Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that.... If he's smart (yes, I know), he should think of a good gag about it before his next media interview or HoC appearance. Boris will raise it, no doubt. He can probably contrast his mishap with Boris's absence in a paid-for villa well out of the financial reach of red-wall voters. Or something like that.
There is no upside because it shows neither Starmer nor his team has a clue. It was obviously an accident waiting to happen and when it did, SKS had no prepared quip. It shows him being told to steer left. It undermines any criticism of Boris for dressing up at the flash of a camera. The whole stunt was just bloody stupid.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
My mother's got COVID. Seems like a cold in terms of severity. Much coughing. Did an at-home test yesterday, going for another a drive-through place later today.
Feels better today than yesterday, though, which is good.
In one of our economic briefings (written by the female of the species) she wrote this very topic with the observation that 'we all know the dangers of when you have a massive load that you need to empty and nowhere and no one to help you unload it.'
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant. I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it, and two of them were Labour strongholds, not places they are also rans
My mother's got COVID. Seems like a cold in terms of severity. Much coughing. Did an at-home test yesterday, going for another a drive-through place later today.
Feels better today than yesterday, though, which is good.
Oh dear, sorry to hear that. Hope she gets well soon.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
I’ll happily critisise any and all politicians who are getting in the way of dealing with an emergency. Nothing worse than a disaster recovery team having to deal with ‘VIP’ idiots turning up to have their photos taken, using up significant amounts of senior human resource and often disturbing the work being done.
Fair enough. I'll look forward to seeing your trenchant criticism of Boris next time he dons his hi-viz jacket and turns up at a flood scene or something similar.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
I’ll happily critisise any and all politicians who are getting in the way of dealing with an emergency. Nothing worse than a disaster recovery team having to deal with ‘VIP’ idiots turning up to have their photos taken, using up significant amounts of senior human resource and often disturbing the work being done.
Fair enough. I'll look forward to seeing your trenchant criticism of Boris next time he dons his hi-viz jacket and turns up at a flood scene or something similar.
And you will be the first to criticise him if he doesnt..
I won't. Just not interested. Why don't you reserve your negativity for something you know about, rather than arrogantly pretending that you know what I think?
The Telegraph has found a GP practice that is temporarily closed because its public liability insurance has lapsed. The Telegraph is paywalled but here is the doctors' website:-
The Blandford Group Practice has had to make the difficult decision to temporarily postpone non-urgent routine appointments due to a lapse in public liability insurance.
Our team are working extremely hard to put measures in place to allow services to return to normal at the earliest opportunity, this includes the weekend vaccination clinics.
Of much more interest, would be exactly why their insurance ‘lapsed’. Either they’ve no money to pay the renewal, or there was a good reason for the quote being a lot higher than they might have expected - such as a claim or claims made against it. If it were simply an administrative error, it could be solved in hours and without needing to issue statements to the press.
I don't think that explains it. Cover is free for the practice, universal and doesn't need to be applied for:
That was my immediate thought too. It tends to suggest to me that there is some particular reason why the insurers are not willing to cover those doctors anymore which really must be some sort of clinical issue, despite their statement.
It also sounds like it’s capacity - so may be one doctor and they can’t find a locum?
The website linked above shows ten doctors spread over four surgeries. However, the earnings declaration gives the average salary as only £53,000 which suggests an awful lot of part-timers, in fact 2 full-time and 16 part-time, so maybe there are scheduling issues if no-one fancies Friday afternoon at the wrong end of town, say. https://www.theblandfordgrouppractice.co.uk/our-staff https://www.theblandfordgrouppractice.co.uk/gp-earnings
ETA we talked the other day about the increasing number of doctors opting for part-time work, and gap years during training.
My original point was poorly worded - I was meaning an issue with one doctor in a multi practice. But hadn’t factored in part time
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
Off topic
It really is. Who suggested to him such an enterprise would be a good idea?.
There again it is a single, if very apt metaphor compared to a Prime Minister hiding in a fridge, or a Foreign Secretary reciting Kipling's The Road to Mandalay, or explaining how Mrs Zaghari Ratcliffe was training journalists for Reuters, and there are so many, many more to chose from.
Granted, the zip wire incident falls beyond the statute of limitations, but for those of us who are not of the faith, that is an off the scale metaphor for Johnson's premiership compared to Starmer wrecking the entire UK fleet of HGVs and tankers yesterday.
Noneless an absolutely pathetic stunt with a deserved outcome.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
I’ll happily critisise any and all politicians who are getting in the way of dealing with an emergency. Nothing worse than a disaster recovery team having to deal with ‘VIP’ idiots turning up to have their photos taken, using up significant amounts of senior human resource and often disturbing the work being done.
Fair enough. I'll look forward to seeing your trenchant criticism of Boris next time he dons his hi-viz jacket and turns up at a flood scene or something similar.
Unfortunately politicians of all stripes get hammered if they don’t turn up at these things in a high viz…..
Flood or other disaster, natural or man-made, they need to turn up at the insistence of the media and vox-pops of idiots saying “why isn’t Boris here seeing the flooding, he doesn’t care about us”….. it’s ridiculous. I seem to remember exactly this last time there was major flooding.
Would prefer a PM to say “I’m not turning up at future disasters in person because if I do I’m followed by fifty minders and journalists and get in the way of the police and emergency services who can actually do something about the situation on site whereas I can’t”….
Quite right.
The other thing is when the media criticise the PM for turning up at one disaster and avoiding another, then you get a "my disaster was worse than yours but he ignored us" theme.
The same with public inquiries. People seem to think "my disaster isn't being taken seriously enough because they haven't spent £50 million on some judge doesn't know anything about the issue and isn't accountable to anyone to vent his personal opinions".
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
I’ll happily critisise any and all politicians who are getting in the way of dealing with an emergency. Nothing worse than a disaster recovery team having to deal with ‘VIP’ idiots turning up to have their photos taken, using up significant amounts of senior human resource and often disturbing the work being done.
Fair enough. I'll look forward to seeing your trenchant criticism of Boris next time he dons his hi-viz jacket and turns up at a flood scene or something similar.
They criticised for turning up and criticised for not turning up.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
I’ll happily critisise any and all politicians who are getting in the way of dealing with an emergency. Nothing worse than a disaster recovery team having to deal with ‘VIP’ idiots turning up to have their photos taken, using up significant amounts of senior human resource and often disturbing the work being done.
Agreed. They face criticism for not showing up, with videos of locals asking where the PM is etc, but the situation is not helped, they are not helped, by doing so.
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant, I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it.
It's not irrelevant I said context.
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
He's on holiday which several of the papers affect to find outrageous. Of course a PM who didn't take breaks and recharge is going to do so much better. 😒
Again?
How many weeks off do you think people should be allowed? I thought the legal minimum was about five.
Five including bank holidays
I get 25 days plus bank holidays, plus two extra days (one the Tuesday after Easter Monday, one after the August BH) plus the Uni is closed between Christmas Eve and New Year.
My mother's got COVID. Seems like a cold in terms of severity. Much coughing. Did an at-home test yesterday, going for another a drive-through place later today.
Feels better today than yesterday, though, which is good.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
He's on holiday which several of the papers affect to find outrageous. Of course a PM who didn't take breaks and recharge is going to do so much better. 😒
Again?
How many weeks off do you think people should be allowed? I thought the legal minimum was about five.
Five including bank holidays
The idea that you still get paid when not working is really quite remarkable when you think about it. Doesn't apply to me of course.
I still remember when I started work at 22 taking three weeks off after a few months and being suprised, when I came back tanned and happy, getting my payslip which was the same as if I'd been in the office all the time.
Of course I knew about paid holiday in theory, but it was nice seeing it working in practice.
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant, I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it.
It's not irrelevant I said context.
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
It’s not the fact Hartlepool was a Tory gain, as you say there is a reasonable explanation for that, but Labour’s vote share went down from GE19. They did worse than they ever have in vote share.
C&A, yes not somewhere you’d expect them to do well, but again worst ever vote share. B&S, the Galloway factor, but worst ever vote share. So mitigating circumstances perhaps, but it wouldn’t impress me if I were hanging my hat on him being the cure for Labour’s ills
Anyway, I haven’t written it, and my post was more about the rather strange death of Jim Dobbin.
The National Trust would do well to take a leaf out of the book of Anna Eavis, who's Curatorial Director of English Heritage.
In the October magazine she writes a perfectly judged article on "dealing with difficult history" that spans both sides of the culture debate. She asserts that stories that weren't heard in the past should be included, and only because their professional interest as historians is to make it inclusive and explore it as broadly and deeply as possible. She reassures that she has intention of removing statues, taking down blue plaques or "cancelling" history in any form; she is only interested in protecting it for future generations. She says we can feel pride in our past achievements and, at the same time, be critical or questioning of certain aspects. She even says we can be awed by the political and cultural reach enjoyed by Britain at the peak of its imperial pomp but also recognise the conflict and pain causes by colonial regimes. She does the same on both commemorating Sir Arthur Harris's contributions to the war effort whilst also acknowledging the collateral damage caused by his campaign. She forms no judgement and says history is a process of discussion, reflection, debate and learning. She pushes no conclusions.
It's a masterclass in how to do it, and I am drafting a letter to send her accordingly.
The trouble is the top of the National Trust is inhabited by a clique of tone-deaf networked Guardianistas some of whom worked together at the British Museum previously (I know this from following their histories on LinkedIn and Twitter) who believe their members and the public need to be schooled in their "values". Anyone who resists is "fomenting a culture war".
They created their own Chimera, still don't get it, and only exceptional empathy, listening skills and humility right from the top can now end it: the present management has to go.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
Write one then? Or just have a quick daily repetitive and boring moan about it instead......
Well it induced you to comment.. . Some of the people on here are so one eyed, it does no harm to point out that a lot of the criticism is pure bile and based on ideological loathing rather than substantive criticism.
It does no harm to point out that Starmer is ffing useless and leading an utterly divided party. Didn't he have a real car crash recently as well as the political ones.
Is there a Starmer supporter on here? Even the loyalists have him as uninspiring, dull and wooden, albeit worthy, and the harshest vitriol comes from the few Corbynites.
It's not as if PB is a hymn of praise for the LOTO!
I quite like him, I'll admit. My feeling is (and it is just a feeling, or perhaps more a desperate hope from one who is not a Labour member but generally well disposed to the party) that he would make a good Prime Minister. I think the criticism of his political skills is a bit overdone. Despite the conference vote against reverting back to the electoral college, my understanding is that he pretty much got what he wanted at conference. Was the EC a bridge too far, or was it a deliberate extreme position to get more votes for the more moderate changes he actually wanted?
However, I don't think he actually speaks that well (he's articulate, but his voice is not a good orator's voice) and he's not as charismatic as Boris. I worry how he will campaign in a GE and the big worry is that he is Kinnock part II. If his leadership doesn't result in a huge increase in seats, or a hung parliament, I think the left will be in no mood to continue with a more moderate leader and the project will be discredited irreparably. Kinnock II will not result in Blair II.
Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...
The Telegraph has found a GP practice that is temporarily closed because its public liability insurance has lapsed. The Telegraph is paywalled but here is the doctors' website:-
The Blandford Group Practice has had to make the difficult decision to temporarily postpone non-urgent routine appointments due to a lapse in public liability insurance.
Our team are working extremely hard to put measures in place to allow services to return to normal at the earliest opportunity, this includes the weekend vaccination clinics.
Of much more interest, would be exactly why their insurance ‘lapsed’. Either they’ve no money to pay the renewal, or there was a good reason for the quote being a lot higher than they might have expected - such as a claim or claims made against it. If it were simply an administrative error, it could be solved in hours and without needing to issue statements to the press.
I don't think that explains it. Cover is free for the practice, universal and doesn't need to be applied for:
That was my immediate thought too. It tends to suggest to me that there is some particular reason why the insurers are not willing to cover those doctors anymore which really must be some sort of clinical issue, despite their statement.
It also sounds like it’s capacity - so may be one doctor and they can’t find a locum?
In which case, their public statement about the closure being insurance-related is, erm, untrue.
Watching from afar, one gets the impression that a number of GP practices are taking the piss, and appear to be very difficult to hold to account.
Well I was wondering if - say - 1 out of 4 doctors is the issue in that s/he can’t get insurance…
But my local GP is still closed
Maybe GPs can’t get insurance against the risk of harm to patients caused by the surgery doors being closed and their patients not being able to get the treatment they need.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?
There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.
Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
“Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...” At least Johnson hasn’t had that problem with his holiday.
Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that....
Yes, it demonstrates reversing an HGV is quite a skill, even under supervision.
That's the spin I'd use if I were advising him - "I wanted to see how difficult learning to drive an HGV would actually be, and I found out! It's always good to see at first hand what you talk about." (rueful smile)
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that.... If he's smart (yes, I know), he should think of a good gag about it before his next media interview or HoC appearance. Boris will raise it, no doubt. He can probably contrast his mishap with Boris's absence in a paid-for villa well out of the financial reach of red-wall voters. Or something like that.
Most people can't reverse park very easily so maybe he wins points for relatability or something?
It would do if he weren't such a personality vacuum.
It's easy to imagine how Johnson would have reacted in the same situation. A joke or a laugh at himself, something human at least, "gosh, this is harder than it looks", "I had better stick to the day job", "we don't even have wing mirrors when steering the ship of state", "this must be why Maggie said she wasn't for turning"..
It's Starmer's response that shows he doesn't have the charismatic touch that allows people to relate to him. He's awkward. He's not enjoying himself. It's clearly a trial that he has to endure.
I have some sympathy for him. I'd be the same, probably worse, if I found myself in that situation. But then I have the good sense to recognise I'm not a people person, and that I don't have the skills for a career in politics.
The Telegraph has found a GP practice that is temporarily closed because its public liability insurance has lapsed. The Telegraph is paywalled but here is the doctors' website:-
The Blandford Group Practice has had to make the difficult decision to temporarily postpone non-urgent routine appointments due to a lapse in public liability insurance.
Our team are working extremely hard to put measures in place to allow services to return to normal at the earliest opportunity, this includes the weekend vaccination clinics.
Of much more interest, would be exactly why their insurance ‘lapsed’. Either they’ve no money to pay the renewal, or there was a good reason for the quote being a lot higher than they might have expected - such as a claim or claims made against it. If it were simply an administrative error, it could be solved in hours and without needing to issue statements to the press.
I don't think that explains it. Cover is free for the practice, universal and doesn't need to be applied for:
That was my immediate thought too. It tends to suggest to me that there is some particular reason why the insurers are not willing to cover those doctors anymore which really must be some sort of clinical issue, despite their statement.
It also sounds like it’s capacity - so may be one doctor and they can’t find a locum?
The website linked above shows ten doctors spread over four surgeries. However, the earnings declaration gives the average salary as only £53,000 which suggests an awful lot of part-timers, in fact 2 full-time and 16 part-time, so maybe there are scheduling issues if no-one fancies Friday afternoon at the wrong end of town, say. https://www.theblandfordgrouppractice.co.uk/our-staff https://www.theblandfordgrouppractice.co.uk/gp-earnings
ETA we talked the other day about the increasing number of doctors opting for part-time work, and gap years during training.
One of the practical issues is that while partners get paid more, filling those posts is getting harder. People just don't want the hassles that go with it. Only 2 full tumers in a team of 18 must be difficult.
I think one common feature with the HGV issue is that a lot of folk have found out during lockdowns that they like more time at home, and the pleasures therein. No point in thrashing yourself to an early grave chasing a few consumer baubles, take it easy and cut your hours even at the expense of pay.
In the case off HGV drivers, many have found that local delivery could pay more, means going home every night etc etc.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
It clearly wasn't a major part of who he was, so it seems odd to emphasise it?
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant, I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it.
It's not irrelevant I said context.
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
It’s not the fact Hartlepool was a Tory gain, as you say there is a reasonable explanation for that, but Labour’s vote share went down from GE19. They did worse than they ever have in vote share.
Again not surprising - the entire point of the Hartlepool vote was to get the sweeties appearing in Darlington and Boro.
And given that voting Labour wouldn't result in those sweeties I suspect a lot of Labour votes may simply have not turned out.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
Write one then? Or just have a quick daily repetitive and boring moan about it instead......
Well it induced you to comment.. . Some of the people on here are so one eyed, it does no harm to point out that a lot of the criticism is pure bile and based on ideological loathing rather than substantive criticism.
It does no harm to point out that Starmer is ffing useless and leading an utterly divided party. Didn't he have a real car crash recently as well as the political ones.
Is there a Starmer supporter on here? Even the loyalists have him as uninspiring, dull and wooden, albeit worthy, and the harshest vitriol comes from the few Corbynites.
It's not as if PB is a hymn of praise for the LOTO!
I quite like him, I'll admit. My feeling is (and it is just a feeling, or perhaps more a desperate hope from one who is not a Labour member but generally well disposed to the party) that he would make a good Prime Minister. I think the criticism of his political skills is a bit overdone. Despite the conference vote against reverting back to the electoral college, my understanding is that he pretty much got what he wanted at conference. Was the EC a bridge too far, or was it a deliberate extreme position to get more votes for the more moderate changes he actually wanted?
However, I don't think he actually speaks that well (he's articulate, but his voice is not a good orator's voice) and he's not as charismatic as Boris. I worry how he will campaign in a GE and the big worry is that he is Kinnock part II. If his leadership doesn't result in a huge increase in seats, or a hung parliament, I think the left will be in no mood to continue with a more moderate leader and the project will be discredited irreparably. Kinnock II will not result in Blair II.
Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...
I quite like him but have no idea what Labour would do if they got into power. I see no plan for anything.
Re the lorry, the difference between Boris and Keir is that Boris would have probably crashed it deliberately and made a typical quip and got good publicity from it. It is a skill he has that Keir doesn't. Whether it's one we want in a PM is another matter.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
We've got borrowing figures later this week. Not 100% if there will be an OBR update because of the budget later in the month.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?
There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.
Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
It strikes me as resembling Student Union politics - childish idiots banging their pet hobby horses until the people who actually use the Union, throw them all out in disgust. That goes for both sides in this, so far.
I recall at Uni, after the big election where they got chucked out, someone crying. Because the big issues (Palestine, sending money to NORAID* etc) would be neglected.
The new lot spent tons of money on student counselling, sexual health**, safety*** and student societies, instead
*Yes, really, they were trying to send money to them **Insanely high undated pregnancy rates in some Unis. ***Including dealing with severe problems about women's safety.
Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that.... If he's smart (yes, I know), he should think of a good gag about it before his next media interview or HoC appearance. Boris will raise it, no doubt. He can probably contrast his mishap with Boris's absence in a paid-for villa well out of the financial reach of red-wall voters. Or something like that.
Most people can't reverse park very easily so maybe he wins points for relatability or something?
It would do if he weren't such a personality vacuum.
It's easy to imagine how Johnson would have reacted in the same situation. A joke or a laugh at himself, something human at least, "gosh, this is harder than it looks", "I had better stick to the day job", "we don't even have wing mirrors when steering the ship of state", "this must be why Maggie said she wasn't for turning"..
It's Starmer's response that shows he doesn't have the charismatic touch that allows people to relate to him. He's awkward. He's not enjoying himself. It's clearly a trial that he has to endure.
I have some sympathy for him. I'd be the same, probably worse, if I found myself in that situation. But then I have the good sense to recognise I'm not a people person, and that I don't have the skills for a career in politics.
I have sympathy for him too. When I say I think he’s going to struggle because he’s quite dull, especially relative to Boris, it’s not a wish that he started trying to be a Jack the lad, more that he’s just not the right man for the job, because a big part of being LotO is having the personality that brings people with you.
I can’t see many people even noticing the HGV incident though, I wouldn’t say it was a big deal.
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant, I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it.
It's not irrelevant I said context.
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
It’s not the fact Hartlepool was a Tory gain, as you say there is a reasonable explanation for that, but Labour’s vote share went down from GE19. They did worse than they ever have in vote share.
C&A, yes not somewhere you’d expect them to do well, but again worst ever vote share. B&S, the Galloway factor, but worst ever vote share. So mitigating circumstances perhaps, but it wouldn’t impress me if I were hanging my hat on him being the cure for Labour’s ills
Anyway, I haven’t written it, and my post was more about the rather strange death of Jim Dobbin.
The Tories problem is that Jill Mortimer is absolutely taking the piss. Parachuted in from Northallerton she promptly returned there and hasn't really been seen since.
She has managed finally to make her maiden speech but that is literally all she has done. Which is very poor compared to MPs elected later who have made multiple contributions to debates, submitted written questions etc.
What she has done is continue working as a Count Councillor in Northallerton. This utter disdain hasn't gone unnoticed - not good for a Tory party hoping to convince the red wall that it actually gives a rat fuck.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
I know I could try to find out myself and I'm being lazy, but do you have a feel as to the extent to which our deficit is driven by pandemic spending (testing etc.) and to what extent it's driven by reduced tax income?
I was thinking about writing a header comparing Sir Keir’s Labour’s performance in By Elections with that of previous Labour leaders - it fascinates me that he has overseen their worst ever vote share in Hartlepool, C&A and B&S, real voters not voting for him at the first chance they get after the awful Jezza, but it’s not really seen as a big deal by anyone else
Anyway, looking at wiki, I was surprised to see the cause of Jim Dobbin’s death - looks like he got extremely drunk at an official dinner in Poland, and choked on his food. I was very interested in the subsequent by election in Heywood & Middleton - backed UKIP at 14/1 I think, and they lost by 627 votes - but hadn’t noticed that
It was the same day as Douglas Carswell’s Clacton by election, and UKIP probably focussed too much on that one, which turned out to be an easy win, and didn’t take H&M seriously enough. The original price in Clacton was 4/6 UKIP which I couldn’t get a penny on, but was massive value
Labour polled 2% and 2.7% in the Newbury & Christchurch by elections in 1993, the latter where their vote fell by 9.4% didn't stop them winning a landslide in 1997.
Would your piece cover Airdrie and Shotts?
Fine if you think it’s irrelevant, I think it’s strange that, after the supposedly toxic leader has been removed, the new one repeatedly does worse and evades criticism for it.
It's not irrelevant I said context.
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
It’s not the fact Hartlepool was a Tory gain, as you say there is a reasonable explanation for that, but Labour’s vote share went down from GE19. They did worse than they ever have in vote share.
Again not surprising - the entire point of the Hartlepool vote was to get the sweeties appearing in Darlington and Boro.
And given that voting Labour wouldn't result in those sweeties I suspect a lot of Labour votes may simply have not turned out.
Well there you go - I could have written the header but it wasn’t worth the bother. All perfectly explainable and no need for any criticism
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
My mother's got COVID. Seems like a cold in terms of severity. Much coughing. Did an at-home test yesterday, going for another a drive-through place later today.
Feels better today than yesterday, though, which is good.
Best wishes to he. Mrs C and I feel somewhat better again today, although she's still got a cough, for which the NHS111 doctor prescribed some antibiotics late yesterday afternoon. Emailed the prescription through to our local pharmacy and we had them by 6pm.
... It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
Isn't it simply, "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story"?
They've decided on this story a long time ago and they will wring as much attention out of it as possible.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
They are doing a terrible job re: expectations management. The continuation of civilization in a few years' time will be viewed as a massive victory for the government.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
Don't forget that also includes the UK leaving the single market.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
Yes. As Keynes said, "the general public, though welcome at our debates, are only spectators". Economics is a subject where people's opinions only start to mean anything if they have a higher degree, and know some advanced maths (especially calculus and some fairly advanced statistics). And very few of the people who comment on it do.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
Who says that? I mean I know our counting is bad, but... nobody's noticed a million people leaving not since Brexit but since Feb 20?
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
But in this case it wasn't a part of their life. So quite odd for them to bang on about it.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
They are doing a terrible job re: expectations management. The continuation of civilization in a few years' time will be viewed as a massive victory for the government.
In a parallel universe with no pandemic, I wonder if we would have had a recession anyway, and the last 12 months would have been nothing but anti-Brexit stories morning, noon and night from a hostile media happy to highlight every minor issue?
The government, in that regard at least, have been quite lucky.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
Surely identifying someone as 'gay' in the 18th/19th C would mean identifying as someone who could keep secrets, and who would, quite probably, be a rather tortured soul. Tortured du to the need to keep proclivities secret.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If the UK is heading seriously towards economic growth and a surplus then the Treasury should be thinking about tax cuts, not tax rises that scar the growth.
Though I expect any tax cuts will come in the form of Income Tax cuts reducing further the 'burden' on those who don't work for a living, rather than rebalancing so that the working and non-working face the same.
Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that.... If he's smart (yes, I know), he should think of a good gag about it before his next media interview or HoC appearance. Boris will raise it, no doubt. He can probably contrast his mishap with Boris's absence in a paid-for villa well out of the financial reach of red-wall voters. Or something like that.
Most people can't reverse park very easily so maybe he wins points for relatability or something?
It would do if he weren't such a personality vacuum.
It's easy to imagine how Johnson would have reacted in the same situation. A joke or a laugh at himself, something human at least, "gosh, this is harder than it looks", "I had better stick to the day job", "we don't even have wing mirrors when steering the ship of state", "this must be why Maggie said she wasn't for turning"..
It's Starmer's response that shows he doesn't have the charismatic touch that allows people to relate to him. He's awkward. He's not enjoying himself. It's clearly a trial that he has to endure.
I have some sympathy for him. I'd be the same, probably worse, if I found myself in that situation. But then I have the good sense to recognise I'm not a people person, and that I don't have the skills for a career in politics.
I have sympathy for him too. When I say I think he’s going to struggle because he’s quite dull, especially relative to Boris, it’s not a wish that he started trying to be a Jack the lad, more that he’s just not the right man for the job, because a big part of being LotO is having the personality that brings people with you.
I can’t see many people even noticing the HGV incident though, I wouldn’t say it was a big deal.
It feeds into the narrative.. how many have seen it on twitter... did the BBC show it on the news?
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
Who says that? I mean I know our counting is bad, but... nobody's noticed a million people leaving not since Brexit but since Feb 20?
It will be very interesting to see the census data on this subject. The thinking is that many of the million were immigrants returning ‘home’, following redundancy or furlough from low-paid service-sector work.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
I suggest you re-read Charles post from earlier as so you clearly struggle with basic comprehension skills.
I've got no time for your misrepresentation of my position or snide insinuations about my character either, so I look forward to your apology.
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
Write one then? Or just have a quick daily repetitive and boring moan about it instead......
Well it induced you to comment.. . Some of the people on here are so one eyed, it does no harm to point out that a lot of the criticism is pure bile and based on ideological loathing rather than substantive criticism.
It does no harm to point out that Starmer is ffing useless and leading an utterly divided party. Didn't he have a real car crash recently as well as the political ones.
Is there a Starmer supporter on here? Even the loyalists have him as uninspiring, dull and wooden, albeit worthy, and the harshest vitriol comes from the few Corbynites.
It's not as if PB is a hymn of praise for the LOTO!
I quite like him, I'll admit. My feeling is (and it is just a feeling, or perhaps more a desperate hope from one who is not a Labour member but generally well disposed to the party) that he would make a good Prime Minister. I think the criticism of his political skills is a bit overdone. Despite the conference vote against reverting back to the electoral college, my understanding is that he pretty much got what he wanted at conference. Was the EC a bridge too far, or was it a deliberate extreme position to get more votes for the more moderate changes he actually wanted?
However, I don't think he actually speaks that well (he's articulate, but his voice is not a good orator's voice) and he's not as charismatic as Boris. I worry how he will campaign in a GE and the big worry is that he is Kinnock part II. If his leadership doesn't result in a huge increase in seats, or a hung parliament, I think the left will be in no mood to continue with a more moderate leader and the project will be discredited irreparably. Kinnock II will not result in Blair II.
Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...
I quite like him but have no idea what Labour would do if they got into power. I see no plan for anything.
Re the lorry, the difference between Boris and Keir is that Boris would have probably crashed it deliberately and made a typical quip and got good publicity from it. It is a skill he has that Keir doesn't. Whether it's one we want in a PM is another matter.
Or even if he hadn't crashed it deliberately he'd have made a quip that made people think he had crashed it deliberately. I think its a skill we do want in a PM, Blair had the same skill, its quite simply the ability to think on your feet.
Instead dreary Keir droning "Very good. Very good." in response to "you failed" just seems rather typical for Keir.
Incidentally, I don't think Starmer's lorry-manoeuvre mishap is necessarily a negative for him. It's got him lots of publicity. It wouldn't have been mentioned in the media or on here were it not for the error. All publicity and all that.... If he's smart (yes, I know), he should think of a good gag about it before his next media interview or HoC appearance. Boris will raise it, no doubt. He can probably contrast his mishap with Boris's absence in a paid-for villa well out of the financial reach of red-wall voters. Or something like that.
Most people can't reverse park very easily so maybe he wins points for relatability or something?
It would do if he weren't such a personality vacuum.
It's easy to imagine how Johnson would have reacted in the same situation. A joke or a laugh at himself, something human at least, "gosh, this is harder than it looks", "I had better stick to the day job", "we don't even have wing mirrors when steering the ship of state", "this must be why Maggie said she wasn't for turning"..
It's Starmer's response that shows he doesn't have the charismatic touch that allows people to relate to him. He's awkward. He's not enjoying himself. It's clearly a trial that he has to endure.
I have some sympathy for him. I'd be the same, probably worse, if I found myself in that situation. But then I have the good sense to recognise I'm not a people person, and that I don't have the skills for a career in politics.
I have sympathy for him too. When I say I think he’s going to struggle because he’s quite dull, especially relative to Boris, it’s not a wish that he started trying to be a Jack the lad, more that he’s just not the right man for the job, because a big part of being LotO is having the personality that brings people with you.
I can’t see many people even noticing the HGV incident though, I wouldn’t say it was a big deal.
It feeds into the narrative.. how many have seen it on twitter... did the BBC show it on the news?
You are right. It's the framing too. The BBC have framed it as a failure, in contrast to the BBC framing the Johnson Cenotaph gaffe as a nothing to see substitution of old footage.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If the UK is heading seriously towards economic growth and a surplus then the Treasury should be thinking about tax cuts, not tax rises that scar the growth.
Though I expect any tax cuts will come in the form of Income Tax cuts reducing further the 'burden' on those who don't work for a living, rather than rebalancing so that the working and non-working face the same.
If we're heading to a surplus on the back of robust growth then it probably makes sense to take some money out of the economy - by repaying some of the national debt - to avoid an inflationary boom/bust cycle and so that we can more easily finance the next crisis.
But I have been expecting a pre-election tax cut for some time.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
I pay for my own holidays, and so do most other voters.
So what
When Johnson's popularity wanes it is remembered, and is another nail in the coffin of his public characterisation. It will be remembered along with other negatives.
Re. the last thread, there's still another week or so to go until we can truly evaluate the conference effects. Give it until around the 21st and then let's look at how the land lies.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
It is inappropriate and undue if you're "outing" someone who didn't want that and didn't choose that. Is that your decision to make?
We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??
Write one then? Or just have a quick daily repetitive and boring moan about it instead......
Well it induced you to comment.. . Some of the people on here are so one eyed, it does no harm to point out that a lot of the criticism is pure bile and based on ideological loathing rather than substantive criticism.
It does no harm to point out that Starmer is ffing useless and leading an utterly divided party. Didn't he have a real car crash recently as well as the political ones.
Is there a Starmer supporter on here? Even the loyalists have him as uninspiring, dull and wooden, albeit worthy, and the harshest vitriol comes from the few Corbynites.
It's not as if PB is a hymn of praise for the LOTO!
I quite like him, I'll admit. My feeling is (and it is just a feeling, or perhaps more a desperate hope from one who is not a Labour member but generally well disposed to the party) that he would make a good Prime Minister. I think the criticism of his political skills is a bit overdone. Despite the conference vote against reverting back to the electoral college, my understanding is that he pretty much got what he wanted at conference. Was the EC a bridge too far, or was it a deliberate extreme position to get more votes for the more moderate changes he actually wanted?
However, I don't think he actually speaks that well (he's articulate, but his voice is not a good orator's voice) and he's not as charismatic as Boris. I worry how he will campaign in a GE and the big worry is that he is Kinnock part II. If his leadership doesn't result in a huge increase in seats, or a hung parliament, I think the left will be in no mood to continue with a more moderate leader and the project will be discredited irreparably. Kinnock II will not result in Blair II.
Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...
I quite like him but have no idea what Labour would do if they got into power. I see no plan for anything. [Snip]
Agreed, though my hope (I sometimes wonder if I'm misspelling cope with a H) is that this will all get nailed down closer to a GE. Boris is essentially without ideology and, apart from where it conflicts with Brexit (though even this could be too generous) is capable of nicking any policy that might have the whiff of popularity. We know Starmer can do detail, and I expect once the campaign starts we will see that applied to more concrete policies. Copefully.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?
There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.
Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
A really big problem with the culture wars is that partisan hyperventilating posts like this scoop up more that twice as many likes as the well-balanced English Heritage one I posted earlier.
That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
It strikes me as resembling Student Union politics - childish idiots banging their pet hobby horses until the people who actually use the Union, throw them all out in disgust. That goes for both sides in this, so far.
I recall at Uni, after the big election where they got chucked out, someone crying. Because the big issues (Palestine, sending money to NORAID* etc) would be neglected.
The new lot spent tons of money on student counselling, sexual health**, safety*** and student societies, instead
*Yes, really, they were trying to send money to them **Insanely high undated pregnancy rates in some Unis. ***Including dealing with severe problems about women's safety.
When I was at college the big union issue was whether to sponsor some penguins at the zoo. (We had a penguin logo before Linux.)
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If the UK is heading seriously towards economic growth and a surplus then the Treasury should be thinking about tax cuts, not tax rises that scar the growth.
Though I expect any tax cuts will come in the form of Income Tax cuts reducing further the 'burden' on those who don't work for a living, rather than rebalancing so that the working and non-working face the same.
If we're heading to a surplus on the back of robust growth then it probably makes sense to take some money out of the economy - by repaying some of the national debt - to avoid an inflationary boom/bust cycle and so that we can more easily finance the next crisis.
But I have been expecting a pre-election tax cut for some time.
Little or no chance. Any surplus will go to.paying off debt or the NHS. Chance of a tax cut is vanishingly small.imho
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
If left handed people were routinely jailed or driven to suicide in the past then yes I think it would be very interesting to have that history uncovered at NT properties. There are two aspects to this - representation and history. On the representation side, yes of course being gay is normal, that's why we shouldn't pretend they don't exist. On the history side, being gay was not considered normal in the past, and gay people paid a heavy price for that, and that is worthy of note. The whole point of NT properties is to connect us to the past, not just the bits that aren't challenging for anyone.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
Of course it is. It's a potential conflict of interest regardless of declared or not (better if declared). Do you understand what that means and how it can influence decisions.
And because Blair did it does that make it ok? Clearly not as you remembered it after all this time.
He's on holiday which several of the papers affect to find outrageous. Of course a PM who didn't take breaks and recharge is going to do so much better. 😒
Again?
How many weeks off do you think people should be allowed? I thought the legal minimum was about five.
Five including bank holidays
The idea that you still get paid when not working is really quite remarkable when you think about it. Doesn't apply to me of course.
I still remember when I started work at 22 taking three weeks off after a few months and being suprised, when I came back tanned and happy, getting my payslip which was the same as if I'd been in the office all the time.
Of course I knew about paid holiday in theory, but it was nice seeing it working in practice.
The notion of paid holiday is a myth. Your salary is based on your contracted working hours. It is just convenient to spread the pay equally over 12 months.
I always calculate my hourly rate on this basis - not including my non-working days.
If you take all of your holidays in the second half of the year, you have actually been underpaid up to the end of June!
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
I’d thought the NT examples are from a time when gay people were marginalised, ie they could be imprisoned for pursuing their preferred form of sexual activity. Is that incorrect?
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?
There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.
Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
A really big problem with the culture wars is that partisan hyperventilating posts like this scoop up more that twice as many likes as the well-balanced English Heritage one I posted earlier.
That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
I liked the bits of your English Heritage post about the position of their leader, but not the partisan conclusion - I don't know whether the current leadership of the NT needs to go, or if they're close enough to the English Heritage position that I'd be content with them.
So it was the partisan parts of your post that put me off. A hitherto silent half of a like from me regardless, and I did appreciate it.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
It is inappropriate and undue if you're "outing" someone who didn't want that and didn't choose that. Is that your decision to make?
Perhaps they over stepped the mark in that case. To be honest I don't recall the furore at the time, and reading about it now it seems like there are reasonable people on both sides of it. But the guy has been dead for some time and if he was gay then I don't see why it is the NT's job to not mention it. I don't believe in outing living people but once you are dead your life belongs in the realm of history and I think it is valid to talk about your sexuality and indeed all aspects of your life.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
I’d thought the NT examples are from a time when gay people were marginalised, ie they could be imprisoned for pursuing their preferred form of sexual activity. Is that incorrect?
I thought the example Charles was giving was contemporary, of a living person.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
If left handed people were routinely jailed or driven to suicide in the past then yes I think it would be very interesting to have that history uncovered at NT properties. There are two aspects to this - representation and history. On the representation side, yes of course being gay is normal, that's why we shouldn't pretend they don't exist. On the history side, being gay was not considered normal in the past, and gay people paid a heavy price for that, and that is worthy of note. The whole point of NT properties is to connect us to the past, not just the bits that aren't challenging for anyone.
PB pedantry – left-handed children used to be forced to write right-handed, to which end they might be beaten or their dominant hand bound. And this was necessary in the liquid ink days because otherwise they'd have smeared ink all over the page. They were also denigrated in terms like sinister or cack-handed. Maybe we do need a left-handed history month couple of hours.
He's on holiday which several of the papers affect to find outrageous. Of course a PM who didn't take breaks and recharge is going to do so much better. 😒
Again?
How many weeks off do you think people should be allowed? I thought the legal minimum was about five.
Five including bank holidays
The idea that you still get paid when not working is really quite remarkable when you think about it. Doesn't apply to me of course.
I still remember when I started work at 22 taking three weeks off after a few months and being suprised, when I came back tanned and happy, getting my payslip which was the same as if I'd been in the office all the time.
Of course I knew about paid holiday in theory, but it was nice seeing it working in practice.
The notion of paid holiday is a myth. Your salary is based on your contracted working hours. It is just convenient to spread the pay equally over 12 months.
I always calculate my hourly rate on this basis - not including my non-working days.
If you take all of your holidays in the second half of the year, you have actually been underpaid up to the end of June!
You don't get paid extra for the leap day in a leap year, though, and most employment contracts for salaried employees will have a clause about not taking additional employment without permission - so your holiday is paid, because your employer reserves the right to tell you not to work for someone else during it.
They want you to rest so that you work harder when you're back.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
Of course it is. It's a potential conflict of interest regardless of declared or not (better if declared). Do you understand what that means and how it can influence decisions.
And because Blair did it does that make it ok? Clearly not as you remembered it after all this time.
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
Who says that? I mean I know our counting is bad, but... nobody's noticed a million people leaving not since Brexit but since Feb 20?
It will be very interesting to see the census data on this subject. The thinking is that many of the million were immigrants returning ‘home’, following redundancy or furlough from low-paid service-sector work.
It quotes the ONS but I am not sure that is the ONS view, at least not yet:
They clarify that in the 2020 part of that they consider there was low inward AND outward migration so not really setting up for a complete reversal in the last 6 months of 2020.
I should clarify that the data this is based on is provably crap, but I am not sure "1 million people have left" is supportable either.
I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.
Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
So what....
If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.
The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
The NT went too far though.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them. What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
"They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged? Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
If left handed people were routinely jailed or driven to suicide in the past then yes I think it would be very interesting to have that history uncovered at NT properties. There are two aspects to this - representation and history. On the representation side, yes of course being gay is normal, that's why we shouldn't pretend they don't exist. On the history side, being gay was not considered normal in the past, and gay people paid a heavy price for that, and that is worthy of note. The whole point of NT properties is to connect us to the past, not just the bits that aren't challenging for anyone.
PB pedantry – left-handed children used to be forced to write right-handed, to which end they might be beaten or their dominant hand bound. And this was necessary in the liquid ink days because otherwise they'd have smeared ink all over the page. They were also denigrated in terms like sinister or cack-handed. Maybe we do need a left-handed history month couple of hours.
I was going to post similar as an older left hander, but thought better of it as there is no comparison obviously between that and being gay in the 60s. It is amazing how most right handers don't know all the issues with being left-handed. Most of us end up using both hands as some tasks are just impossible in a right hand world and I am rather pleased by that.
How many right handers think there is an issue with playing cards?
Economy now just 0.8% below Feb 2020, we're almost there. Still need to recover another 3.5% in total to be where we would have been with no pandemic. That seems tougher now with the global supply issues than without. We've got 1.4% growth pencilled in for the final 4 months of the year and 2022 essentially goes back to trend of about 2% per year. We will exit the pandemic with the economy permanently ~2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, a year of lost growth. Compared to the GFC it's nowhere near as bad permanent scarring and the resulting cuts/tax rises won't need to be anywhere near as severe.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
If, as has been suggested, we are a million people fewer in UK population than in Feb 2020, that’s half of the 3.5% in GDP/capita terms. The per capita figures should be past the real-terms Q1 2020 level next year.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
Who says that? I mean I know our counting is bad, but... nobody's noticed a million people leaving not since Brexit but since Feb 20?
It will be very interesting to see the census data on this subject. The thinking is that many of the million were immigrants returning ‘home’, following redundancy or furlough from low-paid service-sector work.
It quotes the ONS but I am not sure that is the ONS view, at least not yet:
They clarify that in the 2020 part of that they consider there was low inward AND outward migration so not really setting up for a complete reversal in the last 6 months of 2020.
It's common for the mid-year estimates to get revised, often by quite a bit, after the new census. There's a degree of educated guessing involved and other organisations produce different mid-year estimates, also updated after new census data.
It will be interesting this time, even with the 2021 figures out, because there's a clear argument for there having been a peak in migrants somewhere between 2011 and 2021. We might never really have a great consensus on hte mid year estimates between 2011 and 2021 (in recent history, pre 2011, you can at least assume monotonicity, even if the rate of growth might have varied)
Comments
Feels better today than yesterday, though, which is good.
"Operation Juddering Climax. Final shuddering surge. Kermit the Frog"
https://twitter.com/jxb101/status/1448174330312015879?s=21
It really is. Who suggested to him such an enterprise would be a good idea?.
There again it is a single, if very apt metaphor compared to a Prime Minister hiding in a fridge, or a Foreign Secretary reciting Kipling's The Road to Mandalay, or explaining how Mrs Zaghari Ratcliffe was training journalists for Reuters, and there are so many, many more to chose from.
Granted, the zip wire incident falls beyond the statute of limitations, but for those of us who are not of the faith, that is an off the scale metaphor for Johnson's premiership compared to Starmer wrecking the entire UK fleet of HGVs and tankers yesterday.
Noneless an absolutely pathetic stunt with a deserved outcome.
+
Boris: too many examples to mention
Thatcher: riding in a tank
Blair: heading football with Keegan
Farage: plane crash
-
May: dancing
Hague: baseball cap at theme park
Keir: HGV lesson
Kinnock: beach walk
etc.
The other thing is when the media criticise the PM for turning up at one disaster and avoiding another, then you get a "my disaster was worse than yours but he ignored us" theme.
The same with public inquiries. People seem to think "my disaster isn't being taken seriously enough because they haven't spent £50 million on some judge doesn't know anything about the issue and isn't accountable to anyone to vent his personal opinions".
I guess that’s why they get paid the big bucks
Chesham & Amersham amongst the churn I'm certain some Labour people voted tactically in a seat Labour was never going to win. If Labour people are going to start voting tactically for the Lib Dems for the first time since 2010 then that is potentially huge for the Tories.
Hartlepool, as the PBers who knew it well, said it would be a Tory gain because it would have been in 2019 if BXP hadn't stood.
I rarely take it all.
A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.
The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.
That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
Of course I knew about paid holiday in theory, but it was nice seeing it working in practice.
Will BF void the market? Indefinitely suspend? Actually stick to the rules as written?
C&A, yes not somewhere you’d expect them to do well, but again worst ever vote share. B&S, the Galloway factor, but worst ever vote share. So mitigating circumstances perhaps, but it wouldn’t impress me if I were hanging my hat on him being the cure for Labour’s ills
Anyway, I haven’t written it, and my post was more about the rather strange death of Jim Dobbin.
In the October magazine she writes a perfectly judged article on "dealing with difficult history" that spans both sides of the culture debate. She asserts that stories that weren't heard in the past should be included, and only because their professional interest as historians is to make it inclusive and explore it as broadly and deeply as possible. She reassures that she has intention of removing statues, taking down blue plaques or "cancelling" history in any form; she is only interested in protecting it for future generations. She says we can feel pride in our past achievements and, at the same time, be critical or questioning of certain aspects. She even says we can be awed by the political and cultural reach enjoyed by Britain at the peak of its imperial pomp but also recognise the conflict and pain causes by colonial regimes. She does the same on both commemorating Sir Arthur Harris's contributions to the war effort whilst also acknowledging the collateral damage caused by his campaign. She forms no judgement and says history is a process of discussion, reflection, debate and learning. She pushes no conclusions.
It's a masterclass in how to do it, and I am drafting a letter to send her accordingly.
The trouble is the top of the National Trust is inhabited by a clique of tone-deaf networked Guardianistas some of whom worked together at the British Museum previously (I know this from following their histories on LinkedIn and Twitter) who believe their members and the public need to be schooled in their "values". Anyone who resists is "fomenting a culture war".
They created their own Chimera, still don't get it, and only exceptional empathy, listening skills and humility right from the top can now end it: the present management has to go.
Good morning everyone.
And all the best to DecrepterJohn; frightening when you have sight problems.
However, I don't think he actually speaks that well (he's articulate, but his voice is not a good orator's voice) and he's not as charismatic as Boris. I worry how he will campaign in a GE and the big worry is that he is Kinnock part II. If his leadership doesn't result in a huge increase in seats, or a hung parliament, I think the left will be in no mood to continue with a more moderate leader and the project will be discredited irreparably. Kinnock II will not result in Blair II.
Anyway, back up to my loft! This has become a three day job and taken up much of my holiday... Grumble...
There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and
you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.
Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
At least Johnson hasn’t had that problem with his holiday.
It's easy to imagine how Johnson would have reacted in the same situation. A joke or a laugh at himself, something human at least, "gosh, this is harder than it looks", "I had better stick to the day job", "we don't even have wing mirrors when steering the ship of state", "this must be why Maggie said she wasn't for turning"..
It's Starmer's response that shows he doesn't have the charismatic touch that allows people to relate to him. He's awkward. He's not enjoying himself. It's clearly a trial that he has to endure.
I have some sympathy for him. I'd be the same, probably worse, if I found myself in that situation. But then I have the good sense to recognise I'm not a people person, and that I don't have the skills for a career in politics.
The IFS put out their forecast a few days ago and they agree, they think we'll be in surplus by 2024/25, three years earlier than is currently officially forecast.
It's an odd sensation where the official data says one thing (that the UK economy is growing pretty well) and the political and media rhetoric is very much the opposite with collapse and armageddon predicted every other day. I do wonder whether basic numeracy among the media and political class is driving this, we saw how they couldn't cope with any of the virus maths and now I think we're seeing it with all of their doom laden predictions based on anecdote and, frankly, hopecasting that the UK fails post-Brexit.
And given that voting Labour wouldn't result in those sweeties I suspect a lot of Labour votes may simply have not turned out.
Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.
I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
Re the lorry, the difference between Boris and Keir is that Boris would have probably crashed it deliberately and made a typical quip and got good publicity from it. It is a skill he has that Keir doesn't. Whether it's one we want in a PM is another matter.
I recall at Uni, after the big election where they got chucked out, someone crying. Because the big issues (Palestine, sending money to NORAID* etc) would be neglected.
The new lot spent tons of money on student counselling, sexual health**, safety*** and student societies, instead
*Yes, really, they were trying to send money to them
**Insanely high undated pregnancy rates in some Unis.
***Including dealing with severe problems about women's safety.
I can’t see many people even noticing the HGV incident though, I wouldn’t say it was a big deal.
She has managed finally to make her maiden speech but that is literally all she has done. Which is very poor compared to MPs elected later who have made multiple contributions to debates, submitted written questions etc.
What she has done is continue working as a Count Councillor in Northallerton. This utter disdain hasn't gone unnoticed - not good for a Tory party hoping to convince the red wall that it actually gives a rat fuck.
If the IFS forecasts are correct, that leaves a huge margin for the Chancellor to cut taxes before the election.
No comment on the innumerate media doom-mongers, I’ve made thousands of them over the past 20 months!
They've decided on this story a long time ago and they will wring as much attention out of it as possible.
What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
The government, in that regard at least, have been quite lucky.
Though I expect any tax cuts will come in the form of Income Tax cuts reducing further the 'burden' on those who don't work for a living, rather than rebalancing so that the working and non-working face the same.
Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
It will be very interesting to see the census data on this subject. The thinking is that many of the million were immigrants returning ‘home’, following redundancy or furlough from low-paid service-sector work.
And you remember it 20 years later.
I've got no time for your misrepresentation of my position or snide insinuations about my character either, so I look forward to your apology.
Instead dreary Keir droning "Very good. Very good." in response to "you failed" just seems rather typical for Keir.
But I have been expecting a pre-election tax cut for some time.
That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
Conversely I think Biden will only run again if the Democrats hold Congress next year and his approval rating gets back over 50%
And because Blair did it does that make it ok? Clearly not as you remembered it after all this time.
and I think EdM deserves a shout, even if Bacon Sarnie wasn't a 'stunt', he had the Ed Stone too
plus, I don't think Farage was meant to be doing a stunt!
I always calculate my hourly rate on this basis - not including my non-working days.
If you take all of your holidays in the second half of the year, you have actually been underpaid up to the end of June!
So it was the partisan parts of your post that put me off. A hitherto silent half of a like from me regardless, and I did appreciate it.
He didn’t mean to end up in the hospital on Election Day though!
(One consequence of his stunt, IIRC, is that it’s now prohibited by insurance to take a passenger on banner-towing flights).
People who loathe twitter: post about twitter all day
People who loathe the EU: post about the EU all day
People who loathe woke*: you get the idea
*whatever it is
They want you to rest so that you work harder when you're back.
1. The UK population was estimated to be 66,796,807 in mid-2019. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2019estimates
2. The population of the UK at mid-year 2020 was estimated to be 67.1 million, an increase of about 284,000 (0.4%) since mid-year 2019. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2020
They clarify that in the 2020 part of that they consider there was low inward AND outward migration so not really setting up for a complete reversal in the last 6 months of 2020.
I should clarify that the data this is based on is provably crap, but I am not sure "1 million people have left" is supportable either.
The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
People who loathe Trump: post about Trump
People have a tendency to write about what they object to. Why is that odd?
How many right handers think there is an issue with playing cards?
It will be interesting this time, even with the 2021 figures out, because there's a clear argument for there having been a peak in migrants somewhere between 2011 and 2021. We might never really have a great consensus on hte mid year estimates between 2011 and 2021 (in recent history, pre 2011, you can at least assume monotonicity, even if the rate of growth might have varied)