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Watermelons or Green perennials: Are the Greens going anywhere? – politicalbetting.com
Watermelons or Green perennials: Are the Greens going anywhere? – politicalbetting.com
The Greens have a leadership election on, in fact they are already counting the votes. Most of the voting was online, so the winner is probably already known to the IT guy at Green Party HQ. With the official announcement waiting for the final postal votes to arrive, the leadership prospects have plenty of time to ponder: Will the Greens ever gain supporters over an election campaign?
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German election:
"The race to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor remains completely open two days before western Europe’s most populous country goes to the polls, with the latest predictions showing the leading parties almost neck and neck. Two leading polls published on Friday ahead of Sunday’s election indicate the Social Democrats (SPD) have lost their lead over the Christian Democrats (CDU). One, carried out by Civey for the broadcaster ZDF, showed the SPD to be stable on 25%, but the CDU to have risen to 23%. A poll released later in the day for the polling institute Allensbach for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung showed the race to be even tighter, with the SPD on 26%, the CDU on 25%."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/german-election-too-close-to-call-as-spd-lead-evaporates
What I find the hardest is the instant switch between work and kids with no break. The moment I get the last kid off in the morning it is the few minutes back home and then straight to work. Then at the end of the day you close your laptop screen and straight into kids meals, activities etc. There is no time at all to yourself when not working. I am quite exhausted by it and there isn't much end in sight for me. My role is European and until I can travel properly again then things won't change.
I would like to see some work colleagues again in the flesh but wouldn't ever want to go back to being in 4 or 5 days/week. I completely understand it being different for the young workers. What will be interesting is how it is balanced between the (older) management wanting to be at home a few days each week and the youngsters who are in most days.
I have really enjoyed the end of lockdown and actually meeting people again for work, shaking hands etc.
The problem with working in the office is really dead time commuting time, at one point in my career I was commuting for 4 hours a day (Although that is something peculiar to the south east). Ideally a healthy commute is a 20 minute walk, something like that. I've never successfully built that in to my wfh routine.
China frees Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig after Huawei boss released…..
Critics accused China of detaining the Canadians in retaliation for the arrest of Ms Meng, to use as political bargaining chips. Beijing strongly denied this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58687071
How do you combine - proper separation, meeting colleagues (and having proper relationships with them), low commute times, deep labour pools, affordable housing, etc.
It's a real toughy.
https://twitter.com/iandenisjohnson/status/1441628941995986944?s=20
Sadly, it's not an option available to the vast majority of the workforce.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/as-florida-punishes-schools-study-finds-masks-cut-school-covid-outbreaks-3-5x/
If you’re happily married, already have a wider social circle than can be easily managed and no longer have career ambition, who wants to go and waste life on a commute to so sit in a soulless office with people you would have little to no interest in talking to if you weren’t paid to do so?
I still find myself surprised to find things about WFH that I love. The end of “work drinks” for one. You gradually train yourself to think they’re fun but really it’s just the invasion of office politics into your leisure hours. Having left a job in the pandemic after a very long time, it’s actually quite staggering how few of my ex colleagues I feel inclined to stay in touch with.
Also: completely different voting systems in Holyrood (fiddled to do the exact oppositre of what FPTP is fiddled to do at Westminster). So performance in elections is incommensurable: CV is quite right to be precise as to what 'performance' means.
Mr. Moonshine, being able to listen to whatever music I like, or just take a stroll if my back's aching, are nice little bonuses.
F1: very soggy in Sochi apparently. May peruse the third practice market and put a few pence on long shots.
When you are 40, with a wife and kids and friends, and a home with dedicated space to work in... then yeah, WFH is great.
(Until, of course, that greasy oik a decade your junior gets your boss's ear.)
But for people who don't have their own place, or are new, or any one of a number of things, it sucks.
It’s common sense to grow from an established councillor base. The Lib Dem’s did it so well.
They need a Clause 4 moment, namely making a break with hair shirt wearing, the public nuisance and the condescension. And to make a bold pact with big business and underline the financial upside of going green. Become a realistic alternative to right leaning under 50 workers just as much as Momentum. Tricky balance and I don’t see the outstanding talent on the horizon to do it.
With the lack of imposition of customs at the Channel, scrapping of the NI protocol and now a U turn on recruiting HGV drivers is it time to predict the Tory slogan for next GE as "Getting Brexit Undone"?
Good piece @Quincel.
I think that the Greens can ride both horses for a bit longer, being mainstream in target areas and the political arm of XR in others simultaneously.
I managed this well in the first lockdown but have found it increasingly difficult and have tried to find reasons. Reading both your posts explains it well. Its that over time the barriers between working and being at home gradually dissolve so you never feel that you are properly at work or completely able to relax. I had been looking at the garden shed idea so I am disappointed you have found that hasn't worked either.
Over the last 2 weeks I have been out in court every day prosecuting. It has been a psychological relief. I am really not sure what the long term solution is going to be.
The Greens have always been very keen on direct action as well as electoral politics and that will never go away. This leadership contest is all about the Armalite vs Ballot Box strategies. I voted Omond/Womack as the party needs young, feminist, intersectionalist leadership.
https://twitter.com/doublehelix/status/1441397039925907471?s=21
Conclusions:
a) there is no petrol shortage
b) there is panic buying ('fuelled' by the media, BP/Shell, and the government)
c) the great British public (some of them) are bonkers.
https://twitter.com/JournoStephen/status/1441478999033593861?s=20
In "The Lancet" ffs.....
I get that people want to fill up because they might not be able to tomorrow, but what I don’t get is the queuing. Unless you absolutely need to fill up now, why bother?
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
Another source texts: "It's dead"
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1441655417378062336?s=20
Fully vaccinated around 44%, but clearly no hesitancy.
https://twitter.com/nadinedorries/status/1441463208603176965?s=21
Part of the problem here is that Starmer has no tribe in the PLP; no MPs who are *his people*. The supportive ones are just afraid of him failing too soon in case the left gets control of the party again.
https://twitter.com/rafaelbehr/status/1441661813511254016?s=20
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/24/labour-would-empower-unions-to-drive-up-wages-says-angela-rayner
Broad brush WFH is bad/good comments are all wrong. It works for some businesses and people and not others. An inability to be able to work from home isn't a moral lack of discipline, it's more about personality types (and vice versa).
What was interesting was that the Guardian writer was far more enthusiastic about Boris's speech in the UN (apart from the Kermit joke) than the think tank chap. She acknowledged that when Boris put his enthusiasm behind something he could be genuinely influential and get things done. Of course this was all laced with comments about him having the concentration span of a goldfish and his inclination to move on all too rapidly to his next enthusiasm but she emphasised that right now he was in the right place and "we should all be rowing in behind him" on this.
Whether you agree with this or not it seems to me that this is the quintessential problem for the Greens: are they a pressure group trying to influence government policy or are they a real political party? I think that they are more effective as the former and they clearly have influenced the national discussion. Voting green is not a wasted vote in this scenario, not at all. It is an indication that the mainstream politicians should pay attention.
It is also an indication of the problem for Starmer. Someone who is ideologically promiscuous as Boris (is ideologically really needed) will have no problem in seizing an agenda like this, even if it does not fit with traditional emphasis on the economy and business of Tories such as think tank guy. Creating a distinctive position that might seize the imagination of the public is going to be very difficult for Starmer.
As for the Greens, the new ingredient is Corbynistas who want Starmer to lose because he was Pilate to the Jezziah. They're clearly loud, but how numerous are they?
I found working from home very much harder when I had a regular office job and rarely did it - partly because the nature of the job meant it was not practical and partly because I hated feeling that home was not separate from work. I enjoyed my commute because it was one of the few times I had entirely to myself when I could read or watch something on iPlayer and it helped mark a break between work and home.
It is different since becoming self-employed but the children are grown up so there are not the same pressures. It will be interesting to see how this new project works out from that perspective. Some face to face time will be needed but many of the people I will need to interact with are also working from home too. But since I will not be an employee and there is an end date to it, it is different to being an employee trying to climb the corporate ladder. Permanent WFH is hard I think for those starting out.
Just driven past a queue of 50 cars trying to get petrol as the other stations in Brighton are sold out! Ludicrous ..
https://wtvbam.com/2021/09/24/in-iceland-election-political-stability-again-at-stake/
"COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Icelanders vote on Saturday in an election that could have a messy outcome with a record nine parties likely to enter parliament, making it difficult to find common ground on topics like climate change and healthcare.
The North Atlantic island of 371,000 citizens has seen a period of stability since 2017 under the ruling left-right coalition, after years of political scandals and distrust of politicians following the 2008 financial crisis.
The current government coalition led by Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir’s Left-Green Movement won its mandate on a promise to secure stability after Icelanders went to polls five times from 2007 to 2017."
Mind you when I remember some of the non-work-related conversations we used to have in our team, I do wonder about our mindset when we were in the office ........
Really sick of it now.
And is such a leader likely without a large turnover in party membership first ?
Perhaps more likely that one of the two major parties goes full green.
https://www.portsmouth.anglican.org/news/2020/01/10/new-space-workers-created-inside-church/
- it’s on Twitter
- irrelevant minor politician*
- it’s on Twitter
- She doesn’t have many followers
- It’s on Twitter
I’m going with “no impact”
* I know she’s in the cabinet, but still…
*
She is a much better people person than me but this has upsides and downsides. On the one hand she has made the screen chat work to a certain extent and has built relationships. On the other she misses the social interaction even more than I would. She really wants to be in the Office and to build a social life around her new friends. It feels as if her life is on hold in some respects.
Interestingly, when it wrote about prostate cancer, only 4 days ago, or to the effect of Covid on men's health, it referred to men. Not one of their body parts. But it is apparently ok for a medical magazine to describe women as little more than holes.
It just isn’t self-loathing in the way that left-leaning greenery often is
(It’s the difference between “we want to do this, how can we do it in the best way possible” and “humans are evil and must be constrained “)
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
She is getting more savvy with the mainstream media, but it would be interesting to see how she does with issues outside her direct experience. How well she listens to advice, and who she listens to.
The most verkrampt Corbynisters would snipe at her, but the more mainstream ones would back her, I think, and she could keep the Centrists on board. She has shown an ability to steer clear of pointless factionalism under both Corbyn and Starmer.
As an aside the administration side needs improvement as well. They wasted your time.
Husband got called in to ENT yesterday morning. Consultant wants to give him a barium meal as thinks there may be something else going on with his throat. So the worry scale has been turned up a notch again. Still, at least the hospital seems to be working a bit more effectively now.
It all seems a bit hit and miss. A friend has been in Preston Hospital with very serious car crash injuries and it has taken them three weeks to discover that one of his legs has been fractured in several places. Barrow Hospital where he was first taken completely missed some life-threatening internal bleeding hence the transfer.
I do agree that a Green party who focused much more on how to do things in a more sustainable way would be a lot more attractive than one that just seems to want to stop everything.
"Most people with a penis will have an occasional episode of being unable to get and keep an erection."
https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/mens-health/why-can-i-not-get-and-keep-an-erection/
Note unmodernised url.
For administrative reasons I am unable to enter into correspondence as to how I encountered this page.
I suspect office/home of 4/1 or 3/2 will become standard after the pandemic is fully over.
Both reduce women to body parts and bodily functions.
How can any sane person think this acceptable?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
Broadly they are:
The science may be wrong
The science may be right but the benefits may be much greater than believed
The solution to problems since 1800 have been more not less management and technology; this one is the same
and the killer, not sufficiently appreciated yet:
If the forecasts are correct it is going to happen anyway, with the maximum difference being + or - a few years. After all the hype of the last few decades, more CO2 goes into the air this year than ever before. It is obvious that this will not stop soon enough.
BTW it is obvious from the lifestyle of elites, political and other, that they do not believe their own rhetoric.