With regard to student loan repayment issue; it is worth reflecting on how we got in to this mess. Many people on here view the coalition years (2010-2015) as a glorious example of strong and mature government. My view to the contrary is that this was the worst government in living history.
The student loans are nothing but a con. The degree courses people were directed in to going on, at £9k per annum to go on were, in a very, very large number of cases, completely and utterly useless and a waste of 3 years of young peoples lives when they could have been doing something economically productive instead. The con gets worse when one looks at the repayment system. The absolute scandal is the interest rates, they are set at RPI, which is 1.5%, not the actual bank of england interest rate which is 0.1%. The interest rate increases to 4.5% when students start earning any significant salary. It is effectively a system of cynical exploitation of young people.
There is a lot of anger about this, it is the one policy area where it is possible to sympathise with people like Andrea Rayner.
So, between 1.5% and 4.5% for unsecured personal debt, where repayments are automatically paused in the event of unemployment, is a bad deal?
And, don't people who choose to do degrees in Film Studies bear some responsibility for their choices? Or do only you get to choose?
You are comparing student loans to a car loan; so it is really a false comparison. Student loans are there to facilitate higher education, which has a wider societal benefit that goes beyond other consumer goods; and for which there are a longstanding principle of access for all based on merit, secured by government intervention in the market.
Personally, I have no objection to the principle of paying for higher education. However, the government should not under any circumstances be able to profit from it, as it is now doing, under a system of loans administered by the government through taxation.
There is a major difference between 2021 and 2000. Back in 2000 there was an actual shortage. Refineries were blockaded and very little fuel was coming out.
In 2021 there is no shortage. A brief supply issue in Kent turned into a nationwide outage due to idiocy. But tankers are largely still delivering more fuel and will continue to do so.
We witnessed sheep behaviour. There is a queue so I will join the queue. May be a bit of that for a few more days but when it's obvious there is no shortage people will stop queuing.
We panicked early, on Thursday night, as we had under half a tank. We should be ok for 2 weeks now. If lots of others are in the same position then hopefully stocks can be rebuilt.
If we'd waited til this week to fill up we might have struggled to find any. Not sure about the local supermarkets but a lot of garages on my wife's drive to work are taped off.
Because there isn't a shortage of fuel, now we have passed the initial panic it's unlikely to come back. Even if all the people who panic filled their tanks decide to queue again for a 10l top-up that won't threaten availability much.
It would take a massive change in behaviour - everyone suddenly doing long trips for no reason - for there to be a shortage.
As for journalists, this was a Twitter and Facebook storm. I found out there was a problem on social media, not in the newspapers.
I think there's a fault in your reasoning here.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
Polish truck driver on @bbc5live nailing it right now: making visas available assumes there is a queue of people desperate to come over here and take on a job for three months. "You can't turn migrant workers on and off like a tap" #PetrolShortages https://twitter.com/anngripper/status/1442373371786764293
The head of the European Road Haulers Association (UETR) has said EU drivers have no interest in returning to the UK where they are "Not welcome except when England is desperate" https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1442006207334649858
Then companies will need to pay local workers a good salary to make them take the job. A million qualified drivers apparently should be well more than enough.
Though it's worth noting that many people do take temp jobs in the lead up to Christmas. If eg a Romanian driver thinks they can do 3 months in the UK and earn more than they could at home for a year or two in that time, that may be very tempting.
It would appear that they have reacted to be imprisoned at Marston airport last year and decided they aren't coming at any price.
No. It would appear that one alleged Polish driver phoned up Radio 5.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
It’s also wrong.
Most people are now tied into either the Apple or Android worlds. Forcing Apple to change its connector will mean people need to buy replacement cables when they upgraded their iPhone. It gets even worse if you use a wired headset you may need to replace that as well.
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
Get out?
I dislike this EU measure as much as the next man, but if they're going to go all wireless, they're going to go all wireless.
I see in the FT that the government are planning to raise some more tax. The target? Young workers of course, with the repayment threshold moving down from £27,295 to around £20-23k. Serves them right for not voting for Brexit or Boris.
Disgusting if true.
I assume everyone will pay more tax
The graduate marginal tax rate is going to be insane
My instinct says Scholz will probably push for a reverse 'grand coalition' with the CDU, as an SPD/Green coalition isn't enough for a majority, and the FDP seem (economically at least) to the right of the CDU/CSU.
From 1969 to 1982, Germany was governed by a SPD-FDP coalition. (And there may be other occasions, that's just the one I know.)
But the SDP & FDP together still doesn't get them the numbers. They'd need the Greens as well which complicates things massively.
That's why I think in the end (and we could be talking months not weeks) the CDU will swallow their pride and move into a grand coalition as jnr partner.
With regard to student loan repayment issue; it is worth reflecting on how we got in to this mess. Many people on here view the coalition years (2010-2015) as a glorious example of strong and mature government. My view to the contrary is that this was the worst government in living history.
The student loans are nothing but a con. The degree courses people were directed in to going on, at £9k per annum to go on were, in a very, very large number of cases, completely and utterly useless and a waste of 3 years of young peoples lives when they could have been doing something economically productive instead. The con gets worse when one looks at the repayment system. The absolute scandal is the interest rates, they are set at RPI, which is 1.5%, not the actual bank of england interest rate which is 0.1%. The interest rate increases to 4.5% when students start earning any significant salary. It is effectively a system of cynical exploitation of young people.
There is a lot of anger about this, it is the one policy area where it is possible to sympathise with people like Andrea Rayner.
So, between 1.5% and 4.5% for unsecured personal debt, where repayments are automatically paused in the event of unemployment, is a bad deal?
And, don't people who choose to do degrees in Film Studies bear some responsibility for their choices? Or do only you get to choose?
You are comparing student loans to a car loan; so it is really a false comparison. Student loans are there to facilitate higher education, which has a wider societal benefit that goes beyond other consumer goods; and for which there are a longstanding principle of access for all based on merit, secured by government intervention in the market.
Personally, I have no objection to the principle of paying for higher education. However, the government should not under any circumstances be able to profit from it, as it is now doing, under a system of loans administered by the government through taxation.
Is it, though?
Since they get back only a fraction (50%?) of the loans in repayment it's hardly profiting.
It's about raising money for HE, and making a decision where funds should come from, and with what balance between the sources lies.
Clearly the "it should all be free" position is untenable where 30 or 40% go to University, where it was when only a few % went to University.
I agree that the interest rate at inflation is stupid - not least because it makes the 'student loan' bigger every year in a lot of cases. Should be at rpi, or arguably cpi.
Just checking the predictions I made a week ago on the German elections. The 1.3 bet on Scholz looks to be coming home, as does the 5/6 bet on the CDU getting above 20%. The SPD/Green/FDP bet at a bit more than evens looks likely, though the saver on SPD/Green/Linke correspondingly won't happen. I also half recommended "Greens under 15%") then at 7/4, but suggested 5/2 as the trigger to go in - if anyone anyway took the hint at 7/4, that paid off too.
With regard to student loan repayment issue; it is worth reflecting on how we got in to this mess. Many people on here view the coalition years (2010-2015) as a glorious example of strong and mature government. My view to the contrary is that this was the worst government in living history.
The student loans are nothing but a con. The degree courses people were directed in to going on, at £9k per annum to go on were, in a very, very large number of cases, completely and utterly useless and a waste of 3 years of young peoples lives when they could have been doing something economically productive instead. The con gets worse when one looks at the repayment system. The absolute scandal is the interest rates, they are set at RPI, which is 1.5%, not the actual bank of england interest rate which is 0.1%. The interest rate increases to 4.5% when students start earning any significant salary. It is effectively a system of cynical exploitation of young people.
There is a lot of anger about this, it is the one policy area where it is possible to sympathise with people like Andrea Rayner.
So, between 1.5% and 4.5% for unsecured personal debt, where repayments are automatically paused in the event of unemployment, is a bad deal?
And, don't people who choose to do degrees in Film Studies bear some responsibility for their choices? Or do only you get to choose?
You are comparing student loans to a car loan; so it is really a false comparison. Student loans are there to facilitate higher education, which has a wider societal benefit that goes beyond other consumer goods; and for which there are a longstanding principle of access for all based on merit, secured by government intervention in the market.
Personally, I have no objection to the principle of paying for higher education. However, the government should not under any circumstances be able to profit from it, as it is now doing, under a system of loans administered by the government through taxation.
Surely, who pays for something should bear some relation to who benefits from it?
And the higher up the education stack you go, the more it is the individual that benefits. Is it so very unreasonable to ask them to contribute?
I see in the FT that the government are planning to raise some more tax. The target? Young workers of course, with the repayment threshold moving down from £27,295 to around £20-23k. Serves them right for not voting for Brexit or Boris.
Disgusting if true.
I assume everyone will pay more tax
The graduate marginal tax rate is going to be insane
Yes.
If you're going to charge everyone more tax then charge EVERYONE more tax.
Merge NI, Income Tax and the young graduate's tax together and charge that to everyone as the tax rate on all income.
The concept of graduates paying for their own education is reasonable. It should be subsidised as there are positive externalities.
It is reasonable for the government to finance it as most students don’t have that kind of money lying around.
But the government shouldn’t be charging a commercial rate of interest. At most they should be charging whatever the government pays on its debt. They shouldn’t be taking a spread, which is effectively what they have done
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
I hope she’s not really into politics too, as she might have just had her Christmas surprise ruined...😀
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
It’s also wrong.
Most people are now tied into either the Apple or Android worlds. Forcing Apple to change its connector will mean people need to buy replacement cables when they upgraded their iPhone. It gets even worse if you use a wired headset you may need to replace that as well.
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
That might be an argument had Apple not repeatedly changed their proprietary connector. The whole point about USB-C is that it is a standard. As Mrs RP just pointed out, it was even worse on laptops where even the same model from the same manufacturer could have different chargers from one year's generation to the next.
USB-C means one charger and one connector for all devices.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
Wow.
That's possibly the worst advert I've ever seen.
What a terrible ad. Wow.
(My guess was going to be something related to don't share needles though I wasn't sure how they were going to make the jump from being disgusted at all those people sharing a spoon to sharing a needle)
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
No. I think motorway service stations will always have fuel, though you'll obviously pay a bit more for it.
With regard to student loan repayment issue; it is worth reflecting on how we got in to this mess. Many people on here view the coalition years (2010-2015) as a glorious example of strong and mature government. My view to the contrary is that this was the worst government in living history.
The student loans are nothing but a con. The degree courses people were directed in to going on, at £9k per annum to go on were, in a very, very large number of cases, completely and utterly useless and a waste of 3 years of young peoples lives when they could have been doing something economically productive instead. The con gets worse when one looks at the repayment system. The absolute scandal is the interest rates, they are set at RPI, which is 1.5%, not the actual bank of england interest rate which is 0.1%. The interest rate increases to 4.5% when students start earning any significant salary. It is effectively a system of cynical exploitation of young people.
There is a lot of anger about this, it is the one policy area where it is possible to sympathise with people like Andrea Rayner.
So, between 1.5% and 4.5% for unsecured personal debt, where repayments are automatically paused in the event of unemployment, is a bad deal?
And, don't people who choose to do degrees in Film Studies bear some responsibility for their choices? Or do only you get to choose?
For all of the flap, the change in tuition fees was a positive step in allowing poorer students access. Instead of fees up front it was hypothecated fees when earning.
The issue was funding for universities. With the government contribution to uni teaching cut by 78%, we've seen institutions both get it in the neck for charging the "maximum" £9k a year and offering poor tuition due to a lack of money.
Anyway, think what these £9k fees are. Instead of the government handing money to the universities, it hands it to student loans who pay it to universities. We know that in this era of bankism debt is an asset. How much "asset" was added to bank balance sheets in this way? a very quiet way to keep injecting cash into a broken banking system.
And the funding comes down to the idea that 50% of kids need to go to university. IMV that was always an insane target, and has massively skewed expectations, education and the jobs market.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
It’s also wrong.
Most people are now tied into either the Apple or Android worlds. Forcing Apple to change its connector will mean people need to buy replacement cables when they upgraded their iPhone. It gets even worse if you use a wired headset you may need to replace that as well.
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
That might be an argument had Apple not repeatedly changed their proprietary connector. The whole point about USB-C is that it is a standard. As Mrs RP just pointed out, it was even worse on laptops where even the same model from the same manufacturer could have different chargers from one year's generation to the next.
USB-C means one charger and one connector for all devices.
Except that Apple came out with Lightning before USB C and it was a major improvement on Micro USB.
Should it be illegal for a company to invent and release a cable better than USB C? And who should be the arbitrator of that?
Anyone who thinks Lab would have any chance whatsoever under Rayner take a look at the front pages - all with the same picture of her - she looks totally inconceivable as a possible PM.
Dunno. You'd have been right pre-Boris, perhaps, and though most female world leaders have shoulder-length hair, New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has broken that taboo. I'd always imagined it had something to do with addressing outdoor rallies, which is largely a thing of the past, or possibly helicopters.
The very idea that such a coarse and unpleasant person could negotiate on behalf of the nation stretches credulity to breaking point.
A few thoughts regarding the reduction of the point at which students repay their loan:
1) This is a graduate tax in all but name, which means changing the terms after the fact can only be described as a tax increase.
2) The interest rate on student loans (those from 2012 onwards) is usurious. You’d pay less as a high yield company - there is no justification for government not charging interest at its own rate of borrowing (let’s use BoE base rate for simplicity), as it’s not as if higher education is something we want to discourage. Linking it to 3% + RPI (a form of inflation so discredited than the ONS will effectively discontinue its use in 2030) only makes matters worse.
3) Combined with the NI increase, it shows the Tories really do seem to have a disdain for young people.
Now I’m fortunate enough to have gone to university shortly before 2012, so this no longer affects me, but if true it’s another telltale sign the government is only interested in its older core vote.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
It’s also wrong.
Most people are now tied into either the Apple or Android worlds. Forcing Apple to change its connector will mean people need to buy replacement cables when they upgraded their iPhone. It gets even worse if you use a wired headset you may need to replace that as well.
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
That might be an argument had Apple not repeatedly changed their proprietary connector. The whole point about USB-C is that it is a standard. As Mrs RP just pointed out, it was even worse on laptops where even the same model from the same manufacturer could have different chargers from one year's generation to the next.
USB-C means one charger and one connector for all devices.
The issue is that a government standard means stasis.
It means a fixed and unchanging charging plug. It means an end to innovation.
That being said... I am equally not a fan of the way the patent system works, and how Apple manages licenses for its connectors. If I want to make to a Lightning connector to charge an iPhone, I should be allowed to do so, without paying a 38% licensing fee to Apple.
I see in the FT that the government are planning to raise some more tax. The target? Young workers of course, with the repayment threshold moving down from £27,295 to around £20-23k. Serves them right for not voting for Brexit or Boris.
Disgusting if true.
I assume everyone will pay more tax
The graduate marginal tax rate is going to be insane
Yes.
If you're going to charge everyone more tax then charge EVERYONE more tax.
Merge NI, Income Tax and the young graduate's tax together and charge that to everyone as the tax rate on all income.
Begs the question why should non graduates pay taxes to fund higher education to that degree ?
Polish truck driver on @bbc5live nailing it right now: making visas available assumes there is a queue of people desperate to come over here and take on a job for three months. "You can't turn migrant workers on and off like a tap" #PetrolShortages https://twitter.com/anngripper/status/1442373371786764293
The head of the European Road Haulers Association (UETR) has said EU drivers have no interest in returning to the UK where they are "Not welcome except when England is desperate" https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1442006207334649858
Then companies will need to pay local workers a good salary to make them take the job. A million qualified drivers apparently should be well more than enough.
Though it's worth noting that many people do take temp jobs in the lead up to Christmas. If eg a Romanian driver thinks they can do 3 months in the UK and earn more than they could at home for a year or two in that time, that may be very tempting.
It would appear that they have reacted to be imprisoned at Marston airport last year and decided they aren't coming at any price.
No. It would appear that one alleged Polish driver phoned up Radio 5.
Who is presumably working here.
We shall see. I would be surprised if this driver was the exception and we see a flood of happy truckers coming in happy to be back.
That is when the visas are actually available. Which could be several weeks according to The Times.
There is a major difference between 2021 and 2000. Back in 2000 there was an actual shortage. Refineries were blockaded and very little fuel was coming out.
In 2021 there is no shortage. A brief supply issue in Kent turned into a nationwide outage due to idiocy. But tankers are largely still delivering more fuel and will continue to do so.
We witnessed sheep behaviour. There is a queue so I will join the queue. May be a bit of that for a few more days but when it's obvious there is no shortage people will stop queuing.
We panicked early, on Thursday night, as we had under half a tank. We should be ok for 2 weeks now. If lots of others are in the same position then hopefully stocks can be rebuilt.
If we'd waited til this week to fill up we might have struggled to find any. Not sure about the local supermarkets but a lot of garages on my wife's drive to work are taped off.
Because there isn't a shortage of fuel, now we have passed the initial panic it's unlikely to come back. Even if all the people who panic filled their tanks decide to queue again for a 10l top-up that won't threaten availability much.
It would take a massive change in behaviour - everyone suddenly doing long trips for no reason - for there to be a shortage.
As for journalists, this was a Twitter and Facebook storm. I found out there was a problem on social media, not in the newspapers.
I think there's a fault in your reasoning here.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
A few filling stations in Kent ran out of fuel after one Hoyer depot lost drivers. There were no deliveries hence them running out. There may have been a few localised shortages - for only some brands of fuel - but nothing nationwide.
As supplies are largely normal, assuming that people don;t start doing unplanned 300 mile trips consumption will also be normal. Which means after the initial demand surge of fill your tank, the best the queue can do is top tanks off. Which means a queue but no shortage. Once "no shortage" sinks in there will be no queue.
It was a very close call for Die Linke, much closer than expected. They ended up with less than 5% of the second vote, obtaining compensatory seats only because they won three constituencies, the minimum required. One of them was won with 22.8% of the vote.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
On student loans, coincidentally mine will be paid off with my next payday. I think mine might have been a year or two before fees tripled, fortunately.
My instinct says Scholz will probably push for a reverse 'grand coalition' with the CDU, as an SPD/Green coalition isn't enough for a majority, and the FDP seem (economically at least) to the right of the CDU/CSU.
I don't think so - difficult to spend an election campaigning against someone, win handsomely, and then invite them into a coalition. The FDP and Greens have different priorities but not totally conflicting ones - the Greens are centrist on economics (and frankly barely interested) but want lots of green initiatives, the FDP are classic (i.e. right-wing, as you say) liberals on econimics and agnostic on greenery (and similarly barely interested). Neither of them have indulged in the culture war nonsense, and they were both being polite about each other last night. An SPD/Green/FDP coalition looks natural. You can still get 1.37 odds for it on Betfair. You can get 10 on Rob's bet if you want a saver. None of the other possibilities look at all likely.
I see you can also get 1.29 on the SPD leading the next government. That's IMO pretty much free money - it only doesn't happen if the Greens team up with CDU and FDP, which the Green membership really wouldn't ratify.
Polish truck driver on @bbc5live nailing it right now: making visas available assumes there is a queue of people desperate to come over here and take on a job for three months. "You can't turn migrant workers on and off like a tap" #PetrolShortages https://twitter.com/anngripper/status/1442373371786764293
The head of the European Road Haulers Association (UETR) has said EU drivers have no interest in returning to the UK where they are "Not welcome except when England is desperate" https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1442006207334649858
Then companies will need to pay local workers a good salary to make them take the job. A million qualified drivers apparently should be well more than enough.
Though it's worth noting that many people do take temp jobs in the lead up to Christmas. If eg a Romanian driver thinks they can do 3 months in the UK and earn more than they could at home for a year or two in that time, that may be very tempting.
It would appear that they have reacted to be imprisoned at Marston airport last year and decided they aren't coming at any price.
No. It would appear that one alleged Polish driver phoned up Radio 5.
Who is presumably working here.
We shall see. I would be surprised if this driver was the exception and we see a flood of happy truckers coming in happy to be back.
That is when the visas are actually available. Which could be several weeks according to The Times.
There is a major difference between 2021 and 2000. Back in 2000 there was an actual shortage. Refineries were blockaded and very little fuel was coming out.
In 2021 there is no shortage. A brief supply issue in Kent turned into a nationwide outage due to idiocy. But tankers are largely still delivering more fuel and will continue to do so.
We witnessed sheep behaviour. There is a queue so I will join the queue. May be a bit of that for a few more days but when it's obvious there is no shortage people will stop queuing.
We panicked early, on Thursday night, as we had under half a tank. We should be ok for 2 weeks now. If lots of others are in the same position then hopefully stocks can be rebuilt.
If we'd waited til this week to fill up we might have struggled to find any. Not sure about the local supermarkets but a lot of garages on my wife's drive to work are taped off.
Because there isn't a shortage of fuel, now we have passed the initial panic it's unlikely to come back. Even if all the people who panic filled their tanks decide to queue again for a 10l top-up that won't threaten availability much.
It would take a massive change in behaviour - everyone suddenly doing long trips for no reason - for there to be a shortage.
As for journalists, this was a Twitter and Facebook storm. I found out there was a problem on social media, not in the newspapers.
I think there's a fault in your reasoning here.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
A few filling stations in Kent ran out of fuel after one Hoyer depot lost drivers. There were no deliveries hence them running out. There may have been a few localised shortages - for only some brands of fuel - but nothing nationwide.
As supplies are largely normal, assuming that people don;t start doing unplanned 300 mile trips consumption will also be normal. Which means after the initial demand surge of fill your tank, the best the queue can do is top tanks off. Which means a queue but no shortage. Once "no shortage" sinks in there will be no queue.
But while many drivers' tanks are now full, many service stations have empty tanks. By the time they've filled them up again, the drivers will have used their tanks and be back for more. Rinse and repeat.
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
No. I think motorway service stations will always have fuel, though you'll obviously pay a bit more for it.
No, you will be ripped off. All motorway fuel.is a rip.off
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
She's 7 and the only thing she's had to say on politics is that she "hates Boris Johnson since he said she can't touch her friends".
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
A very happy birthday to you. Bus passes are very useful, under normal circumstances.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
She's 7 and the only thing she's had to say on politics is that she "hates Boris Johnson since he said she can't touch her friends".
I'm not sure that Boris Johnson's views on appropriate and inappropriate touching are ones I'd share with my children.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
It’s also wrong.
Most people are now tied into either the Apple or Android worlds. Forcing Apple to change its connector will mean people need to buy replacement cables when they upgraded their iPhone. It gets even worse if you use a wired headset you may need to replace that as well.
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
That might be an argument had Apple not repeatedly changed their proprietary connector. The whole point about USB-C is that it is a standard. As Mrs RP just pointed out, it was even worse on laptops where even the same model from the same manufacturer could have different chargers from one year's generation to the next.
USB-C means one charger and one connector for all devices.
It also makes devices slightly cheaper, as there are many potential sources of standard USB-C sockets, power-control/logic chips (whether standalone or integrated) and circuit designs. Going bespoke can be rather expensive, even if the cost is spread over millions of devices. One of the reasons manufacturers used to change from model to model . year to year (often only to change back again) was that they'd found a cheaper source.
(Remembers when Acorn Master computers would spontaneously combust after they had been left on for months, due to a problem with the rechargeable battery and its associated circuitry.)
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
No. I think motorway service stations will always have fuel, though you'll obviously pay a bit more for it.
No, you will be ripped off. All motorway fuel.is a rip.off
Motorway fuel is indeed a rip-off, but at least they'll have fuel and there's unlikely to be queues. That may be worth paying extra to OKC.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
Yep -they will not put a USB-C in a phone - too big.
If you spend any time on Hackaday, you'll find people have managed to frankengraft USB C connectors into iPhones.
What it would mean is that there's no way iPhones could get any thinner.
Apple have fitted USB-C onto other devices without the "crisis" of users having to use the universal standard. They won't with iPhone because they make a fortune selling licensed propriety adaptors and dongles. It has nothing to do with protecting their users and everything to do with protecting their profits.
Anyway, however psychotic this corporate behaviour is, they aren't unique. A generation ago it was Sony making various leading edge devices. Who made you but an endless rolling line of propriety crap like Memory Stick Pro Duo.
My instinct says Scholz will probably push for a reverse 'grand coalition' with the CDU, as an SPD/Green coalition isn't enough for a majority, and the FDP seem (economically at least) to the right of the CDU/CSU.
I don't think so - difficult to spend an election campaigning against someone, win handsomely, and then invite them into a coalition. The FDP and Greens have different priorities but not totally conflicting ones - the Greens are centrist on economics (and frankly barely interested) but want lots of green initiatives, the FDP are classic (i.e. right-wing, as you say) liberals on econimics and agnostic on greenery (and similarly barely interested). Neither of them have indulged in the culture war nonsense, and they were both being polite about each other last night. An SPD/Green/FDP coalition looks natural. You can still get 1.37 odds for it on Betfair. You can get 10 on Rob's bet if you want a saver. None of the other possibilities look at all likely.
It's always difficult to read messages from fragmented electoral results, but doesn't the most accurate reading from the German people seem to be "we'd like more of the same please, but with Scholz as chancellor instead of the other chap?"
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
Lawyers don't get old, they just become walking precedent.
Polish truck driver on @bbc5live nailing it right now: making visas available assumes there is a queue of people desperate to come over here and take on a job for three months. "You can't turn migrant workers on and off like a tap" #PetrolShortages https://twitter.com/anngripper/status/1442373371786764293
The head of the European Road Haulers Association (UETR) has said EU drivers have no interest in returning to the UK where they are "Not welcome except when England is desperate" https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1442006207334649858
Then companies will need to pay local workers a good salary to make them take the job. A million qualified drivers apparently should be well more than enough.
Though it's worth noting that many people do take temp jobs in the lead up to Christmas. If eg a Romanian driver thinks they can do 3 months in the UK and earn more than they could at home for a year or two in that time, that may be very tempting.
It would appear that they have reacted to be imprisoned at Marston airport last year and decided they aren't coming at any price.
No. It would appear that one alleged Polish driver phoned up Radio 5.
Who is presumably working here.
We shall see. I would be surprised if this driver was the exception and we see a flood of happy truckers coming in happy to be back.
That is when the visas are actually available. Which could be several weeks according to The Times.
There is a major difference between 2021 and 2000. Back in 2000 there was an actual shortage. Refineries were blockaded and very little fuel was coming out.
In 2021 there is no shortage. A brief supply issue in Kent turned into a nationwide outage due to idiocy. But tankers are largely still delivering more fuel and will continue to do so.
We witnessed sheep behaviour. There is a queue so I will join the queue. May be a bit of that for a few more days but when it's obvious there is no shortage people will stop queuing.
We panicked early, on Thursday night, as we had under half a tank. We should be ok for 2 weeks now. If lots of others are in the same position then hopefully stocks can be rebuilt.
If we'd waited til this week to fill up we might have struggled to find any. Not sure about the local supermarkets but a lot of garages on my wife's drive to work are taped off.
Because there isn't a shortage of fuel, now we have passed the initial panic it's unlikely to come back. Even if all the people who panic filled their tanks decide to queue again for a 10l top-up that won't threaten availability much.
It would take a massive change in behaviour - everyone suddenly doing long trips for no reason - for there to be a shortage.
As for journalists, this was a Twitter and Facebook storm. I found out there was a problem on social media, not in the newspapers.
I think there's a fault in your reasoning here.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
A few filling stations in Kent ran out of fuel after one Hoyer depot lost drivers. There were no deliveries hence them running out. There may have been a few localised shortages - for only some brands of fuel - but nothing nationwide.
As supplies are largely normal, assuming that people don;t start doing unplanned 300 mile trips consumption will also be normal. Which means after the initial demand surge of fill your tank, the best the queue can do is top tanks off. Which means a queue but no shortage. Once "no shortage" sinks in there will be no queue.
But while many drivers' tanks are now full, many service stations have empty tanks. By the time they've filled them up again, the drivers will have used their tanks and be back for more. Rinse and repeat.
No they won't - unless the majority of drivers drain their tanks every 2-3 days.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
A very happy birthday to you. Bus passes are very useful, under normal circumstances.
I am trying to remember the last time I was on a bus. It's got to be at least 10 years ago, maybe more. I don't think getting it is going to be a priority.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Nonsense, I is down with der yuff on da street, yo.
A few thoughts regarding the reduction of the point at which students repay their loan:
1) This is a graduate tax in all but name, which means changing the terms after the fact can only be described as a tax increase.
2) The interest rate on student loans (those from 2012 onwards) is usurious. You’d pay less as a high yield company - there is no justification for government not charging interest at its own rate of borrowing (let’s use BoE base rate for simplicity), as it’s not as if higher education is something we want to discourage. Linking it to 3% + RPI (a form of inflation so discredited than the ONS will effectively discontinue its use in 2030) only makes matters worse.
3) Combined with the NI increase, it shows the Tories really do seem to have a disdain for young people.
Now I’m fortunate enough to have gone to university shortly before 2012, so this no longer affects me, but if true it’s another telltale sign the government is only interested in its older core vote.
The attempted argument will probably be that reducing the repayment threshold will save (many) ex-students money because it will reduce the impact of the (extortionate) interest rate in the longer term...
Like it cheaper to pay off credit card debt when you can...
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
No. I think motorway service stations will always have fuel, though you'll obviously pay a bit more for it.
No, you will be ripped off. All motorway fuel.is a rip.off
On our way up here we saw 'normal' fuel priced at £1.55 per litre on the motorway. Filled up when we got here, on Thursday evening, at £1.35. We've been past that service station a couple of times since, and there have been neither queues, nor 'sold out' notices.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
Yep -they will not put a USB-C in a phone - too big.
If you spend any time on Hackaday, you'll find people have managed to frankengraft USB C connectors into iPhones.
What it would mean is that there's no way iPhones could get any thinner.
Apple have fitted USB-C onto other devices without the "crisis" of users having to use the universal standard. They won't with iPhone because they make a fortune selling licensed propriety adaptors and dongles. It has nothing to do with protecting their users and everything to do with protecting their profits.
Anyway, however psychotic this corporate behaviour is, they aren't unique. A generation ago it was Sony making various leading edge devices. Who made you but an endless rolling line of propriety crap like Memory Stick Pro Duo.
cf Casio watches, which I think our own dear MMC had a look at a bit ago for selling incredibly expensive non-standard replacement straps.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
A very happy birthday to you. Bus passes are very useful, under normal circumstances.
I am trying to remember the last time I was on a bus. It's got to be at least 10 years ago, maybe more. I don't think getting it is going to be a priority.
It might help you move about Edinburgh, should you need to.
Spoiler - its actually 10 years old....but the attitude hasn't evolved...
And there is an obvious get out clause that apple will use, they will just remove all sockets from the iPhone and insist on wireless charging.
Yep -they will not put a USB-C in a phone - too big.
If you spend any time on Hackaday, you'll find people have managed to frankengraft USB C connectors into iPhones.
What it would mean is that there's no way iPhones could get any thinner.
Apple have fitted USB-C onto other devices without the "crisis" of users having to use the universal standard. They won't with iPhone because they make a fortune selling licensed propriety adaptors and dongles. It has nothing to do with protecting their users and everything to do with protecting their profits.
Anyway, however psychotic this corporate behaviour is, they aren't unique. A generation ago it was Sony making various leading edge devices. Who made you but an endless rolling line of propriety crap like Memory Stick Pro Duo.
The psychotic corporate behaviour is enabled by much too generous patent protection. Patent life should be reduced, and limited to inventions, not just innovations.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
A very happy birthday to you. Bus passes are very useful, under normal circumstances.
I am trying to remember the last time I was on a bus. It's got to be at least 10 years ago, maybe more. I don't think getting it is going to be a priority.
Likewise, until I retired. Then we got rid of second car and, until the pandemic, regularly used the buses for all sorts of trips. No issues with car parking in major towns or at hospitals, as a result.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Another new party? We have hundreds!
Seriously I welcome anyone giving it a shot, but I'd love to know what they think they uniquely offer.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
With the current fiscal deficit any contributions in the form of lost deposits are welcome.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Oh for God's sake.
How many times: We don't have PR in this country, so you are utterly wasting your time.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Presumably, "the current politics of incompetence and self-interest offered by Labour and the LibDems as the alternative to the elected Government...."
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
Happy birthday!
More usefully you can spring £30 and get a one third off rail fares pass.
Real world effect of fuel crisis: I am sailing from Falmouth at the w/e. Rather than drive 70 miles to Falmouth as I usually do I shall drive 22 miles to Liskeard and let the train take the strain.
We had a much worse fuel crisis twenty years ago when we were in the EU, and before that in 1973 when we had just joined the Common Market. So by your own measure, we're better off out.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Presumably, "the current politics of incompetence and self-interest offered by Labour and the LibDems as the alternative to the elected Government...."
An inescapable conclusion - certainly she's saying they aren't holding the gov to account. I'd have thought at some point both tried to snap her up as a candidate.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Another new party? We have hundreds!
Seriously I welcome anyone giving it a shot, but I'd love to know what they think they uniquely offer.
Someone should genuinely found this
Though with Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox telling the media yesterday that the advantage of Brexit is that it enables us to be able to fix the problems caused by Brexit, Leapoards Eating Faces party may just be the Conservatives.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Good news. That should split the vote a little more, and perhaps see a few more Tories elected at the next election.
The issue is that a government standard means stasis.
It means a fixed and unchanging charging plug. It means an end to innovation.
It means the former, but with USB-C that doesn't automatically imply the latter. Because USB-C lets both ends negotiate about what they can provide, phone manufacturers can add new connects-to-peripherals functionality on the phone socket end, and new versions of the spec can add faster-charging support, without breaking the basic charging compatibility. A charger Apple sell in 2025 can still charge your ancient Android tablet, and any random USB-C charger can charge the latest iPhone 19 (no doubt more slowly than if you used the Apple charger and cable, but if you need a charge in an emergency it's better than nothing).
With regard to student loan repayment issue; it is worth reflecting on how we got in to this mess. Many people on here view the coalition years (2010-2015) as a glorious example of strong and mature government. My view to the contrary is that this was the worst government in living history.
The student loans are nothing but a con. The degree courses people were directed in to going on, at £9k per annum to go on were, in a very, very large number of cases, completely and utterly useless and a waste of 3 years of young peoples lives when they could have been doing something economically productive instead. The con gets worse when one looks at the repayment system. The absolute scandal is the interest rates, they are set at RPI, which is 1.5%, not the actual bank of england interest rate which is 0.1%. The interest rate increases to 4.5% when students start earning any significant salary. It is effectively a system of cynical exploitation of young people.
There is a lot of anger about this, it is the one policy area where it is possible to sympathise with people like Andrea Rayner.
Without disagreeing with your substantive point, I should remind you that the proposals were in fact Labour proposals that the Tories had - stupidly - agreed to implement without seeing.
What we have is what happens when a failing Prime Minister appoints one of his cronies - who was incidentally also a sex pest, embezzler and perjurer who was very fortunate to have admitted that in front of a notoriously stupid and biased judge rather than a real one - in charge of policy making and tell him to ask VCs what they want.
And then the opposition, too cowardly to talk about false economies, buy the narrative.
It was definetly the coalition that introduced them in 2010 against opposition from Labour. So this is no excuse. It is on them.
No, it was a Labour policy that the coalition implemented. Even though Labour then disowned the findings of the Brown report.
My point is that Rayner couldn’t really call the Tories ‘scum’ for implementing a Labour policy without admitting she is working for a party of ‘scum’ as well.
@rcs1000 He admitted all that in open court in front of a judge when his libel case against I think the Guardian collapsed, or I wouldn’t have posted it. You’re safe.
And now - back to work, having survived the commute.
He just said business rates are a £15bn tax revenue source yet it doesn’t seem right (too small) and 10 seconds on tweeter gave me a Parliament link which says it’s £31bn
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Another new party? We have hundreds!
Seriously I welcome anyone giving it a shot, but I'd love to know what they think they uniquely offer.
Someone should genuinely found this
Though with Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox telling the media yesterday that the advantage of Brexit is that it enables us to be able to fix the problems caused by Brexit, Leapoards Eating Faces party may just be the Conservatives.
It's a lot more attractive policy program than Gina is offering.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Another new party? We have hundreds!
Seriously I welcome anyone giving it a shot, but I'd love to know what they think they uniquely offer.
Someone should genuinely found this
Though with Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox telling the media yesterday that the advantage of Brexit is that it enables us to be able to fix the problems caused by Brexit, Leapoards Eating Faces party may just be the Conservatives.
I'm afraid that logo would not pass the Electoral Commission, as liable to confuse.
Conservatives or Liberals not being conservative or liberal passes muster as no one really defines such anymore.
We actually had a much worse fuel crisis twenty years ago when we were in the EU, and before that in 1973 when we had just joined the Common Market. So if fuel crises are anything to go by, I'd say we're better off out.
Logic so devoid of any reality it is almost impossible to counteract.
Polish truck driver on @bbc5live nailing it right now: making visas available assumes there is a queue of people desperate to come over here and take on a job for three months. "You can't turn migrant workers on and off like a tap" #PetrolShortages https://twitter.com/anngripper/status/1442373371786764293
The head of the European Road Haulers Association (UETR) has said EU drivers have no interest in returning to the UK where they are "Not welcome except when England is desperate" https://twitter.com/archer_rs/status/1442006207334649858
Then companies will need to pay local workers a good salary to make them take the job. A million qualified drivers apparently should be well more than enough.
Though it's worth noting that many people do take temp jobs in the lead up to Christmas. If eg a Romanian driver thinks they can do 3 months in the UK and earn more than they could at home for a year or two in that time, that may be very tempting.
It would appear that they have reacted to be imprisoned at Marston airport last year and decided they aren't coming at any price.
No. It would appear that one alleged Polish driver phoned up Radio 5.
Who is presumably working here.
We shall see. I would be surprised if this driver was the exception and we see a flood of happy truckers coming in happy to be back.
That is when the visas are actually available. Which could be several weeks according to The Times.
There is a major difference between 2021 and 2000. Back in 2000 there was an actual shortage. Refineries were blockaded and very little fuel was coming out.
In 2021 there is no shortage. A brief supply issue in Kent turned into a nationwide outage due to idiocy. But tankers are largely still delivering more fuel and will continue to do so.
We witnessed sheep behaviour. There is a queue so I will join the queue. May be a bit of that for a few more days but when it's obvious there is no shortage people will stop queuing.
We panicked early, on Thursday night, as we had under half a tank. We should be ok for 2 weeks now. If lots of others are in the same position then hopefully stocks can be rebuilt.
If we'd waited til this week to fill up we might have struggled to find any. Not sure about the local supermarkets but a lot of garages on my wife's drive to work are taped off.
Because there isn't a shortage of fuel, now we have passed the initial panic it's unlikely to come back. Even if all the people who panic filled their tanks decide to queue again for a 10l top-up that won't threaten availability much.
It would take a massive change in behaviour - everyone suddenly doing long trips for no reason - for there to be a shortage.
As for journalists, this was a Twitter and Facebook storm. I found out there was a problem on social media, not in the newspapers.
I think there's a fault in your reasoning here.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
A few filling stations in Kent ran out of fuel after one Hoyer depot lost drivers. There were no deliveries hence them running out. There may have been a few localised shortages - for only some brands of fuel - but nothing nationwide.
As supplies are largely normal, assuming that people don;t start doing unplanned 300 mile trips consumption will also be normal. Which means after the initial demand surge of fill your tank, the best the queue can do is top tanks off. Which means a queue but no shortage. Once "no shortage" sinks in there will be no queue.
But while many drivers' tanks are now full, many service stations have empty tanks. By the time they've filled them up again, the drivers will have used their tanks and be back for more. Rinse and repeat.
No they won't - unless the majority of drivers drain their tanks every 2-3 days.
Which assumes that the refineries can restock all of the nations services stations in 2-3 days.
When things were going sort of OK I would have sympathy with the "yawn" - fighting the last war and all that. Politically though it would be mad for anyone pro-EU not to be making the link again and again and again between the current series of supply chain crises and Brexit. Polls show a majority of the public think Brexit is at least partly to blame for shops running out of items and the shortage of lorry drivers. In reality it's not so much Brexit per-se as the stupidly reductive version of Brexit that got negotiated in a hurry in 2019.
This is a taste of the medicine the Tories have been excellent at administering to Labour for decades. Take one event, ensure by repetition and incantation that the public blames one party and one party only, and bring it back to the forefront any time that party looks like getting close to power. The winter of discontent did it for all of the 80s and into the early 90s. Then, from 2008 onwards, they happily pinned the entire blame for the global financial crisis on Gordon Brown, reciting the jolly "there's no money left" quote in 2015 and subsequent elections.
The difference this time of course is that they have had stunning success in scaring Labour off mentioning Brexit, so it's the FBPEs who are doing it, and that is far less effective than if it were the main opposition wielding the stick and beating the government over the head.
There's enough public disillusionment with the deal out there now that Keir should really be shouting from the rooftops every chance he has "Boris's botched Brexit deal did this", and quoting until hoarse ministers saying "THERE IS NO FUEL SHORTAGE".
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Oh for God's sake.
How many times: We don't have PR in this country, so you are utterly wasting your time.
It got her a headline, which is mission accomplished for her.
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
I doubt it - but the more interesting point is that you are considering it.
My mother's 90th birthday lunch is this week and we have already had a couple of cancellations from people not willing to risk driving because of the fuel crisis
So it is now affecting real decisions about people's lives
Mr. Pioneers, I believe a caption in Philip Matyszak's Gladiator (Unofficial Manual) to a mosaic is something along the lines of "Having a leopard eat your face is one of the alternatives that makes becoming a gladiator an appealing prospect."
They'll probably still get off, as some other protestors have for such things, though youd think theyd not complain about being sent to jail, wishing to be semi martyred to the cause.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Nonsense, I is down with der yuff on da street, yo.
Ouch my hip.
I would cut back on the break dancing if I were you.
No panic buying, just buying through the year as we have always done. You pay more if you buy at Christmas.
Eg my eldest daughter's main present we are giving her this year is going to be the Lego Harry Potter Great Hall. Normally £90, but a couple of months ago Amazon had it for £45 as a 24 hour flash sale. Why not buy it then?
She's really into both Lego and Harry Potter. I can't imagine that changing in the next three months.
Blimey, I hope she doesn't read PB.
She's 17, and thinks PB "is for old people, daddy-o".
Well as of today, in my case, she is right. 60th birthday today so I qualify for a bus pass, apparently. Bizarre.
Good morning everybody. I wonder what the PB brains trust would advise. Mrs C and I are on holiday some 350 miles from home. We have, thanks to topping up when we arrived last Thursday, more than enough fuel to get home. However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
I doubt it - but the more interesting point is that you are considering it.
My mother's 90th birthday lunch is this week and we have already had a couple of cancellations from people not willing to risk driving because of the fuel crisis
So it is now affecting real decisions about people's lives
Welcome to the club. My 80yr old in laws are worried about being able to get to chemo appointments. This is a serious problem.
They'll probably still get off, as some other protestors have for such things, though youd think theyd not complain about being sent to jail, wishing to be semi martyred to the cause.
What a strange time we live in when people are prepared to go to jail for 100mm of Kingspan.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest." https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Oh for God's sake.
How many times: We don't have PR in this country, so you are utterly wasting your time.
I sort of agree, but sort of don't. This one won't do it, but given the taboo surrounding even uttering the word Brexit despite most of the visions of project fear unfolding before our eyes there needs to be some kind of electoral protest party out there to keep pressure on the opposition. Farage in his various guises played the exact same part with stunning success from the right. Of course Gina Miller isn't Farage, and we already have the Lib Dems and (with somewhat more success in FPTP) the SNP able to play that role.
Comments
“The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK on short term visas to help UK out of the shit they created themselves”
https://twitter.com/thejonnyreilly/status/1442384181619793921
If you take the view that educa You are comparing student loans to a car loan; so it is really a false comparison. Student loans are there to facilitate higher education, which has a wider societal benefit that goes beyond other consumer goods; and for which there are a longstanding principle of access for all based on merit, secured by government intervention in the market.
Personally, I have no objection to the principle of paying for higher education. However, the government should not under any circumstances be able to profit from it, as it is now doing, under a system of loans administered by the government through taxation.
Remember, the initial panic was caused by media reports of a few stations actually running out of fuel. Why did they run out of fuel? It's reasonable to assume that they ran out of fuel because fuel deliveries hadn't quite been keeping up with sales. If this is correct, then the shortages would have continued to gradually worsen even without panic buying. The media reports and consequent panic buying merely accelerated the process.
This means that the only ways to resume normality are to either reduce demand (which will probably happen automatically as people try to avoid unnecessary journeys) or to increase supply (which is why the government is trying to recuit extra drivers). There is, however, a substantial hysteresis effect to overcome. People will tend to keep their tanks fuller than otherwise, so supply needs to exceed demand by a substantial margin for a while if we are to return to normal quickly.
Who is presumably working here.
I dislike this EU measure as much as the next man, but if they're going to go all wireless, they're going to go all wireless.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1442333548690558984
That's why I think in the end (and we could be talking months not weeks) the CDU will swallow their pride and move into a grand coalition as jnr partner.
Since they get back only a fraction (50%?) of the loans in repayment it's hardly profiting.
It's about raising money for HE, and making a decision where funds should come from, and with what balance between the sources lies.
Clearly the "it should all be free" position is untenable where 30 or 40% go to University, where it was when only a few % went to University.
I agree that the interest rate at inflation is stupid - not least because it makes the 'student loan' bigger every year in a lot of cases. Should be at rpi, or arguably cpi.
Not too bad.
And the higher up the education stack you go, the more it is the individual that benefits. Is it so very unreasonable to ask them to contribute?
Dark and rainy here.
It is reasonable for the government to finance it as most students don’t have that kind of money lying around.
But the government shouldn’t be charging a commercial rate of interest. At most they should be charging whatever the government pays on its debt. They shouldn’t be taking a spread, which is effectively what they have done
However, part of the plans for the holiday include a week-long visit to N Wales, starting on Thursday, adding a further 275 or so miles to our trip.
I am beginning to wonder; should we call off the N Wales leg?
USB-C means one charger and one connector for all devices.
(My guess was going to be something related to don't share needles though I wasn't sure how they were going to make the jump from being disgusted at all those people sharing a spoon to sharing a needle)
IMV everything else leads on from that.
Should it be illegal for a company to invent and release a cable better than USB C? And who should be the arbitrator of that?
What is wrong with letting the consumer decide?
Huge LOL
1) This is a graduate tax in all but name, which means changing the terms after the fact can only be described as a tax increase.
2) The interest rate on student loans (those from 2012 onwards) is usurious. You’d pay less as a high yield company - there is no justification for government not charging interest at its own rate of borrowing (let’s use BoE base rate for simplicity), as it’s not as if higher education is something we want to discourage. Linking it to 3% + RPI (a form of inflation so discredited than the ONS will effectively discontinue its use in 2030) only makes matters worse.
3) Combined with the NI increase, it shows the Tories really do seem to have a disdain for young people.
Now I’m fortunate enough to have gone to university shortly before 2012, so this no longer affects me, but if true it’s another telltale sign the government is only interested in its older core vote.
It means a fixed and unchanging charging plug. It means an end to innovation.
That being said... I am equally not a fan of the way the patent system works, and how Apple manages licenses for its connectors. If I want to make to a Lightning connector to charge an iPhone, I should be allowed to do so, without paying a 38% licensing fee to Apple.
That is when the visas are actually available. Which could be several weeks according to The Times. A few filling stations in Kent ran out of fuel after one Hoyer depot lost drivers. There were no deliveries hence them running out. There may have been a few localised shortages - for only some brands of fuel - but nothing nationwide.
As supplies are largely normal, assuming that people don;t start doing unplanned 300 mile trips consumption will also be normal. Which means after the initial demand surge of fill your tank, the best the queue can do is top tanks off. Which means a queue but no shortage. Once "no shortage" sinks in there will be no queue.
What it would mean is that there's no way iPhones could get any thinner.
I see you can also get 1.29 on the SPD leading the next government. That's IMO pretty much free money - it only doesn't happen if the Greens team up with CDU and FDP, which the Green membership really wouldn't ratify.
Distinctly autumnal this morning.
(Remembers when Acorn Master computers would spontaneously combust after they had been left on for months, due to a problem with the rechargeable battery and its associated circuitry.)
Anyway, however psychotic this corporate behaviour is, they aren't unique. A generation ago it was Sony making various leading edge devices. Who made you but an endless rolling line of propriety crap like Memory Stick Pro Duo.
Also, happy birthday.
Also also, I'm amused that Chrome things* 'Seleucus' is a typo but recognises Seleucid. As in, the empire he founded.
Edited extra bit: *thinks.
Ouch my hip.
Like it cheaper to pay off credit card debt when you can...
We've been past that service station a couple of times since, and there have been neither queues, nor 'sold out' notices.
The anti-Brexit campaigner says: "This Government needs to be held to account. Voters deserve better than the current politics of incompetence and self-interest."
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1442389527818027008
Seriously I welcome anyone giving it a shot, but I'd love to know what they think they uniquely offer.
How many times: We don't have PR in this country, so you are utterly wasting your time.
More usefully you can spring £30 and get a one third off rail fares pass.
Real world effect of fuel crisis: I am sailing from Falmouth at the w/e. Rather than drive 70 miles to Falmouth as I usually do I shall drive 22 miles to Liskeard and let the train take the strain.
2002 - 77.0%
2005 - 69.4%
2009 - 56.8%
2013 - 67.2%
2017 - 53.4%
2021 - 49.8%
Though with Transport Secretary Sebastian Fox telling the media yesterday that the advantage of Brexit is that it enables us to be able to fix the problems caused by Brexit, Leapoards Eating Faces party may just be the Conservatives.
Read more: https://l-bc.co/3oaXZDV
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1442390083362037767?s=20
My point is that Rayner couldn’t really call the Tories ‘scum’ for implementing a Labour policy without admitting she is working for a party of ‘scum’ as well.
@rcs1000 He admitted all that in open court in front of a judge when his libel case against I think the Guardian collapsed, or I wouldn’t have posted it. You’re safe.
And now - back to work, having survived the commute.
He just said business rates are a £15bn tax revenue source yet it doesn’t seem right (too small) and 10 seconds on tweeter gave me a Parliament link which says it’s £31bn
If we had anyone to drive them.
Conservatives or Liberals not being conservative or liberal passes muster as no one really defines such anymore.
Time for work.
This is a taste of the medicine the Tories have been excellent at administering to Labour for decades. Take one event, ensure by repetition and incantation that the public blames one party and one party only, and bring it back to the forefront any time that party looks like getting close to power. The winter of discontent did it for all of the 80s and into the early 90s. Then, from 2008 onwards, they happily pinned the entire blame for the global financial crisis on Gordon Brown, reciting the jolly "there's no money left" quote in 2015 and subsequent elections.
The difference this time of course is that they have had stunning success in scaring Labour off mentioning Brexit, so it's the FBPEs who are doing it, and that is far less effective than if it were the main opposition wielding the stick and beating the government over the head.
There's enough public disillusionment with the deal out there now that Keir should really be shouting from the rooftops every chance he has "Boris's botched Brexit deal did this", and quoting until hoarse ministers saying "THERE IS NO FUEL SHORTAGE".
My mother's 90th birthday lunch is this week and we have already had a couple of cancellations from people not willing to risk driving because of the fuel crisis
So it is now affecting real decisions about people's lives