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YouGov MRP poll in “red wall” seats finds CON to LAB swing of 4.5% – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    Abolish IH tax completely.

    [and tax inheritances as earned income instead]
  • HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    The kind of observations from America that certain parties will just lurve.
    When will BJ be doing this in Scotland?




    The other thing which struck me about that tweet is presumably the photo was taken at the Tory conference. Is Luntz really saying you cannot find photos of Trump/Biden being loved at rallies?

    Johnson does have a certain campaigning power which gets him support from a lot of voters, but the idea that he is a 'rock star' to the extent there is no parallel in the UK/America is nonsense.
    He is a rock star UK PM certainly, only Blair and Thatcher have been similar rock star PMs in my lifetime and indeed only Reagan, Bill Clinton, Obama and Trump have been rock star Presidents in the US in my lifetime. Biden however is not a rockstar leader like Boris is
    I'd go for rock star in the strictly Martin Degville sense.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Degville
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Casino Royale is my favourite, I think it's a great film, period.

    I find Skyfall entertaining but not as good as CR, I like GoldenEye. I enjoy License to Kill, I thought it was a bit ahead of its time

    Yes David Niven was awesome in Casino Royale.
    I have just his book "The Moon is a Balloon", inspired by this tweet

    https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1439960035786989570

    Unlikely I will actually read it though, I haven't finished a book in a long while. Not even "The Old Man & The Sea" which is less than 100 pages long and I started 3 months ago
    Read 'Moon' as a teenager and I remember loving it. Very funny. Don't know if I'd still think that now. Never reread it. Found 'Sea' a struggle. Ditto the other 2 Hemmingways I've read. Can't quite see what others do in him. My fault, no doubt.
    I watched the Hemingway documentaries on BBC recently and loved them, so bought "the Old Man..."

    I just don't get it, and I dont know if I will bother to finish it - is there a twist? Does he lose the fish???

    I buy lots of books I will never read. Sad but true
    Yes, really good doc, that. Amazing how often he bumped his head. In fact has a bloke ever bumped his head as often as old Ernest did? I doubt it.
    Ernest is another name that I suggested, and was vetoed, for our new baby. Although I don't like "Ernie" and he would get called that I guess. More of a middle name perhaps

    I have bumped my head a few times. A couple of drunken falls resulting in 2 new front teeth and 27 stitches in my head. Nothing on old EH though
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Quincel said:

    The kind of observations from America that certain parties will just lurve.
    When will BJ be doing this in Scotland?




    The other thing which struck me about that tweet is presumably the photo was taken at the Tory conference. Is Luntz really saying you cannot find photos of Trump/Biden being loved at rallies?

    Johnson does have a certain campaigning power which gets him support from a lot of voters, but the idea that he is a 'rock star' to the extent there is no parallel in the UK/America is nonsense.
    Give us the beat boris, free our soul, we all get lost in your rock and roll, while you grift away ...
  • HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    Abolish IH tax completely.

    [and tax inheritances as earned income instead]
    I do not see Rishi on board with that but increasing the rate and reducing thresholds would be the right thing to do
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited October 2021
    AlistairM said:

    isam said:

    The fellow doing some odd jobs round our house just got a call from his wife - she has tested positive for Covid

    He did an LFT here, and its negative... what next?

    Don't worry too much. I tested positive for Covid last week despite being double jabbed. Like a bad cold except that I've lost my sense of smell. Although the isolation is worse than being in lock down last year. I can't go out for exercise and you have to watch everyone else carrying on as normal. Friday is my freedom day.
    My girlfriend is 8.5 months pregnant though, dont need her getting it... Fortunately I am living in the new house and she is at her parents while its being done up. Could scupper my appearance at the hospital mind you
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
  • HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    Abolish IH tax completely.

    [and tax inheritances as earned income instead]
    I do not see Rishi on board with that but increasing the rate and reducing thresholds would be the right thing to do
    It'd be a step in the right direction.

    I don't especially want to see inheritances highly taxed - but I don't want to see incomes highly taxed either.

    I see no reason why unearned income should be lower-taxed than earned incomes.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    Absolutely. When you would otherwise have been posting on PB.

    :smile:
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    Just got a new iPhone 13. Free via long delayed upgrade

    Apple sends you one charging cable: Lightning to USB-C. How useless is that?
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Not in London and the Home Counties it isn't.

    It was Osborne's policy to raise the IHT threshold to £1 million from £325,000 for married couples that was the biggest single boost to the Tory poll rating since 2000 and forced Brown to cancel the 2007 election
  • RH1992RH1992 Posts: 788
    edited October 2021

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    National Insurance was set up to be insurance paid for only out of salaried income to fund healthcare, state pensions and contributory unemployment benefits and rightly so
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
  • RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later. Wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Its irritating as it really should be an open and shut case and my testimony is pretty straightforward, the evidence is quite watertight, but without my testimony the prosecution would fall apart.

    So the prosecutor thinks the only reason the defendants aren't pleading guilty is they're hoping I won't turn up to the Court so that my testimony and thus the case can be thrown out.

    If your and my experience is something to go by I'm wondering how often that happens and how often defendants get away with it because they can't get witnesses into the Court time and time again. 😞
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    tlg86 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    So Michael Gove was introduced to conference with Dancing Queen blaring.

    "Only seventeen" is a bit tactless these days.
    Ladytron had it right...

    They only want you when you're seventeen,
    When you're 21, you're no fun.
    They take a Polaroid and let you go
    Say they'll let you know, so come on.
    Ladytron!

    By bizarre coincidence I was out in London on Saturday with someone from Ladytron. Got home far too late/early and spent Sunday feeling sorry for myself.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    National Insurance was set up to be insurance paid for only out of salaried income to fund healthcare, state pensions and contributory unemployment benefits and rightly so
    But it isn't though is it?
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    National Insurance was set up to be insurance paid for only out of salaried income to fund healthcare, state pensions and contributory unemployment benefits and rightly so
    Times change. If you want healthcare, pensions etc paying for then it'd be right to extend NI to all incomes - unearned as well as earned.

    Perhaps keep IHT as it is, but apply NI (both versions of it) to all inheritances as well. Employers NI can be charged to all inheritances bequeathed, and Employees NI can be charged to all inheritances received.

    Then it'd be considerably fairer.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    National Insurance was set up to be insurance paid for only out of salaried income to fund healthcare, state pensions and contributory unemployment benefits and rightly so
    But it isn't though is it?
    It should be. Plus to an extent it still is as you only qualify for the state pension and JSA if you have sufficient NI credits and it seems the government will rightly use NI to pay for the extra funds for social care and the NHS post Covid
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Heard on the way back from school:
    Mother: Teacher ***** has got Covid.
    Girl: Good! He deserves it!

    Her mother's embarrassed reaction was quite something ...
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    Thanks for the detailed response. I'm getting the X characters too long error, so will try replying in two posts

    On point 1: I've posted before that I find Kaufmann's research - at leas the bits I've looked at in detail - of very dubious quality. You can get almost any answer you like from that kind of study if you plan it right. Doing a good study is hard and expensive, to be fair. Frankly, I don't believe it (to the extent that he argues it) and I'm pretty sure I could design a study to show the exact opposite. If he's right, 33% of British academics need to be sacked. In most cases I have no idea about someone's views on Brexit, even among my colleagues. Because, you know what? We're not obsessed about it. Real life, research, funding, the department's policy on free tea, coffee and milk and not free sugar - that's what real people actually care about.
    - In hiring, there's no question on the application form about Brexit; I don't ask about it in interviews. Someone would need to have a really high profile public position on Brexit for me to even know.
    - On grant applications, what is 'an openly conservative submission'? One that sets out the (conservative) answer to the question that's supposed to be researched? An openly biased submission in either direction should have a very high chance of rejection because it is not good science. Or a submission from an openly conservative person? Again, how do the panel even know, generally? I have no idea of the politics of the submitters of just about every application I review - even among high profile academics I know the politics of very few. I'm be barred from reviewing applications from my institution/colleagues, where I might have a better idea, but for the more obvious reasons of other potential biases (liking/disliking them, favouring my institution etc).

    If you're impugning the integrity of Eric Kauffman and his research then I'm afraid I don't think our discussion can progress much further. He's one of the very best in his field, and his work is highly respected.

    I think the issue here is simply that you don't want to believe his findings, and so are finding reasons not to do so.
    In another post I set out my specific issues with his research in this area.

    I'm not accusing him of lying/falsification. Doing this research well would be very hard and expensive. It might not really be possible - you have to get people to respond and you can't compel that. Some people would take the view that the limited research that has been done is better than nothing. For me, the limited research points to something that should be looked at in a better way, the findings themselves are not robust, I would say.
    You simply said you thought the research was dubious - they are all reputable studies and easily findable.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand acknowledged end to the country’s strategy of "Covid Zero". Seven weeks of lockdown has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta varian
    https://twitter.com/V2019N/status/1445037731705339909
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Not in London and the Home Counties it isn't.

    It was Osborne's policy to raise the IHT threshold to £1 million from £325,000 for married couples that was the biggest single boost to the Tory poll rating since 2000 and forced Brown to cancel the 2007 election
    I have no idea why you think London should be treated any differently than the rest of the UK
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Casino Royale is my favourite, I think it's a great film, period.

    I find Skyfall entertaining but not as good as CR, I like GoldenEye. I enjoy License to Kill, I thought it was a bit ahead of its time

    Yes David Niven was awesome in Casino Royale.
    I have just his book "The Moon is a Balloon", inspired by this tweet

    https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1439960035786989570

    Unlikely I will actually read it though, I haven't finished a book in a long while. Not even "The Old Man & The Sea" which is less than 100 pages long and I started 3 months ago
    Read 'Moon' as a teenager and I remember loving it. Very funny. Don't know if I'd still think that now. Never reread it. Found 'Sea' a struggle. Ditto the other 2 Hemmingways I've read. Can't quite see what others do in him. My fault, no doubt.
    Use to love Hemingway when young, not so much now which may say a lot. I think he's been far too influential on US writing. His short stories may be the way to go if you feel you should persevere.

    Worth watching the recent Ken Burns documentary series even if you're not keen on him, rather tragic, and depressing actually (not that I want anyone to be depressed!). There's a remarkable clip of him doing his Nobel acceptance speech to camera as he was too messed up to attend; strangely fluting voice and hesitancy, completely contra the public image. The finale is, well, tragic and depressing.
    Great doc, yes, and that scene was eerie. Fascinating character and an amazing life story. He seemed to be a mix of the truly admirable and the really rather objectionable, with little in between.

    Or as he'd put it -

    "I was a good man yet a bad man. But a man."
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    edited October 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand acknowledged end to the country’s strategy of "Covid Zero". Seven weeks of lockdown has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta varian
    https://twitter.com/V2019N/status/1445037731705339909

    Not enough mask wearing.

    In all seriousness, I hope the NZ people are smart enough to appreciate what a good job their government has done and that this day was always going to arrive. They need to vaccinate as quickly as possible.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    But, we can all play that game - I could cite those (like Emma Thompson) who described Devon as hideously white, say "whiteness" is a social problem, say the UK as a nation-state is an anachronism and it's time we moved to geo-centric diverse societies, or that all Leavers are racist.

    It doesn't become any more acceptable when it's 'your' side doing it.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    What is the difference between failing to get an academic post because you are a Brexiter versus failing to get one because you are a Flat Earther?
  • Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
  • What is the difference between failing to get an academic post because you are a Brexiter versus failing to get one because you are a Flat Earther?

    Flat Earth is unscientific and goes against all evidence.

    Brexit is the settled will of society and factually happened. If anyone is to be denied a role for being in a minority (and nobody should be) then shouldn't it be Remainers? 🤔
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later. Wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Its irritating as it really should be an open and shut case and my testimony is pretty straightforward, the evidence is quite watertight, but without my testimony the prosecution would fall apart.

    So the prosecutor thinks the only reason the defendants aren't pleading guilty is they're hoping I won't turn up to the Court so that my testimony and thus the case can be thrown out.

    If your and my experience is something to go by I'm wondering how often that happens and how often defendants get away with it because they can't get witnesses into the Court time and time again. 😞
    I think that's quite common. The defendant in a case I was called to act as a witness for pled guilty on the day of the trial after being told that I'd turned up to court.

    I had a case against me dismissed because one of the police witnesses didn't turn up (this related to a Faslane Peace Camp related bit of non-violent disobedience). This seemed to happen from time-to-time with these cases, and the thought was that police officers sympathetic to the Peace Camp would lose themselves in a pub on their way to court.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    What is the difference between failing to get an academic post because you are a Brexiter versus failing to get one because you are a Flat Earther?

    Flat Earth is unscientific and goes against all evidence.

    Brexit is the settled will of society and factually happened. If anyone is to be denied a role for being in a minority (and nobody should be) then shouldn't it be Remainers? 🤔
    Brexit happened, but as a policy it’s pure crankery.

    I probably wouldn’t employ a Brexiter, as it certainly indicates an intellectual if not a moral failing.

    I am too old (or married!) to put this on a tinder profile.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Nigelb said:

    Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand acknowledged end to the country’s strategy of "Covid Zero". Seven weeks of lockdown has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta varian
    https://twitter.com/V2019N/status/1445037731705339909

    Better late than never.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    If you were living in small town Hicksville, Flyover State in 2016, and had seen either a) your wages remain static since the previous century while the millionaires on the coast became billionaires, and/or b) the only major employer in your town decamp elsewhere while more and more of the stuff you used to make get imported from China and/or c) the social fabric of your town fraying, do you vote for a) more of the same, in the person and party of a candidate who appears to view you and your ilk as at best something of an embarrassment, or b) Trump? I don't like the man. But I can see why people voted for him.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    Dying to know what you were there for. I have twice been a potential witness, but it never happened in either case.

    Case 1) An election cases. It seemed pretty open and shut to me but the CPS dropped it through lack of evidence. Not sure what more they could have wanted.

    Case 2) I witnessed a car accident and I believe I was the only witness, but what I thought I saw in that instant was inconsistent with what I found when I got the the cars. I gave a statement and made this clear. I was told I may be called as a witness. I wasn't, but I did get notified that there had been a successful prosecution. I have no idea which driver got prosecuted. There must have been something else like speeding or drinking involved because the statement I gave was as useful as a chocolate teapot.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It's also just plain common sense that it will save them so much hassle to fund it.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Andy_JS said:

    Nigelb said:

    Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand acknowledged end to the country’s strategy of "Covid Zero". Seven weeks of lockdown has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta varian
    https://twitter.com/V2019N/status/1445037731705339909

    Better late than never.
    Jacinda is I think still not having the “honest” conversation.

    I absolutely defend much of the policy to date, but I don’t think she’s really set public expectations that Auckland is likely to remain in lockdown for quite some time.
  • The kind of observations from America that certain parties will just lurve.
    When will BJ be doing this in Scotland?


    You would enjoy this reply:

    I don't know how much you know about UK rhyming slang, but only Frank Luntz would think this.
    Translation?

    My take, as semi-cynic and quasi-consultant, is that Luntz is prospecting for (more?) UK business.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    His Home Secretary shadow is the most In invisible man in politics. I cannot tell you his name. I am not entirely confident of his real existence.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    So second working day for UKHSA (replaced PHE on friday) and second time the dashboard is not updated at 4pm. I shouldn't be so upset looking for the numbers, but I am more conditioned than a Russian dog hearing a dinner bell ringing...
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Volvo Cars to be floated on the Stockholm stock exchange. Estimated value $2.9 billion, making it one of the biggest flotations in European history.

    Their subsidiary Polestar was floated in New York last month for over $2 billion.

    That’s one hell of a lot of cash kicking about in Gothenburg. Magnet for engineers. Swedish universities simply cannot keep up with demand, despite churning out tens of thousands of engineers every year.
  • Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    Was it actually any better upto 2010? I never had faith in our criminal justice system even before then.

    My home was burgled by a serial criminal in 2010, whom I interrupted and chased out of my house and got his reg plate as he fled. He pled guilty to my burglary I'd interrupted, another he was arrested red-handed committing and 18 other cases. He got a suspended sentence for that.

    I was assaulted in 2004 and got a shattered eyesocket that could have left me blind. The attacker was arrested red handed (possibly literally) and he got a six month sentence for pleading guilty to GBH.

    If serial criminals aren't going to end up facing serious prison sentences when they actually end up convicted, then what's the point of the entire system?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    edited October 2021

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    Theres was plenty of fat to trim in many areas. But justice cant bear much strain and it's been way too much, and politicians only care about creating new offences and being 'tough' on criminals and alleged criminals) even if its counter productive.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    Was it actually any better upto 2010? I never had faith in our criminal justice system even before then.

    My home was burgled by a serial criminal in 2010, whom I interrupted and chased out of my house and got his reg plate as he fled. He pled guilty to my burglary I'd interrupted, another he was arrested red-handed committing and 18 other cases. He got a suspended sentence for that.

    I was assaulted in 2004 and got a shattered eyesocket that could have left me blind. The attacker was arrested red handed (possibly literally) and he got a six month sentence for pleading guilty to GBH.

    If serial criminals aren't going to end up facing serious prison sentences when they actually end up convicted, then what's the point of the entire system?
    Without really understanding the details, on the face of it your issues look like sentencing mistakes rather than chronic delays caused by underfunding.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    What is the difference between failing to get an academic post because you are a Brexiter versus failing to get one because you are a Flat Earther?

    Angela Merkel said she chose to study physics in East Germany because it was one of the few things that wasn't subject to ideological corruption.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Leon said:

    Just got a new iPhone 13. Free via long delayed upgrade

    Apple sends you one charging cable: Lightning to USB-C. How useless is that?

    It can record 17 hours of video apparently.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    Starmer referred to the unacceptable backlog in his Conference speech, and has been a frequent critic of delays to justice, even back when he was DPP.

    This seems like a reasonably balanced summary, with some data in it:

    https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/raab-admits-court-delays-unacceptable-as-backlog-reaches-record-high/5109968.article
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    What is the difference between failing to get an academic post because you are a Brexiter versus failing to get one because you are a Flat Earther?

    Angela Merkel said she chose to study physics in East Germany because it was one of the few things that wasn't subject to ideological corruption.
    Exactly!
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    Volvo Cars to be floated on the Stockholm stock exchange. Estimated value $2.9 billion, making it one of the biggest flotations in European history.

    Their subsidiary Polestar was floated in New York last month for over $2 billion.

    That’s one hell of a lot of cash kicking about in Gothenburg. Magnet for engineers. Swedish universities simply cannot keep up with demand, despite churning out tens of thousands of engineers every year.

    wtf are you talking about? "One of the biggest flotations in European history". $2.9bn??

    Recent London tech flotations:


    1. Wise – £7.96 billion – July 2021

    2. Deliveroo – £7.18 billion – March 2021

    3. THG Holdings (The Hut Group) – £5.4 billion – September 2020

    4. Kaspi.kz JSC – £5.19 billion – October 2020

    5. Worldpay Group – £4.8 billion – October 2015
  • Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    Was it actually any better upto 2010? I never had faith in our criminal justice system even before then.

    My home was burgled by a serial criminal in 2010, whom I interrupted and chased out of my house and got his reg plate as he fled. He pled guilty to my burglary I'd interrupted, another he was arrested red-handed committing and 18 other cases. He got a suspended sentence for that.

    I was assaulted in 2004 and got a shattered eyesocket that could have left me blind. The attacker was arrested red handed (possibly literally) and he got a six month sentence for pleading guilty to GBH.

    If serial criminals aren't going to end up facing serious prison sentences when they actually end up convicted, then what's the point of the entire system?
    Without really understanding the details, on the face of it your issues look like sentencing mistakes rather than chronic delays caused by underfunding.
    Indeed. But the entire system is buggered up and has been for decades.

    If you're just going to have a revolving door of police arresting criminals and courts letting them go free, then what's the entire façade for?

    The whole thing needs substantial root and branch reform and investment - and this government has chronically failed to live up to the job.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Volvo Cars to be floated on the Stockholm stock exchange. Estimated value $2.9 billion, making it one of the biggest flotations in European history.

    Their subsidiary Polestar was floated in New York last month for over $2 billion.

    That’s one hell of a lot of cash kicking about in Gothenburg. Magnet for engineers. Swedish universities simply cannot keep up with demand, despite churning out tens of thousands of engineers every year.

    How much does China still own ?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    His Home Secretary shadow is the most In invisible man in politics. I cannot tell you his name. I am not entirely confident of his real existence.
    To be fair, it's not their brief...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Secretary_of_State_for_Justice
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Just got a new iPhone 13. Free via long delayed upgrade

    Apple sends you one charging cable: Lightning to USB-C. How useless is that?

    It can record 17 hours of video apparently.
    What does that mean? Genuinely don't understand. Surely it could always record hours and hours of video if you had the storage? Or do you mean its battery can do that on one charge, or what?

    The new screen is properly beautiful. I've had my iPhone 11s for a while now, there has been a noticeable improvement in the intervening years
  • Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Just got a new iPhone 13. Free via long delayed upgrade

    Apple sends you one charging cable: Lightning to USB-C. How useless is that?

    It can record 17 hours of video apparently.
    The battery life on my iPhone Pro Max 13 is phenomenal.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    His Home Secretary shadow is the most In invisible man in politics. I cannot tell you his name. I am not entirely confident of his real existence.
    Nick Thomas Symonds. He has a first from Oxford and was a commercial barrister before politics so on paper one of the most talented MPs in the Commons but needs to be a bit more hard hitting yes
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    His Home Secretary shadow is the most In invisible man in politics. I cannot tell you his name. I am not entirely confident of his real existence.
    To be fair, it's not their brief...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Secretary_of_State_for_Justice
    I know.
    Still, Mr Invisible has an open goal doesn’t he?
    Hundreds of them.

    There is probably a physics equation to describe what happens when an entropic black hole meets a hundred “open goals”.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    Nigelb said:

    Volvo Cars to be floated on the Stockholm stock exchange. Estimated value $2.9 billion, making it one of the biggest flotations in European history.

    Their subsidiary Polestar was floated in New York last month for over $2 billion.

    That’s one hell of a lot of cash kicking about in Gothenburg. Magnet for engineers. Swedish universities simply cannot keep up with demand, despite churning out tens of thousands of engineers every year.

    How much does China still own ?
    Did Major Deakins get his 5%?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    edited October 2021

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    But, we can all play that game - I could cite those (like Emma Thompson) who described Devon as hideously white, say "whiteness" is a social problem, say the UK as a nation-state is an anachronism and it's time we moved to geo-centric diverse societies, or that all Leavers are racist.

    It doesn't become any more acceptable when it's 'your' side doing it.
    I don't follow CR. We are talking about Trump; nobody was voting for Emma Thompson. All sides have loons on them. I'm a LD but I could find you several I wouldn't put in charge of a teapot. What is your point?

    I'm simply saying rational arguments can be put for voting Tory and/or Leave. I struggle with making one for voting for Trump. Having said that @Cookie gave a pretty good reply.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Casino Royale is my favourite, I think it's a great film, period.

    I find Skyfall entertaining but not as good as CR, I like GoldenEye. I enjoy License to Kill, I thought it was a bit ahead of its time

    Yes David Niven was awesome in Casino Royale.
    I have just his book "The Moon is a Balloon", inspired by this tweet

    https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1439960035786989570

    Unlikely I will actually read it though, I haven't finished a book in a long while. Not even "The Old Man & The Sea" which is less than 100 pages long and I started 3 months ago
    Read 'Moon' as a teenager and I remember loving it. Very funny. Don't know if I'd still think that now. Never reread it. Found 'Sea' a struggle. Ditto the other 2 Hemmingways I've read. Can't quite see what others do in him. My fault, no doubt.
    I watched the Hemingway documentaries on BBC recently and loved them, so bought "the Old Man..."

    I just don't get it, and I dont know if I will bother to finish it - is there a twist? Does he lose the fish???

    I buy lots of books I will never read. Sad but true
    Yes, really good doc, that. Amazing how often he bumped his head. In fact has a bloke ever bumped his head as often as old Ernest did? I doubt it.
    Ernest is another name that I suggested, and was vetoed, for our new baby. Although I don't like "Ernie" and he would get called that I guess. More of a middle name perhaps

    I have bumped my head a few times. A couple of drunken falls resulting in 2 new front teeth and 27 stitches in my head. Nothing on old EH though
    Survived 2 plane crashes in one day! He made lots of things up to feed the legend but that was true. Good call imo to reject Ernest for the baby. Like you say, risk of "Ernie" which you probably wouldn't want. What about Enoch? That can't be shortened into anything lacking gravitas.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    edited October 2021

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    Was it actually any better upto 2010? I never had faith in our criminal justice system even before then.

    My home was burgled by a serial criminal in 2010, whom I interrupted and chased out of my house and got his reg plate as he fled. He pled guilty to my burglary I'd interrupted, another he was arrested red-handed committing and 18 other cases. He got a suspended sentence for that.

    I was assaulted in 2004 and got a shattered eyesocket that could have left me blind. The attacker was arrested red handed (possibly literally) and he got a six month sentence for pleading guilty to GBH.

    If serial criminals aren't going to end up facing serious prison sentences when they actually end up convicted, then what's the point of the entire system?
    Without really understanding the details, on the face of it your issues look like sentencing mistakes rather than chronic delays caused by underfunding.
    Yes, it's the chronic delays that are a disgrace at the moment.

    It's not mentioned often enough, but the delays are absolutely appalling for victims of crime, particularly violent/sexual crime. Such victims are frequently having to wait years while the cogs of the machine slowly turn, with deferments very common. I can only imagine what it's like, not knowing for so long whether the person accused of violence against you will be charged and/or found guilty. I don't imagine victims get any peace of mind until it's over with.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    HYUFD said:

    tlg86 said:

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    It is now clear that austerity 2010 onwards really fucked up certain public services, the justice system perhaps pre-eminently.
    If ever there was a politician to understand why prioritising the NHS above all else wasn't necessarily a good idea, then it should be Sir Keir Starmer. But other than bragging about his achievements as DPP and bemoaning the lack of rape convictions, I haven't heard much from him on the subject of criminal justice system.
    His Home Secretary shadow is the most In invisible man in politics. I cannot tell you his name. I am not entirely confident of his real existence.
    Nick Thomas Symonds. He has a first from Oxford and was a commercial barrister before politics so on paper one of the most talented MPs in the Commons but needs to be a bit more hard hitting yes
    Hard hitting as in, actually say something worth reporting?

    If I, as a politics obsessive, guardian reader and occasional pb-botherer can’t name him, what the hell chance does the average punter have?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Not in London and the Home Counties it isn't.

    It was Osborne's policy to raise the IHT threshold to £1 million from £325,000 for married couples that was the biggest single boost to the Tory poll rating since 2000 and forced Brown to cancel the 2007 election
    I have no idea why you think London should be treated any differently than the rest of the UK
    London house prices are almost triple the UK average house price that is why (and South East England house prices are double the UK average house price too)
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    If you were living in small town Hicksville, Flyover State in 2016, and had seen either a) your wages remain static since the previous century while the millionaires on the coast became billionaires, and/or b) the only major employer in your town decamp elsewhere while more and more of the stuff you used to make get imported from China and/or c) the social fabric of your town fraying, do you vote for a) more of the same, in the person and party of a candidate who appears to view you and your ilk as at best something of an embarrassment, or b) Trump? I don't like the man. But I can see why people voted for him.
    I actually understand voting for Trump more than voting for Brexit. In that the US in 2016 was clearly a broken society failing the majority of its citizens, as evident in phenomena like falling life expectancy and the opioid epidemic. I don't think the UK was experiencing the same level of political failure and social fracture before 2016. Although, interestingly, it seems to be now!
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    If you were living in small town Hicksville, Flyover State in 2016, and had seen either a) your wages remain static since the previous century while the millionaires on the coast became billionaires, and/or b) the only major employer in your town decamp elsewhere while more and more of the stuff you used to make get imported from China and/or c) the social fabric of your town fraying, do you vote for a) more of the same, in the person and party of a candidate who appears to view you and your ilk as at best something of an embarrassment, or b) Trump? I don't like the man. But I can see why people voted for him.
    I actually understand voting for Trump more than voting for Brexit. In that the US in 2016 was clearly a broken society failing the majority of its citizens, as evident in phenomena like falling life expectancy and the opioid epidemic. I don't think the UK was experiencing the same level of political failure and social fracture before 2016. Although, interestingly, it seems to be now!
    I can understand someone voting Trump or Brexit.

    Doesn’t mean I want to employ, date, or consort with such.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    Casino Royale is my favourite, I think it's a great film, period.

    I find Skyfall entertaining but not as good as CR, I like GoldenEye. I enjoy License to Kill, I thought it was a bit ahead of its time

    Yes David Niven was awesome in Casino Royale.
    I have just his book "The Moon is a Balloon", inspired by this tweet

    https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1439960035786989570

    Unlikely I will actually read it though, I haven't finished a book in a long while. Not even "The Old Man & The Sea" which is less than 100 pages long and I started 3 months ago
    Read 'Moon' as a teenager and I remember loving it. Very funny. Don't know if I'd still think that now. Never reread it. Found 'Sea' a struggle. Ditto the other 2 Hemmingways I've read. Can't quite see what others do in him. My fault, no doubt.
    I watched the Hemingway documentaries on BBC recently and loved them, so bought "the Old Man..."

    I just don't get it, and I dont know if I will bother to finish it - is there a twist? Does he lose the fish???

    I buy lots of books I will never read. Sad but true
    Yes, really good doc, that. Amazing how often he bumped his head. In fact has a bloke ever bumped his head as often as old Ernest did? I doubt it.
    Ernest is another name that I suggested, and was vetoed, for our new baby. Although I don't like "Ernie" and he would get called that I guess. More of a middle name perhaps

    I have bumped my head a few times. A couple of drunken falls resulting in 2 new front teeth and 27 stitches in my head. Nothing on old EH though
    Survived 2 plane crashes in one day! He made lots of things up to feed the legend but that was true. Good call imo to reject Ernest for the baby. Like you say, risk of "Ernie" which you probably wouldn't want. What about Enoch? That can't be shortened into anything lacking gravitas.
    I think that name would be a burden on him.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Rishi’s speech was reasonably interesting today.
    He even made a half-decent case for Brexit, though not the one now made on here.

    My main takeaway though is that he won’t be funding “levelling up”, and we should assume a tax cut some time before the next election.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    Phil said:

    RH1992 said:

    Venting but FFS just spent the whole day practically in the Magistrates Court as a witness for the Prosecution waiting to be called for something I witnessed in December 2019. Eventually got the message just before 3pm that the Magistrates won't be reaching the docket I was there for so it got postponed and a new date given for January 2022.

    No idea how common this is, but what an absolute waste of a day.

    If my experience is anything to go by it's pretty common. Witnessed a violent crime in September 2016 and was called to appear at Crown Court in December 2017. Didn't get called after 4 hours and then had to return in May 2018. Didn't get called that day either so had to go back again 2 days later.

    I wasn't working in May 2018 so I had nothing better to do but I imagine if I had been then there would have been a faff on. Getting the single day in Dec 2017 when I was working was hard enough.
    Anyone who’s read The Secret Barrister will know that this is now extremely common & is leading to travesties of justice as court cases are delayed & delayed until witnesses simply start failing to show up.

    The courts are deliberately overbooked in order to cram as many cases through as possible, at the expense of wasting the time of everyone who isn’t called. Meanwhile, waiting times for court cases are going up & up as the government refuses to fund the system.

    Justice delayed is justice denyed. It also turns the justice system into a paper tiger who’s deterrent effect is next to nil - a seasoned thief knows that right now, even if they are caught, enforcement could easily take 2 years. In which time anything might happen to cause the case to be dropped. It’s a mess. It was a mess before Covid & covid has turned a bad situation into an even worse one.
    This is something that really should justify more investment from the state.

    Criminal justice properly working has to be one of the very first duties of the state.
    Absolutely. Right now the system is a grinding mill of injustice for all concerned.

    An efficient, fair justice system that gets cases through the courts in a timely manner, with the absolute minimum of procedural delay, would be something that would benefit all of us. What we have now is a travesty of that, a system which demonstrates how little it cares for victims by endlessly delaying justice,

    It’s also often terrible for those accused. How can you get closure (whether found guilty or not) if it takes 2-3 years for a case to grind through the courts? What about the cost to society of those found innocent of all charges, but who may well have been kicked out of employment in the meantime?

    The problem is that the justice system is invisible to most of us as we never come into contact with it & the deleterious effects of its terrible implementation are spread widely, so that no one thing can be hung around its neck as a justification for reform.

    Politically, it’s a hot potato of want & need that recent governments have refused to fund adequately, with the inevitable result that we now have a system that’s so broken it’s difficult to see how it can be fixed in any kind of timely fashion.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    http://www.taxhistory.co.uk/National Insurance rates.htm

    Looks like you're both wrong

    Employers NI 1979 10%, NI surcharge 3.5%.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    Rishi’s speech was reasonably interesting today.
    He even made a half-decent case for Brexit, though not the one now made on here.

    My main takeaway though is that he won’t be funding “levelling up”, and we should assume a tax cut some time before the next election.

    I had no idea Sunak was a Leaver. Interesting
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Leon said:

    Rishi’s speech was reasonably interesting today.
    He even made a half-decent case for Brexit, though not the one now made on here.

    My main takeaway though is that he won’t be funding “levelling up”, and we should assume a tax cut some time before the next election.

    I had no idea Sunak was a Leaver. Interesting
    Though he voted for May's Deal all 3 times unlike Boris
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    edited October 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    http://www.taxhistory.co.uk/National Insurance rates.htm

    Looks like you're both wrong

    Employers NI 1979 10%, NI surcharge 3.5%.
    My figures were from Wiki and much as I remember paying to be honest

    I was contracted in and it was the best decision I made
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    That's one of the rates, yes. The Employees element and again if you don't see a difference between 5% and 13.25% then why should you see a difference between 0% and 13.25%?

    But you've completely omitted from that list the 1.25% supplement payable from 2023 onwards that needs paying from actually earned incomes, plus the 15.05% tax on incomes paid by the employers by actually earned incomes too.

    If you don't see a difference between 5% and all that, then why would you object to pension providers being obliged to pay a 15% tax on whatever they pay you like employers have to do on wages?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    When was the last time positive tests, admissions and deaths were all falling?


  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    algarkirk said:

    Re the article, in almost all the midlands and north of England there are
    exactly two relevant parties, except lots of them where there is only one. Leaving aside safe seats those two parties are Labour and Tory. When the government is having a hard time Labour is where you go. There is nowhere else.

    Which is why while SKS has no chance of a Labour government in 2023/4, he has as good a chance as the Tories of forming an (alliance) government. As these polls show. I still put it at 40%, but current trends suggest it maybe should be higher.

    Labour gain 35, LD gain 12. SNP gain 3. Done.

    The SNP would not even give C&S to Labour in that situation. They'd just say to Starmer, OK laddie, off yer go to Downing Street. And then milk every possible amount they could, before slamming the door. The most unstable period in UK governing history would end with a clamour for the Scots to be booted out the Union. They hope.

    Or else an election - and a strong new Government with a majority to consign them to oblivion.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    When was the last time positive tests, admissions and deaths were all falling?


    Monday and all that, but given the slowing down in the rate of increase of cases recently, was somewhat inevitable
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880

    When was the last time positive tests, admissions and deaths were all falling?


    And crucially - with no restrictions...
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,040
    Video of Insulate Britain protesters being man handled out of the road by angry drivers has had 2 million views!
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    From my point of view I can see rational reasons for voting Tory and although many who voted leave I think did so for irrational* reasons, there are clearly many who did for completely rational reasons.

    It is difficult to see any rational reason for voting for Trump, which is why the scale of his vote is so scary.


    * Two of my favourites from personal conversations were: There are too many 'coloureds' here already and the criminal gangs are all Albanian.
    If you were living in small town Hicksville, Flyover State in 2016, and had seen either a) your wages remain static since the previous century while the millionaires on the coast became billionaires, and/or b) the only major employer in your town decamp elsewhere while more and more of the stuff you used to make get imported from China and/or c) the social fabric of your town fraying, do you vote for a) more of the same, in the person and party of a candidate who appears to view you and your ilk as at best something of an embarrassment, or b) Trump? I don't like the man. But I can see why people voted for him.
    I actually understand voting for Trump more than voting for Brexit. In that the US in 2016 was clearly a broken society failing the majority of its citizens, as evident in phenomena like falling life expectancy and the opioid epidemic. I don't think the UK was experiencing the same level of political failure and social fracture before 2016. Although, interestingly, it seems to be now!
    That you couldn't see the broken social fracture here before Brexit is the reason Brexit happened.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2021

    algarkirk said:

    Re the article, in almost all the midlands and north of England there are
    exactly two relevant parties, except lots of them where there is only one. Leaving aside safe seats those two parties are Labour and Tory. When the government is having a hard time Labour is where you go. There is nowhere else.

    Which is why while SKS has no chance of a Labour government in 2023/4, he has as good a chance as the Tories of forming an (alliance) government. As these polls show. I still put it at 40%, but current trends suggest it maybe should be higher.

    Labour gain 35, LD gain 12. SNP gain 3. Done.

    The SNP would not even give C&S to Labour in that situation. They'd just say to Starmer, OK laddie, off yer go to Downing Street. And then milk every possible amount they could, before slamming the door. The most unstable period in UK governing history would end with a clamour for the Scots to be booted out the Union. They hope.

    Or else an election - and a strong new Government with a majority to consign them to oblivion.
    To form a stable government Starmer certainly needs Labour to win most seats, agreed, even if not a majority. If Labour has more seats than the Tories he can afford to ignore the SNP as the SNP will not vote with the Tories on most legislation.

    If the Tories lose their majority but still have most seats however then Starmer could become PM but the SNP would demand a high price for their support for a Labour minority government, including devomax and indyref2
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    "David Walliams: Short story to be removed from book after criticism it perpetuates racial stereotypes

    Brian Wong, Who Was Never, Ever Wrong, is about a Chinese boy who was the "swottiest swot who ever swotted" and was good at maths and wore thick glasses - and has been criticised for perpetuating racist stereotypes."

    https://news.sky.com/story/david-walliams-short-story-to-be-removed-from-book-after-criticism-it-perpetuates-racial-stereotypes-12425983
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    When was the last time positive tests, admissions and deaths were all falling?


    Monday and all that, but given the slowing down in the rate of increase of cases recently, was somewhat inevitable
    Good news week on week. A modest huzzah
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    That's one of the rates, yes. The Employees element and again if you don't see a difference between 5% and 13.25% then why should you see a difference between 0% and 13.25%?

    But you've completely omitted from that list the 1.25% supplement payable from 2023 onwards that needs paying from actually earned incomes, plus the 15.05% tax on incomes paid by the employers by actually earned incomes too.

    If you don't see a difference between 5% and all that, then why would you object to pension providers being obliged to pay a 15% tax on whatever they pay you like employers have to do on wages?
    The 1.25% tax is a hypothecated tax for NHS and social care from 2023

    It is a new tax

    I think we just have to respect each others views on making non working pensioners pay NI
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    That's one of the rates, yes. The Employees element and again if you don't see a difference between 5% and 13.25% then why should you see a difference between 0% and 13.25%?

    But you've completely omitted from that list the 1.25% supplement payable from 2023 onwards that needs paying from actually earned incomes, plus the 15.05% tax on incomes paid by the employers by actually earned incomes too.

    If you don't see a difference between 5% and all that, then why would you object to pension providers being obliged to pay a 15% tax on whatever they pay you like employers have to do on wages?
    Phil, I agree with you that employers NI is an effective tax on wages - but it has been around since 1979 at 10% with a 3.5% surcharge at that time, it seemingly was lowest in 1997 - 99 at just 10%. But it has been around since before you were born.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    Andy_JS said:

    "David Walliams: Short story to be removed from book after criticism it perpetuates racial stereotypes

    Brian Wong, Who Was Never, Ever Wrong, is about a Chinese boy who was the "swottiest swot who ever swotted" and was good at maths and wore thick glasses - and has been criticised for perpetuating racist stereotypes."

    https://news.sky.com/story/david-walliams-short-story-to-be-removed-from-book-after-criticism-it-perpetuates-racial-stereotypes-12425983

    Dunno about racist, but why associate wearing thick glasses with being a swot?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    When was the last time positive tests, admissions and deaths were all falling?


    I think it was before Delta took over, roughly around the time of the May loosening of restrictions.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited October 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:


    Quincel said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    NY Times outlines what election rules reform is needed to stop the kind of potential coup Trump was pressing for.



    "Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/opinion/jan-6-trump-eastman-election.html

    He's obviously going to try again and the USA is going to let him.
    Democrats in the USA has seem to be remarkably relaxed about Trump stealing the 2024 election. If the 2022 midterms go badly for the Democrats, it's on like Donkey Kong.
    To be fair I think Congressional Dems are suitably concerned, the lack of concern by certain Dem Senators about this is absolutely suicidal.
    Joe Manchin is an odd one, his voting goes way beyond what his Trumper constituents care about (Guns (In favour of), abortion (Against), climate change (Against)), . I expect the average W Va voter would probably be in favour of big Gov't spending in fact, yet because the GOP opposes it he votes that way.
    Sinema is even worse - her state is a blue state now, she doesn't need to vote with the GOP on anything in particular.
    Manchin and Sinema are right.

    Remember Trump actually got a higher voteshare in 2020 than 2016, Biden only won by squeezing the over 3% Libertarian vote in 2016 to 1% in 2020 with almost all those fiscally conservative Libertarian voters voting for him.

    If Biden had not won those 2016 Libertarian voters he would have lost Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia and the EC so the Democrats cannot afford to be too tax and spend or they will lose them again
    Trumpism is about many things, a small state is not one of them.
    No but Biden didn't win by winning Trump voters from 2016, as I said Trump even increased his voteshare on 2016 in 2020.

    Biden only won in 2020 by getting small state voters who voted Libertarian Party in 2016 to vote for him in 2020
    Is their polling to back that up? Because instinctively it feels more likely that those voters went back to Trump or split fairly evenly (third party voters in the US often being more general protest-y than their votes superficially suggest) and Biden took a few votes from suburban Republicans. So Trump gains vote share, but Biden (who gets some GOP votes and some Green voters coming 'home') gains more.

    But there may be polling I've forgotten about which strongly suggests otherwise. Our intuitions about how voters behave are often wrong in my experience.
    Even so suburban Republicans are fiscally conservative, socially moderate.

    If they voted for Biden they did so to remove Trump not for socialism.

    It was Democratic overreach after their wins in 1992 and 2008 which saw the GOP midterm landslides of 1994 and 2010 as fiscally conservative suburbanites revolted
    Again, do you have evidence for this? Because in polls the bill does very well. Even pretty well among Trump 2020 voters.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/353582/public-opinion-trillion-senate-budget-plan.aspx
    It depends on the question asked, other polls find 75% of Americans are worried about the debt and that too much debt could hurt the economy. We also know most Americans never vote to raise their taxes to fund extra spending even if they may support extra funding on certain projects in theory

    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-americans-worry-about-debt-and-want-budget-more-balanced-between-generations
    Sure, but I think the question 'Do you support this specific bill which does these specific things' is a better judge than 'Do you generally worry about a related issue'.
    Well don't come crying to me then when the usual big spending, debt building Democratic Presidency and Congress leads to another GOP landslide in the midterms in 2022, as it did in 2010, as it did in 1994.

    Manchin and Sinema however have better political antennae and know the average American does not want socialism and thus will veto any proposals which lead to a big increase in debt and taxes
    Even now is anyone actually offering socialism?
    Boris Johnson.
    He is hardly nationalising industries is he and he is also now cutting spending on UC, if he was a socialist he would be increasing spending on UC as well as increasing income tax and inheritance tax
    Yesterday's papers were saying IH tax will be targeted in the budget on the 27th
    They did not say IHT would be raised, just some reliefs to offset it like investing in charities or businesses will be ended.

    If Sunak actually raised IHT and lowered the threshold for it then the Tory poll rating would plunge
    Of course it is raised if more income is forthcoming

    And I really do not care about ratings, I care about doing the right thing
    It would be raised if the rate was increased from 40% and the threshold was lowered from £325,000 (and £1 million for married couples). It is not being
    I million is far too high
    Do you have any justification other than it being the status quo or electorally unpopular for it being any higher than the tax-free allowance for incomes people work for?

    And for National Insurance (both version of it) not to apply to it?
    I know your view on NI but I do not agree pensioners should pay NI unless they are working, as the pension is paid by NI and on all pension planning it has been based on this and any change would cause serious disruption for pensioners with no ability to recover lost income

    Indeed apart from yourself, I have not heard anyone else promote this policy and certainly it is not the policy of any UK party

    On IHT I believe it should be graded to those who have wealth in property purely as it is only fair
    If it causes disruption to pensioners, then it causes disruption to employees too. And when today's pensioners were working you never paid NI at the rates you expect us to pay so while I have sympathy for the disruption it causes to people who may now have to pay for it - but it entirely equally causes disruption to those who are paying for it.
    I paid 5.5% in 1975 which rose incrementally to 10% in 1994 and then to 11% in 2003 before I retired in 2009

    I do not see a substantial difference in todays rates

    So for the vast majority of your working life it was 5.5%?

    Its now going to 13.25+15.05% = 28.3%

    If you seriously don't see a substantial difference between 5.5% and 28.3% then you shouldn't see any difference between 0 and the tax being applied in full either. Apply Employers NIC to whoever is paying you, and Employee NIC to whatever you're receiving. Since 5% -> 28.3% isn't substantial then neither will be 0% to that either. 🤷‍♂️
    I am sorry but that is not true

    These are the rates plus the starting rate for payment has also increased

    Year Lower band Upper band Above upper band

    1975–1976 N/A 5.5% N/A
    1976–1978 N/A 5.75% N/A
    1978–1979 N/A 6.5% N/A
    1979–1980 N/A 6.75% N/A
    1980–1981 N/A 7.75% N/A
    1981–1982 N/A 8.75% N/A
    1982–1989 N/A 9% N/A
    1989–1994 2% 9% N/A
    1994–1999 2% 10% N/A
    1999–2003 0% 10% N/A
    2003–2011 0% 11% 1%
    2011–2022 0% 12% 2%
    2022–2023 0% 13.25% 3.25%
    2023– 0% 12% 2%

    That's one of the rates, yes. The Employees element and again if you don't see a difference between 5% and 13.25% then why should you see a difference between 0% and 13.25%?

    But you've completely omitted from that list the 1.25% supplement payable from 2023 onwards that needs paying from actually earned incomes, plus the 15.05% tax on incomes paid by the employers by actually earned incomes too.

    If you don't see a difference between 5% and all that, then why would you object to pension providers being obliged to pay a 15% tax on whatever they pay you like employers have to do on wages?
    The 1.25% tax is a hypothecated tax for NHS and social care from 2023

    It is a new tax

    I think we just have to respect each others views on making non working pensioners pay NI
    Why shouldn't the new hypothecated tax for NHS and social care be charged to pensioners as well as employees?

    Should we exclude pensioners eligibility to the NHS and social care if they're not prepared to pay for it? I don't think so.

    I'm afraid no I can not respect the view of a generation of pensioners who had it all voting to see income taxes they'd be liable to getting cut, while national insurances they're not liable to is increased. It is disgusting and I have zero respect for it. Reverse rates back to what they were previously and I'd be happy to meet you in the middle, otherwise I'll continue to campaign for it to be charged equitably to everyone.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    FPT @Selebian. I think you're blind to the issue here - I'll highlight two main points the article makes:

    (1) "In a recent report on academic freedom in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, I found that 40 percent of American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter, and 33 percent of British academics would avoid hiring a known Brexit supporter. When it comes to refereeing papers, grant bids, and promotion applications, my own work and that of others indicates that the likelihood of an academic’s discriminating against an openly conservative submission is as high as 45 percent. On a four-person panel, that makes discrimination a near certainty."

    (2) "In the 1960s there were only one and a half journalists and academics on the left for every one on the right. Today that ratio is between four to one and six to one, and considerably higher among political journalists and social-science and humanities academics. In a report on academia for the Manhattan Institute, I noted that left-leaning social-science and humanities academics now outnumber those on the right in Britain by nine to one, and in the U.S. by 14 to one. Work by Mitchell Langbert using voter-registration data for the top liberal-arts colleges and universities (for five disciplines) also shows lopsided ratios. At Harvard, for instance, a recent inquiry reported a $250-to-$1 Democrat-to-Republican donation ratio among the staff."

    It's not enough for there to be "legal" protections - hard to access, prove and leverage - because an institutional culture of intolerance creates an environment that is suffocating to those already employed and inhibits any future recruitment to correct it. This means even fewer conservatives apply in the first place and thus reinforces a monoculture.

    Those that are employed (like my friend at the University of Bath, for example, or me at the Woke firm I've just left) "fear losing (their) job or missing out on job opportunities if (their) political views became known.” And so, as in authoritarian regimes, dissenters keep their views to themselves through preference falsification. This has been precisely my experience.

    It's a problem for all of us because these institutions form a large part of our civic society - arbitrating between the citizen and the state - and thus contributes to polarisation within it.

    It needs to be addressed.

    The website would only let me read the opening few paragraphs of the article, sadly, but the overall tone struck me as dishonest. It started with this dramatic statistic from the dating site, then extrapolated this to discrimination in hiring, despite these being completely different and indeed unrelated things (for instance, I wouldn't date a man but I would hire one).
    In my own field of economics there is a range of political views. In academia there is a left wing skew, in markets there is a right wing skew. This seems entirely understandable when you think of the likely difference in motivations and values between the two industries. Academia has got more left wing over the years, but then it has also become much worse paid, in relative terms, and those facts are probably related (we might argue over the direction of causation!). As a left wing person working in the markets I don't complain about the dearth of ideological soulmates, I don't know why right wing academics are so snowflakey about it.
    I have collaborated in academic research with people of various political stripes including Conservative US Republicans. In my experience, research with a clear ideological skew, left or right, is most likely bad research. The goal should be uncovering the truth, not advancing an agenda. Of course, if I were an ideological hack flogging policy-based evidence-making I might feel like I was getting discriminated when my research got rejected by top journals - but the likelihood is that the research was just bad.
    I do recall attending a very right-leaning conference where there was a lot of moaning about the Liberal bias in US academia, but the conference was lavishly funded by Conservative benefactors and hosted at a top Ivy League school so the whole complaint rang a little hollow to me. It had a strong whiff of privileges being defended.
    There's some good points in here - including your admirable acknowledgement that research with a clear ideological skew is poor research - but why is your first instinct to attack Eric Kauffman's honesty?

    He's a respected Canadian Academic (of mixed Chinese, Hispanic and European ancestry) working in a British university. He cited a variety of studies in making his points, and they're all respectable ones.

    We need to get past the ad hominum into the specifics. Far too many of the responses to articles like this run along the lines of "he's making it up" and "I don't see any of this, so it can't be true".

    What I'm interested in is everyone feeling able and willing to discuss their views and differences openly. That has to start with less prejudgement, more listening, and more forgiveness, and it's that I'm interested in.

    It's the only way to confine polarisation to the fringes where it belongs, rather than it being part of the mainstream, and we have to work harder and harder at it in the social media age, not less.
    All great points but I think you cut too much slack to Trumpery. It shouldn't be viewed like, say, being a Tory, a Brexiter, a social democrat, a "classic liberal", a small state libertarian, or whatever. He's a hate monger and those who lap that up can't expect it not to be held against them by those who don't.
    I would judge Trump very differently from one of his voters, who include plenty of ordinary Americans, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Of course lots of decent people voted for him. This must be the case given the numbers. Nevertheless he has colonized the Republican party, which is both chastening and frightening to somebody like me who takes a broadly sunny-side-up view of humanity, so I'm afraid I'm the other way around to you in that I'd be a touch wary of a person who I know voted for him until I get some evidence they did it reluctantly and despite the hate he throws out and for want of (in their eyes) a viable alternative. Pls note I do NOT feel this way about Leavers and Tories etc. It's a Trump thing.
    So, in your eyes they are guilty until proven innocent?

    Charming.

    The reason you might not feel that way about Leavers and Tories is because you've been engaging with so many of us on here for so long that you realise the world isn't that simple.

    That's precisely my point.
    I'm not sending them to jail or anything. All I'm doing is applying the evidence of my eyes & ears to a hypothetical real life situation. I've tracked Donald Trump closely for years. I see and hear what he puts out. I know the buttons he seeks to press, the fancies he seeks to tickle, and they are not my buttons, not my fancies. Worse, they are buttons and fancies I find abhorrent. It's not a matter of honest disagreement, it's a complete disconnect. So if I meet somebody who I know voted for Trump, I will deduce that it's likely they are (to put it mildly) not my cup of tea. I'll be going in with a negative expectation. That's rational. I've observed lots of Trumpers, seen the footage, the vox pops, the tv debates, read the articles and the social media posts, and they don't tend to surprise. But - key point - I am open to being surprised. If ever I do meet one in the flesh. I'll quiz them robustly but fairly on why they voted as they did and I'll come to a view.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    Andy_JS said:

    "David Walliams: Short story to be removed from book after criticism it perpetuates racial stereotypes

    Brian Wong, Who Was Never, Ever Wrong, is about a Chinese boy who was the "swottiest swot who ever swotted" and was good at maths and wore thick glasses - and has been criticised for perpetuating racist stereotypes."

    https://news.sky.com/story/david-walliams-short-story-to-be-removed-from-book-after-criticism-it-perpetuates-racial-stereotypes-12425983

    Dunno about racist, but why associate wearing thick glasses with being a swot?
    Long standing folk belief that there is a cause and effect relationship between lots of reading and short sightedness?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Just got a new iPhone 13. Free via long delayed upgrade

    Apple sends you one charging cable: Lightning to USB-C. How useless is that?

    It can record 17 hours of video apparently.
    What does that mean? Genuinely don't understand. Surely it could always record hours and hours of video if you had the storage? Or do you mean its battery can do that on one charge, or what?

    The new screen is properly beautiful. I've had my iPhone 11s for a while now, there has been a noticeable improvement in the intervening years
    Read it somewhere, sounded impressive. Not an expert though on precisely what it means.
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