so wildly, catastrophically wrong at Step 1a, Step 3 & Step 4 is that they didn't attempt any actual modelling at all, AFAICS. I don't know why. Some of them must have been capable of it.