This week’s most important polling analysis on the White House race – politicalbetting.com

Malmesbury said:

DavidL said:

Just read PJ O’Rourke’s piece in the ST. Not quite as funny as he used to be. But he makes some good points. Firstly, Biden has no idea why Trump was elected in the first place.
Trump, inevitably, is on to this: “If things were so great in 2016 I wouldn’t be here.”
He concludes with: “So how’”, I asked, “did sending a lunatic to Washington fix this?”
He laughed. “It’s what they’ve got coming.”
“And maybe, alas , it still is.”
As he describes it America is torn between those that think government is the solution and those who think that it’s the problem.
Biden is clearly in the first camp. Trump supporters are in the second. Maybe they don’t blame him for administrative chaos because they never expect anything else. And they have a point.

The example he gives - of the gas station guy who can't dig up and replace tanks because he can't get permits from 8 levels of the system - is an example of one of the biggest problems in the US. A mad system of regulation that fights itself interspersed with no regulation at all.....

A friend was involved in a FinTech that wanted to move into the US market - debit only cards, no fees, no lending, online banking. A VISA card for the poorest, just as much as the richest. Blocked - not by the existing banks, but by various interests at the "Community Organiser" level.

Another example - in LA, a dry cleaner sold his business to Elon Musk's Boring Company, to build an entrance to a tunnel. Months later, he hadn't been able to start his business at the new location - it was a dry cleaners. Why? Well, the city council hadn't given him the permit to open a dry cleaners there yet - despite it being zoned as light industrial....

In many ways, the UK is far less obsessed with pointless must-have-a-permit-to-open-a-hair-dressers nonsense.

As a business owner operator in the US, I broadly agree. (And in the fintech space too: Just Auto Insurance.)

But it's not universally true. Take California. Car insurance regulation is a ridiculous mess. But that's not so much the fault of the politicians, but on a ballot proposition (103) that voters approved about 20 years ago. This means that auto insurers are only allowed to use: vehicle type, years since licensed, miles driven per year, zip code, and accident/violation history in setting rates.

The consequence of this is that what my business does - i.e. using telematics pricing to set rates based on how people actually drive - isn't possible in California. And it also means that zip codes play an extraordinarily large role in setting rates. The ballot proposition was couched as a way to make insurance less disriminatory. It has, of course, done exactly the opposite, while stifling innovation.

On the other hand, California is an 'employment at will' state. Essentially, you can let anyone go at any time without notice.

So, ridiculously regulated insurance market, but pretty unregulated labour market.

There also doesn't seem to be a particular correlation between level of regulation and 'hue' of the states. Arizona has - to date - been reliably Republican, but employment regulation is worse than than in California. Insurance regulation, on the other hand, is better.

And then you come to Cities. Mayors have lots of powers. In Santa Monica, for example, the minimum salaried wage is something like $60,000/year. This means that anyone in lower paid jobs is - by and large - contracted.

It's a bit of a mess.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

tlg86 said:

alex_ said:

Pulpstar said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/20/trumps-flaws-many-better-britain-biden/

Daniel "ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS THREATENING OUR PLACE IN THE SINGLE MARKET" Hannan

If Biden wins, the free world may find itself longing for a stronger Anglo-American alliance

Ye Gods what an absolubtely parochial crock of shite take.

Just checking, does Hannan include countries in the EU as forming part of the "Free World"?

Probably not. In All Out War it's said that he had an epiphany when the president of Latvia (I think) visited Britain shortly after independence. Apparently he told our politicians that his country was more free than we were (referencing our EU membership).

And yet Latvia went on to join not only the EU but the Euro, so they couldn't have found the prospect of enslavement by Brussels that appalling.

Latvia is far more worried about enslavement by Moscow.

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Such a modest and relatively harmless set of compromises, compared to the pact with the devil the incumbent has made to gain the same prize. You are almost selling him.

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Such a modest and relatively harmless set of compromises, compared to the pact with the devil the incumbent has made to gain the same prize. You are almost selling him.

I'm not trying to sell him (I'm a Conservative, after all) I'm simply dowsing his strategy.

I'm first and foremost a political gambler - well, mostly.

EDIT: I should add, there's a warning for him there too: he might end up not being seen as sincere, and therefore not trusted with office - this was never a problem with Blair, since most people didn't really think him a socialist anyway. It's an even *bigger* risk for Labour, since if he loses they will lurch to the Left and obscurity again.

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

B******! Thank goodness Boris was never like that!

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Casino_Royale said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Such a modest and relatively harmless set of compromises, compared to the pact with the devil the incumbent has made to gain the same prize. You are almost selling him.

I'm not trying to sell him (I'm a Conservative, after all) I'm simply dowsing his strategy.

I'm first and foremost a political gambler - well, mostly.

You're by far and away the one of the Tories I really have time for on here.

I accept chocolates and flowers in the post x

FrancisUrquhart said:

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

DavidL said:

Just read PJ O’Rourke’s piece in the ST. Not quite as funny as he used to be. But he makes some good points. Firstly, Biden has no idea why Trump was elected in the first place.
Trump, inevitably, is on to this: “If things were so great in 2016 I wouldn’t be here.”
He concludes with: “So how’”, I asked, “did sending a lunatic to Washington fix this?”
He laughed. “It’s what they’ve got coming.”
“And maybe, alas , it still is.”
As he describes it America is torn between those that think government is the solution and those who think that it’s the problem.
Biden is clearly in the first camp. Trump supporters are in the second. Maybe they don’t blame him for administrative chaos because they never expect anything else. And they have a point.

The example he gives - of the gas station guy who can't dig up and replace tanks because he can't get permits from 8 levels of the system - is an example of one of the biggest problems in the US. A mad system of regulation that fights itself interspersed with no regulation at all.....

A friend was involved in a FinTech that wanted to move into the US market - debit only cards, no fees, no lending, online banking. A VISA card for the poorest, just as much as the richest. Blocked - not by the existing banks, but by various interests at the "Community Organiser" level.

Another example - in LA, a dry cleaner sold his business to Elon Musk's Boring Company, to build an entrance to a tunnel. Months later, he hadn't been able to start his business at the new location - it was a dry cleaners. Why? Well, the city council hadn't given him the permit to open a dry cleaners there yet - despite it being zoned as light industrial....

In many ways, the UK is far less obsessed with pointless must-have-a-permit-to-open-a-hair-dressers nonsense.

As a business owner operator in the US, I broadly agree. (And in the fintech space too: Just Auto Insurance.)

But it's not universally true. Take California. Car insurance regulation is a ridiculous mess. But that's not so much the fault of the politicians, but on a ballot proposition (103) that voters approved about 20 years ago. This means that auto insurers are only allowed to use: vehicle type, years since licensed, miles driven per year, zip code, and accident/violation history in setting rates.

The consequence of this is that what my business does - i.e. using telematics pricing to set rates based on how people actually drive - isn't possible in California. And it also means that zip codes play an extraordinarily large role in setting rates. The ballot proposition was couched as a way to make insurance less disriminatory. It has, of course, done exactly the opposite, while stifling innovation.

On the other hand, California is an 'employment at will' state. Essentially, you can let anyone go at any time without notice.

So, ridiculously regulated insurance market, but pretty unregulated labour market.

There also doesn't seem to be a particular correlation between level of regulation and 'hue' of the states. Arizona has - to date - been reliably Republican, but employment regulation is worse than than in California. Insurance regulation, on the other hand, is better.

And then you come to Cities. Mayors have lots of powers. In Santa Monica, for example, the minimum salaried wage is something like $60,000/year. This means that anyone in lower paid jobs is - by and large - contracted.

It's a bit of a mess.

Sounds a bit like "ban the box" initiative that stopped employers asking if a candidate had been to prison, because it was claimed that it was discriminative against POC.

The problem is because employers can't ask, the result is far more discrimination, because makes much more difficult to properly assess a potential employee so people from high crime areas all get tarred with the same brush.

The US problem is that various interests compete for regulatory capture - and often win. So you end up with a bizarre mish-mash of laws and regulations designed to please completing interests.

So, you get a ridiculously over budget and under performing project to build a heavy lift rocket for NASA which is kept going, in part by race relations. As part of attempts to improve things for minority communities, minority owned businesses get priority in government contracts. So a piece of the pie is given to them...

This means that every issue in US politics is tangled with every other. With a patch work of fixes, revisions, reversions and revulsions at every level....

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

B******! Thank goodness Boris was never like that!

If you disagree, would you care to put your counter-argument?

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Yep. He's diagnosed (correctly) that the only way for Labour to win outright is to be ... not Labour. If he sticks to his actual principles, he'll be lucky to get a Miliband-style 230 seats, so bye-bye to those. EU? Never heard of it. Tax rises? What are they? Migrants? Best have some tough controls.

And people call Boris a liar

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

B******! Thank goodness Boris was never like that!

If you disagree, would you care to put your counter-argument?

No I can't. By the nature of the beast, to succeed they all need to be ruthlessly ambitious (Mrs May aside) and not necessarily in a bad way.

I do have issues with the methods Johnson adopted to climb the greasy pole.

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

DavidL said:

Just read PJ O’Rourke’s piece in the ST. Not quite as funny as he used to be. But he makes some good points. Firstly, Biden has no idea why Trump was elected in the first place.
Trump, inevitably, is on to this: “If things were so great in 2016 I wouldn’t be here.”
He concludes with: “So how’”, I asked, “did sending a lunatic to Washington fix this?”
He laughed. “It’s what they’ve got coming.”
“And maybe, alas , it still is.”
As he describes it America is torn between those that think government is the solution and those who think that it’s the problem.
Biden is clearly in the first camp. Trump supporters are in the second. Maybe they don’t blame him for administrative chaos because they never expect anything else. And they have a point.

The example he gives - of the gas station guy who can't dig up and replace tanks because he can't get permits from 8 levels of the system - is an example of one of the biggest problems in the US. A mad system of regulation that fights itself interspersed with no regulation at all.....

A friend was involved in a FinTech that wanted to move into the US market - debit only cards, no fees, no lending, online banking. A VISA card for the poorest, just as much as the richest. Blocked - not by the existing banks, but by various interests at the "Community Organiser" level.

Another example - in LA, a dry cleaner sold his business to Elon Musk's Boring Company, to build an entrance to a tunnel. Months later, he hadn't been able to start his business at the new location - it was a dry cleaners. Why? Well, the city council hadn't given him the permit to open a dry cleaners there yet - despite it being zoned as light industrial....

In many ways, the UK is far less obsessed with pointless must-have-a-permit-to-open-a-hair-dressers nonsense.

As a business owner operator in the US, I broadly agree. (And in the fintech space too: Just Auto Insurance.)

But it's not universally true. Take California. Car insurance regulation is a ridiculous mess. But that's not so much the fault of the politicians, but on a ballot proposition (103) that voters approved about 20 years ago. This means that auto insurers are only allowed to use: vehicle type, years since licensed, miles driven per year, zip code, and accident/violation history in setting rates.

The consequence of this is that what my business does - i.e. using telematics pricing to set rates based on how people actually drive - isn't possible in California. And it also means that zip codes play an extraordinarily large role in setting rates. The ballot proposition was couched as a way to make insurance less disriminatory. It has, of course, done exactly the opposite, while stifling innovation.

On the other hand, California is an 'employment at will' state. Essentially, you can let anyone go at any time without notice.

So, ridiculously regulated insurance market, but pretty unregulated labour market.

There also doesn't seem to be a particular correlation between level of regulation and 'hue' of the states. Arizona has - to date - been reliably Republican, but employment regulation is worse than than in California. Insurance regulation, on the other hand, is better.

And then you come to Cities. Mayors have lots of powers. In Santa Monica, for example, the minimum salaried wage is something like $60,000/year. This means that anyone in lower paid jobs is - by and large - contracted.

It's a bit of a mess.

So how does Tesla insurance work? I understand that Tesla offers that in California.
They can tell exactly how people drive and can tweak the cost appropriately.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1307743579213832192

But will labour listen, somehow I doubt it

Mexicanpete said:

BluestBlue said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Yep. He's diagnosed (correctly) that the only way for Labour to win outright is to be ... not Labour. If he sticks to his actual principles, he'll be lucky to get a Miliband-style 230 seats, so bye-bye to those. EU? Never heard of it. Tax rises? What are they? Migrants? Best have some tough controls.

And people call Boris a liar

That is because he has a history of being caught out by for example Max Hastings and Michael Howard. I am hoping to the Great British public join that list.

What Johnson has been guilty of is wholly different to what you are accusing Starmer.

Starmer is cutting his cloth in the same way Johnson has and is, and Cameron, Blair and Thatcher all did before him to win elections.

Cameron and Blair certainly did. Not sure about Mrs Thatcher though, at least for those elections I'm old enough to remember.

Malmesbury said:

BluestBlue said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Yep. He's diagnosed (correctly) that the only way for Labour to win outright is to be ... not Labour. If he sticks to his actual principles, he'll be lucky to get a Miliband-style 230 seats, so bye-bye to those. EU? Never heard of it. Tax rises? What are they? Migrants? Best have some tough controls.

And people call Boris a liar

Major Attlee and Co. would have ridiculed the suggestion that Labour is the party of Negative Nationalism. Which is what the Corybnites are.

Under Attlee it wasn't, and that's why he won. But people like Attlee and Wilson and Blair are the rare exceptions in a party instinctively committed to negative nationalism, which is why in the last hundred years Boris' Oxford college has produced as many majority-winning Prime Ministers as the Labour Party has.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Labour can absolutely become the party of patriotism again, perhaps a new logo might be a good starting point.

I think the old one is just fine, the rose represents social democracy worldwide.

BluestBlue said:

Malmesbury said:

BluestBlue said:

Casino_Royale said:

Starmer wants to be PM. Starmer wants that on his own terms. That means Starmer is fighting for an outright victory (Labour clear of 325+ seats) in one go.

He knows he will only, at best, scrape a handful in Scotland. So, he's going to have to match a Blair 1997 or 2001 result (preferably the former) in England to do this.

Flag, forces, family is the kind of line he's going to have to take to do it.

It won't be called this, of course, but it will in effect be New New Labour (it will have to be) and it will differ in at least two important aspects: one, it won't be as pro-market and, two, it will not be as liberal on migration.

As it happens, I suspect Starmer *does* belief in all the usual North London soft-left tropes: Brexiters are racist, loves the EU, loves migration and migrant rights, and veganism is the way, but he's smart enough to bury it.

Such is his ambition.

Yep. He's diagnosed (correctly) that the only way for Labour to win outright is to be ... not Labour. If he sticks to his actual principles, he'll be lucky to get a Miliband-style 230 seats, so bye-bye to those. EU? Never heard of it. Tax rises? What are they? Migrants? Best have some tough controls.

And people call Boris a liar

Major Attlee and Co. would have ridiculed the suggestion that Labour is the party of Negative Nationalism. Which is what the Corybnites are.

Under Attlee it wasn't, and that's why he won. But people like Attlee and Wilson and Blair are the rare exceptions in a party instinctively committed to negative nationalism, which is why in the last hundred years Boris' Oxford college has produced as many majority-winning Prime Ministers as the Labour Party has.

So what

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

DavidL said:

MikeSmithson said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

I think this is the last time Kepa plays for Chelsea.

I don't want to pile onto him but when Karius had his meltdown at least he had the excuse of concussion.

This seems to happen when teams are playing Liverpool

I thought Man U had a very valid point about it being too soon to start the EPL season and they stood up for their principles yesterday.

Very good.

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

210 in 2005 on Notional Boundaries.

There should be new boundaries by next time too.

On the topic of Brexit negotiations did Barnier & Frost make statements this week after the negotiations? If they did I missed them.

We normally each week seem to get the same vanilla "we need [the other side] to compromise" statement like clockwork but if it happened this week I missed it. Or were there no talks this week?

rcs1000 said:

Malmesbury said:

DavidL said:

Just read PJ O’Rourke’s piece in the ST. Not quite as funny as he used to be. But he makes some good points. Firstly, Biden has no idea why Trump was elected in the first place.
Trump, inevitably, is on to this: “If things were so great in 2016 I wouldn’t be here.”
He concludes with: “So how’”, I asked, “did sending a lunatic to Washington fix this?”
He laughed. “It’s what they’ve got coming.”
“And maybe, alas , it still is.”
As he describes it America is torn between those that think government is the solution and those who think that it’s the problem.
Biden is clearly in the first camp. Trump supporters are in the second. Maybe they don’t blame him for administrative chaos because they never expect anything else. And they have a point.

The example he gives - of the gas station guy who can't dig up and replace tanks because he can't get permits from 8 levels of the system - is an example of one of the biggest problems in the US. A mad system of regulation that fights itself interspersed with no regulation at all.....

A friend was involved in a FinTech that wanted to move into the US market - debit only cards, no fees, no lending, online banking. A VISA card for the poorest, just as much as the richest. Blocked - not by the existing banks, but by various interests at the "Community Organiser" level.

Another example - in LA, a dry cleaner sold his business to Elon Musk's Boring Company, to build an entrance to a tunnel. Months later, he hadn't been able to start his business at the new location - it was a dry cleaners. Why? Well, the city council hadn't given him the permit to open a dry cleaners there yet - despite it being zoned as light industrial....

In many ways, the UK is far less obsessed with pointless must-have-a-permit-to-open-a-hair-dressers nonsense.

As a business owner operator in the US, I broadly agree. (And in the fintech space too: Just Auto Insurance.)

But it's not universally true. Take California. Car insurance regulation is a ridiculous mess. But that's not so much the fault of the politicians, but on a ballot proposition (103) that voters approved about 20 years ago. This means that auto insurers are only allowed to use: vehicle type, years since licensed, miles driven per year, zip code, and accident/violation history in setting rates.

The consequence of this is that what my business does - i.e. using telematics pricing to set rates based on how people actually drive - isn't possible in California. And it also means that zip codes play an extraordinarily large role in setting rates. The ballot proposition was couched as a way to make insurance less disriminatory. It has, of course, done exactly the opposite, while stifling innovation.

On the other hand, California is an 'employment at will' state. Essentially, you can let anyone go at any time without notice.

So, ridiculously regulated insurance market, but pretty unregulated labour market.

There also doesn't seem to be a particular correlation between level of regulation and 'hue' of the states. Arizona has - to date - been reliably Republican, but employment regulation is worse than than in California. Insurance regulation, on the other hand, is better.

And then you come to Cities. Mayors have lots of powers. In Santa Monica, for example, the minimum salaried wage is something like $60,000/year. This means that anyone in lower paid jobs is - by and large - contracted.

It's a bit of a mess.

And how much of that is a federal issue ?
Which is where the conversation started.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Pagan2 said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1307743579213832192

But will labour listen, somehow I doubt it

At least Keir can read.

Ah once again dont engage with the message attack the messenger you are so dim if you think it helps

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

If Hague has made 30 net gains Howard wouldn't have become leader.

Benpointer said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

If Hague has made 30 net gains Howard wouldn't have become leader.

That's what I was thinking. And anyway, there's nothing to say that the 2010 election was winnable for the Tories. That sort of result was perhaps inevitable irrespective of what happened in 2001 and 2005.

Benpointer said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

If Hague has made 30 net gains Howard wouldn't have become leader.

Didn't Hague say he had set himself a target of 250 seats or he'd resign.

IIRC in 1999/2000 the Telegraph ran a report with a member of the shadow cabinet privately saying they had at least 100 gains in the bag for the 2001 election.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Pagan2 said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Pagan2 said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Pagan2 said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1307743579213832192

But will labour listen, somehow I doubt it

At least Keir can read.

Ah once again dont engage with the message attack the messenger you are so dim if you think it helps

Go back to Primary School babykins

pffft if you cant debate but have to resort to ad hominems and childish insults perhaps do everyone a favour and don't bother

Awh, did I touch a nerve? Maybe it's time for your nap

Not at all just realised you cant argue with stupid so in future will just ignore your ignorance unless you actually respond to the point. I am sure everyone else is bored of our arguing

Benpointer said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Benpointer said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

If Hague has made 30 net gains Howard wouldn't have become leader.

Didn't Hague say he had set himself a target of 250 seats or he'd resign.

IIRC in 1999/2000 the Telegraph ran a report with a member of the shadow cabinet privately saying they had at least 100 gains in the bag for the 2001 election.

In any event, how would the net result have been much different? Cameron PM in 2010,

If you're going to do alt-history there are far better options. Halifax rather than Chirchill in 1940?

I can see why TSE is intrigued by it. The Lib Dems not in government 2010-2015 completely changes the landscape.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Is Jose Mourinho a closet Arsenal fan trying to destroy Spurs?

I mean what other explanation is there for trying to sell Dele Alli and buy Jesse Lingard as his replacement?

He's a Chelsea fan trying to destroy Spurs?

Philip_Thompson said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

So apparently October lockdown might be announced this week

Doesn't seem necessary or right to me. If there is to be one though then it should have a good lead time to allow people to manage stock accordingly.

I like Prof Carl Heneghan's (sp?) suggestion that if there were to be a lockdown like that it'd be better timed as an extended Christmas/New Year break. That's not a bad idea if there has to be one.

That would just mean that Christmas is even more tedious than normal

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

Cameron would have won GE2015.

He'd have had bigger problems with his backbenches, and the fight over Europe would have come earlier, and he'd also have done things like a British Bill of Rights, IHT cuts and attempted to licence fox-hunting (which would have narrowly failed) but he'd have governed ok.

Casino_Royale said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

tlg86 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

My boy Dave (pbuh) gained the Tories 108 seats in on election, he took the party from 198 MPs in 2005 to 306 MPs in 2010.

But it's a much harder task facing Starmer than what was facing Cameron. Although the Tories didn't make all that many gains in 2005, a lot of seats were brought into play.

Obviously everyone starts with 0 votes in all seats, but we all know that past results do matter.

One thread I always keep on planning to right is a what if thread.

Just imagine if William Hague had managed to make say thirty net gains in 2001 instead of just one net gain, and Howard and Cameron made the same number of net gains that they did then in 2010 Dave wins a majority of 20.

So we'd have had no coalition, what would politics be like this day? What would have been the outcome of the 2015 GE?

Cameron would have won GE2015.

He'd have had bigger problems with his backbenches, and the fight over Europe would have come earlier, and he'd also have done things like a British Bill of Rights, IHT cuts and attempted to licence fox-hunting (which would have narrowly failed) but he'd have governed ok.

I think there were two key factors behind the Tory win in 2015. Firstly, Scotland. I think that would have played out more or less the same with the Lib Dems in opposition. The Tories would have been seen as the safe option in England. And secondly the fall in the price of oil. That was a godsend for the Tories and would obviously have been a factor irrespective of who was governing.

williamglenn said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

Johnson is Brown if he had held the election that never was.

He might have been more like May with a GE2017 result: Brown would almost certainly have lost his majority had he held that election in 2007 and his weaknesses would have become apparent during the campaign.

The zeitgeist was simply moving away from Labour by then (and the signs were clearly visible in England in GE2005).

Bottling it gave him an extra 2 1/2 years in office he wouldn't have otherwise had.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Obviously the best position for Labour would be that a deal comes back, they vote for it.

If you are talking about a Johnson/ Cummings/Frost EU deal, I would very much doubt it is something Labour could vote for.

Casino_Royale said:

williamglenn said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Starmer needs to be the next Cameron.

96 seats gained in one election.

Johnson is Brown if he had held the election that never was.

He might have been more like May with a GE2017 result: Brown would almost certainly have lost his majority had he held that election in 2007 and his weaknesses would have become apparent during the campaign.

The zeitgeist was simply moving away from Labour by then (and the signs were clearly visible in England in GE2005).

Bottling it gave him an extra 2 1/2 years in office he wouldn't have otherwise had.

He might have lost his majority, but I doubt he'd have lost power (without being ousted by Labour). Would Cameron have survived?

FrancisUrquhart said:

williamglenn said:

311 deaths in France...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/sep/20/coronavirus-live-news-france-sees-another-record-daily-rise-as-victoria-records-14-new-cases

The country’s death toll rose by 311 to 31,585 – the highest number of deaths in months. The death toll increased by 25 on Saturday, following a jump of 154 on Friday.

Thats some leap. Some issues with the stats?

Francia: 12 personas han fallecido con coronavirus en las últimas 24 horas. La estadística total de fallecidos, no obstante, ha aumentado hoy en más de 300 muertes, correspondientes a días anteriores.

Andy_JS said:

"Hammersmith and Fulham council bans all staff from smoking at their desks while working from home"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8752965/Hammersmith-Fulham-council-BANS-staff-smoking-desks-working-home.html

And how exactly do they plan to enforce that....its the kind of shit that gets local government a bad name