O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Bollocks. I frequently disagreed with Boris on issues such as the exams crisis last year calling for a u turn on that, I was an early supporter of Rashford's campaign before it was popular too and callinh or a u turn on that too.
Oh and I've strongly and consistently argued in favour of the Scottish right to a second referendum based on the same principle of self determination.
I simply agreed with Boris on Europe (except for when he was weak on the third meaningful vote) as that is genuinely my position. It still is.
I still think self determination is important. That's why I still think we as voters MUST have the right to elect our lawmakers and why Scots MUST have the right to a second referendum.
My principles have not changed. The topic has moved on now though to other areas instead of Brexit being so all pervasive.
If Starmer doesn't want a £15 p/h minimum wage, why on earth was he out with a protest for McDonald's to pay £15 p/h ?
Have you tried the sausage muffins? I don't mean the sausage egg muffins, just the pure sausage muffins. The people making those deserve more than the minimum wage.
Next question for Starmer - "Why should I, as a care assistant be worth less than a McDonald's worker"
That's a good argument but only if you haven't tried the sausage muffins.
They should be paid more because they are delicious, or paid more for danger money because they are that bad?
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
Although you wouldn't know it from here, most of the Labour Conference has been about exactly that: how to improve the lot of working people across the spectrum. Unlike on PB, marginal issues such as trans rights have barely been mentioned.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
If Starmer doesn't want a £15 p/h minimum wage, why on earth was he out with a protest for McDonald's to pay £15 p/h ?
Have you tried the sausage muffins? I don't mean the sausage egg muffins, just the pure sausage muffins. The people making those deserve more than the minimum wage.
Next question for Starmer - "Why should I, as a care assistant be worth less than a McDonald's worker"
That's a good argument but only if you haven't tried the sausage muffins.
They should be paid more because they are delicious, or paid more for danger money because they are that bad?
The former. But then also the latter, for any McDonalds product involving fish.
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Nick Thomas Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, is the most capable in the shadow cabinet. 1st class degree from Oxford and a former commercial and chancery barrister and academic. He is also Welsh so able to appeal beyond North London. If Labour wanted a real heavyweight they could go with him, however not sure if he has a great deal of charisma
He makes Starmer appear charismatic! Vanished without trace in one of the top 4 shadow jobs. Atl least Abbott got noticed.
He has got on with the job, Abbott got noticed because she was hopeless at it.
A cabinet minister no one notices can be a good thing (it indicates, at least, a lack of crises in the department - the minister might be doing very little at all and be lucky; he/she might actually be doing good work).
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
Please don't upset yourself. It isn't trolling, it isn't "abuse". If you don't post unfunny crap that looks like it came straight off a Tory Party student association leaflet I won't mock.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
Although you wouldn't know it from here, most of the Labour Conference has been about exactly that: how to improve the lot of working people across the spectrum. Unlike on PB, marginal issues such as trans rights have barely been mentioned.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
It's not just PB Tories, the media seem in on it as well.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
Please don't upset yourself. It isn't trolling, it isn't "abuse". If you don't post unfunny crap that looks like it came straight off a Tory Party student association leaflet I won't mock.
How was I trying to be funny? I just posted Sir Keir's exact words, with no comment
You don't like me - I don't care, lets leave it at that. I can PM you a photo to throw darts at if it will help?
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
Although you wouldn't know it from here, most of the Labour Conference has been about exactly that: how to improve the lot of working people across the spectrum. Unlike on PB, marginal issues such as trans rights have barely been mentioned.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
I think whether you agree or disagree, McDonald moving the agenda back to pay is a good thing away from frankly fringe issues.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Come on! Johnson is a slob. No way would he wear highly polished brogues.
Ah, you spotted a failed rhetorical flourish! Scuffed and unpolished brogues?
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Come on! Johnson is a slob. No way would he wear highly polished brogues.
Not with all the saliva on them. (Not necessarily PT's, I hasten to add.)
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
Please don't upset yourself. It isn't trolling, it isn't "abuse". If you don't post unfunny crap that looks like it came straight off a Tory Party student association leaflet I won't mock.
How was I trying to be funny? I just posted Sir Keir's exact words, with no comment
You don't like me - I don't care, lets leave it at that. I can PM you a photo to throw darts at if it will help?
I don't know you, so no idea whether I like or dislike you, old chap. No need for the picture, thanks, signed or otherwise. Take a chill pill.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
Please don't upset yourself. It isn't trolling, it isn't "abuse". If you don't post unfunny crap that looks like it came straight off a Tory Party student association leaflet I won't mock.
How was I trying to be funny? I just posted Sir Keir's exact words, with no comment
You don't like me - I don't care, lets leave it at that. I can PM you a photo to throw darts at if it will help?
I don't know you, so no idea whether I like or dislike you, old chap. No need for the picture, thanks, signed or otherwise. Take a chill pill.
If I let you have the last word, will you go away?
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
I'd keep him, but mainly due to the lack of obvious alternatives. Which would also have been my reason to vote for him, most likely, had I been a Labour member. They could easily end up with someone far worse.
I agree with much of your analysis, but I'm not sure how Starmer fairs against a more Starmerish (i.e. 'safe pair of hands') Conservative leader. Of course, if Johnson leads the Conservatives into the next election then it doesn't matter how Starmer measures up against Sunak, Truss etc.
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
I guess the problem is that Labour could well be that stupid! They elected Corbyn!
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
Although you wouldn't know it from here, most of the Labour Conference has been about exactly that: how to improve the lot of working people across the spectrum. Unlike on PB, marginal issues such as trans rights have barely been mentioned.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
It's not just PB Tories, the media seem in on it as well.
Yes, the media being as well known as the PB Tories for their balanced and dispassionate assessment of Labour political discourse.
pretty hardcore... they are simply going to fire the unvaccinated...
Much easier in the USA with its lack of employment protection. Let's see how we get on at sacking unvaxxed Social Care workers next month.
Personally, I would make an exception for the unvaxxed if they have proven antibodies on a blood test.
As a resident of New York who is currently undergoing frequent medical treatments, I am, of course, following this closely! I am led to believe that the number of clinical staff (doctors, nurses etc) that have refused to vax is pretty negligible, and that the refusers are mostly ancillary staff such as catering, cleaners, porters etc. Not great but not quite as much a potential crisis as it might at first look.
I have an outpatient treatment session today. I will report back if the National Guard are running the facility now.
How old were you when you first fell in love with Boris Johnson?
Ooer, a double pronged attack of wallyness! What a morning
Not an attack, just deserved mockery.
Give it up - I dignified your attempt at abuse, wrapped in a question, with a response in order to get rid of you and your trolling. No one wants to read the fall out all morning
Please don't upset yourself. It isn't trolling, it isn't "abuse". If you don't post unfunny crap that looks like it came straight off a Tory Party student association leaflet I won't mock.
How was I trying to be funny? I just posted Sir Keir's exact words, with no comment
You don't like me - I don't care, lets leave it at that. I can PM you a photo to throw darts at if it will help?
I don't know you, so no idea whether I like or dislike you, old chap. No need for the picture, thanks, signed or otherwise. Take a chill pill.
If I let you have the last word, will you go away?
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Come on! Johnson is a slob. No way would he wear highly polished brogues.
Not with all the saliva on them. (Not necessarily PT's, I hasten to add.)
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
Depends how long his familiar survives, surely. But (without detailed checking of its species) such large spiders inclode some very long-lived species, so one would need to plan for more than a quarter of a century, so yes, your scenario is amply possible.
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Come on! Johnson is a slob. No way would he wear highly polished brogues.
Not with all the saliva on them. (Not necessarily PT's, I hasten to add.)
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
I genuinely think the two go hand in hand. Reassuring people that a Labour Government does not mean the extreme changes that Corbyn advocated makes Labour far more electable if and when Johnson falls. Starmer is helping that to happen.
Of course the Tories might see sense and dump Johnson but I am not sure who there is who would be able to succeed him and keep the diverse support base satisfied.
So although I wouldn't necessarily welcome it I wouldn't fear a Starmer Government, all the more so if the alternative was Johnson. I think that is probably a position held by a large number of people in the country, or at least will be come 2023/4.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
Although you wouldn't know it from here, most of the Labour Conference has been about exactly that: how to improve the lot of working people across the spectrum. Unlike on PB, marginal issues such as trans rights have barely been mentioned.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
It's not just PB Tories, the media seem in on it as well.
Yes, the media being as well known as the PB Tories for their balanced and dispassionate assessment of Labour political discourse.
Yes, the media being as well known as the PB Tories for their balanced and dispassionate assessment of Labour political discourse.anything
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
Total nonsense. Cooper is good because she talks sense, is articulate and has a good professional manner. She demonstrates good leadership potential. Williamson (the man The Clown took a long long time to fire) is none of these things so this is as false a comparison as is possible.
”Walk around a supermarket in the U.S. or Europe and you will see some empty shelves once more. This isn’t due to people panic-buying toilet paper, as they did early on in the pandemic; rather it’s because supply chains are clogged at almost every stage between Asian factories and grocery stock rooms.
“But rising prices and patchy availability mean it’s only a matter of time before shoppers start purchasing in bulk again — this time to avoid future sticker shock.
“Supply lines are struggling as producers such as Vietnam, responsible for making everything from sneakers to coffee, are hurt by Covid restrictions. Surging virus cases and consumer demand are leading to congested ports. Shipping containers are in the wrong place. Sea freight costs are up tenfold. If goods do arrive at the destined ports, there are too few truck drivers to transport them to retailers. Shortages of workers to harvest and prepare foods are also adding to the pressures.”
Instead of being a smug arse, you might ponder that we are multiple times worse because of Brexit. Given you don't live here you know F all about the disruption and hassle.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
There is a "fighting the last war" element to the change in nominations though. Corbyn would never have been nominated under the old rules had the MPs taken their responsibility of gatekeepers seriously and not "widened the debate" nominating him despite not supporting him.
We should not forget the 2007 Labour leadership election. Gordon Brown managed to get enough nominations to avoid a contest altogether. Doing that was not good for Labour and had there been a lower rather than higher nomination threshold then maybe people like David Miliband could have ran against Brown?
Now with the higher threshold, its made such an unsuitable leader getting a coronation even more plausible not less plausible.
The thing I don't understand and can't wrap my head around is what people who say someone with a penis is a woman mean by the term "woman"? If you abolish all definitions of what a woman is, then how can other people say they are a woman, what are they saying they are in the first place?
People who are male who wish to become female and so transition - then that I understand. In which case they want to lose the penis and gain a cervix surely - so yes still someone with a penis is not a woman, which is why they're transitioning.
But if someone doesn't wish to transition, then what does it even mean to be a woman?
I just don't understand that, no matter how hard I try, so if someone could explain that, I'd appreciate it.
Gender reassignment surgery is a very long wait, even after a long wait for psychological assessment. Indeed people cannot usually go on the waiting list until they have taken hormones and lived as the new gender for a couple of years. There is the practical issue of how to live as the new gender while having the old genitalia in the meantime. Are people not supposed to go to public places during those years?
If gender surgery was to be a pre-condition of acceptance as the new gender (which I think is the majority opinion in the UK), then access to both gender dysphoria clinics and gender surgery needs to be greatly increased. Given scarce resources in terms of expertise, operating time, and finance, I cannot see that happening.
Yes if great access is needed then greater access should be given.
If someone is transitioning, then they're transitioning and if that is what they want then good for them. I have no qualms with that. But they're still transitioning to something and what they're transition to and will eventually be is what a woman (or man) is. A man transitioning to become a woman is not a woman yet, but will be eventually.
But if someone with a penis is not transitioning, then what do they even mean by saying they're a woman?
Which is pretty much where I stand on it too, and my "men in dresses" is aimed at the latter group. A man who isn't medically transitioning and hasn't been diagnosed with dysphoria saying he's a woman doesn't make him a woman.
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
Total nonsense. Cooper is good because she talks sense, is articulate and has a good professional manner. She demonstrates good leadership potential. Williamson (the man The Clown took a long long time to fire) is none of these things so this is as false a comparison as is possible.
Discounting her time in Government, in recent years in what areas has she talked good sense and had a good professional manner?
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
This. In particular, the apparent abandonment by the left, of the belief that living standards and wages could be sustained by productivity in the face of international competition.
If the apparent message is "You will all be working at Foxxxxxxxconn wages and condition. Suck it up." - well, you sound like Gilded Age robber barons for a start.
My two-year is very fluid. She identifies as a dinosaur, cat, fox, train and a car - all inside the space of a few minutes.
Love it!
Until a few months ago my five year old was saying that when she grows up she wants to be a butterfly.
You need to get her on butterfly hormone therapy. Just teach her to say they key words and the tavistock will hand them over!
You know this stuff is very unbecoming of you. I expected better of both you and @Philip_Thompson.
You should read our debate last night if you want to see what a rational and respectful debate on trans issues looks like.
Trans issues are serious but that's no reason to not have a sense of humour.
There’s no joke here - its just blatant undermining and belittlement. Remember @MaxPB happily describes transwomen as “men in dresses”.
You say someone with a cock and bollocks can be a woman. It's ridiculous.
There’s no need to be rude.
🤷♂️
Women don't have cocks. I think that's a pretty uncontroversial statement of biological fact. That you're contorting yourself into a position where the phrase "her dick" becomes a reality shows just how far off kilter you are and just how much reality you've had to suspend ti support this belief.
You’re entitled to your beliefs and they are entirely valid but there’s no need to be inflammatory and belittling for the sake of it. You know exactly what you’re doing.
So I'm entitled to my beliefs but only you're entitled to tell me whether or not I can talk about them? When did you become the arbiter of what is and isn't allowed to be discussed?
Mate, you've completely lost it over this subject. You're not an idiot and you can obviously see and probably agree that women don't have cocks but it also completely undermines the who self-ID transgenderism idea that equates sex and gender.
For once I agree with Max , the whole debate is extremely simple , you are either male or female at birth and that does not change, you can call yourself what you want and do what you want but it does not alter that fact ever.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
There is a "fighting the last war" element to the change in nominations though. Corbyn would never have been nominated under the old rules had the MPs taken their responsibility of gatekeepers seriously and not "widened the debate" nominating him despite not supporting him.
We should not forget the 2007 Labour leadership election. Gordon Brown managed to get enough nominations to avoid a contest altogether. Doing that was not good for Labour and had there been a lower rather than higher nomination threshold then maybe people like David Miliband could have ran against Brown?
Now with the higher threshold, its made such an unsuitable leader getting a coronation even more plausible not less plausible.
As proved by under the new rules 2020 would have been SKS vs nobody else.
”Walk around a supermarket in the U.S. or Europe and you will see some empty shelves once more. This isn’t due to people panic-buying toilet paper, as they did early on in the pandemic; rather it’s because supply chains are clogged at almost every stage between Asian factories and grocery stock rooms.
“But rising prices and patchy availability mean it’s only a matter of time before shoppers start purchasing in bulk again — this time to avoid future sticker shock.
“Supply lines are struggling as producers such as Vietnam, responsible for making everything from sneakers to coffee, are hurt by Covid restrictions. Surging virus cases and consumer demand are leading to congested ports. Shipping containers are in the wrong place. Sea freight costs are up tenfold. If goods do arrive at the destined ports, there are too few truck drivers to transport them to retailers. Shortages of workers to harvest and prepare foods are also adding to the pressures.”
Instead of being a smug arse, you might ponder that we are multiple times worse because of Brexit. Given you don't live here you know F all about the disruption and hassle.
While there have been a few media reports of supply-chain issues here in the US recently, I’ve yet to see any evidence of shortsges locally (except that our local Wegman’s deli was out of French-cooked ham). One of the biggest problems locally apparently is a shortage of school bus drivers in some areas as drivers can make more trucking.
With changes brought about *by globalisation* and the responses to them, and obviously *does* rather than *dies*, that should all read below - Apologies.
The thing I don't understand and can't wrap my head around is what people who say someone with a penis is a woman mean by the term "woman"? If you abolish all definitions of what a woman is, then how can other people say they are a woman, what are they saying they are in the first place?
People who are male who wish to become female and so transition - then that I understand. In which case they want to lose the penis and gain a cervix surely - so yes still someone with a penis is not a woman, which is why they're transitioning.
But if someone doesn't wish to transition, then what does it even mean to be a woman?
I just don't understand that, no matter how hard I try, so if someone could explain that, I'd appreciate it.
Gender reassignment surgery is a very long wait, even after a long wait for psychological assessment. Indeed people cannot usually go on the waiting list until they have taken hormones and lived as the new gender for a couple of years. There is the practical issue of how to live as the new gender while having the old genitalia in the meantime. Are people not supposed to go to public places during those years?
If gender surgery was to be a pre-condition of acceptance as the new gender (which I think is the majority opinion in the UK), then access to both gender dysphoria clinics and gender surgery needs to be greatly increased. Given scarce resources in terms of expertise, operating time, and finance, I cannot see that happening.
Yes if great access is needed then greater access should be given.
If someone is transitioning, then they're transitioning and if that is what they want then good for them. I have no qualms with that. But they're still transitioning to something and what they're transition to and will eventually be is what a woman (or man) is. A man transitioning to become a woman is not a woman yet, but will be eventually.
But if someone with a penis is not transitioning, then what do they even mean by saying they're a woman?
Which is pretty much where I stand on it too, and my "men in dresses" is aimed at the latter group. A man who isn't medically transitioning and hasn't been diagnosed with dysphoria saying he's a woman doesn't make him a woman.
I feel like it's kind of pointless to argue about the meaning of a word, since words mean different things in different contexts. For instance the logic of what you just says is that the person metamorphoses from a man to a woman on receipt of a diagnosis from a GP, which is a weird thing to happen.
If we're going to argue about this usefully you need a context, eg "if a colleague says they want to be addressed as a woman, do we address them as a woman" I think the answer is obviously yes, whereas if the question is "if convicted of a crime does the person get to go to a women's prison on request" the answer may be no, depending on various details of prison administration.
If people are trying to have a discussion that obviously requires context in a way that deliberately avoids the ability to have context, they're probably trying to get you riled up rather than solve a problem.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
According to court documents, the Bay Area woman accused of starting the Fawn Fire in Shasta County last week was boiling bear urine so she could drink it when she allegedly set off the destructive blaze. https://twitter.com/KPIXtv/status/1442684030097444864
I remember a classic when a woman in San Diego was caught by the police for driving along a "two person minimum" bridge alone. She appealed against the fine because she was pregnant. She won that, but lost when the police came after her for "more than one person in the drivers seat"....
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
Total nonsense. Cooper is good because she talks sense, is articulate and has a good professional manner. She demonstrates good leadership potential. Williamson (the man The Clown took a long long time to fire) is none of these things so this is as false a comparison as is possible.
Discounting her time in Government, in recent years in what areas has she talked good sense and had a good professional manner?
When she was on Andrew Marr was the latest time I saw her. She was very impressive. I am less tribal than you Philip, I like to look for leadership capability in people in parties I don't support. @Richard_Tyndall was bang on with respect to his analysis on Starmer. I can never imagine you writing something similar. Actually, maybe I can. You are good at reinventing yourself. Maybe you should try?
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Amusing, but doesn't the very fact of speaking out on issues of disagreement later simply show previously thee must have been agreement?
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
There is a "fighting the last war" element to the change in nominations though. Corbyn would never have been nominated under the old rules had the MPs taken their responsibility of gatekeepers seriously and not "widened the debate" nominating him despite not supporting him.
We should not forget the 2007 Labour leadership election. Gordon Brown managed to get enough nominations to avoid a contest altogether. Doing that was not good for Labour and had there been a lower rather than higher nomination threshold then maybe people like David Miliband could have ran against Brown?
Now with the higher threshold, its made such an unsuitable leader getting a coronation even more plausible not less plausible.
Those are fair points, but one shouldn't underestimate the propensity of the PLP to repeat the mistakes of history. So the 20% rule does offer significant protections.
FWIW, I think the best option would be simply to adopt the Tory leadership rules, which seem to me to work fairly well. But the 20% threshold is better than a kick in the teeth.
The thing I don't understand and can't wrap my head around is what people who say someone with a penis is a woman mean by the term "woman"? If you abolish all definitions of what a woman is, then how can other people say they are a woman, what are they saying they are in the first place?
People who are male who wish to become female and so transition - then that I understand. In which case they want to lose the penis and gain a cervix surely - so yes still someone with a penis is not a woman, which is why they're transitioning.
But if someone doesn't wish to transition, then what does it even mean to be a woman?
I just don't understand that, no matter how hard I try, so if someone could explain that, I'd appreciate it.
Gender reassignment surgery is a very long wait, even after a long wait for psychological assessment. Indeed people cannot usually go on the waiting list until they have taken hormones and lived as the new gender for a couple of years. There is the practical issue of how to live as the new gender while having the old genitalia in the meantime. Are people not supposed to go to public places during those years?
If gender surgery was to be a pre-condition of acceptance as the new gender (which I think is the majority opinion in the UK), then access to both gender dysphoria clinics and gender surgery needs to be greatly increased. Given scarce resources in terms of expertise, operating time, and finance, I cannot see that happening.
Yes if great access is needed then greater access should be given.
If someone is transitioning, then they're transitioning and if that is what they want then good for them. I have no qualms with that. But they're still transitioning to something and what they're transition to and will eventually be is what a woman (or man) is. A man transitioning to become a woman is not a woman yet, but will be eventually.
But if someone with a penis is not transitioning, then what do they even mean by saying they're a woman?
Which is pretty much where I stand on it too, and my "men in dresses" is aimed at the latter group. A man who isn't medically transitioning and hasn't been diagnosed with dysphoria saying he's a woman doesn't make him a woman.
"Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies?"
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
We had a Quantum Geography teacher in 4th year. He used to teach the first lesson after Friday lunch. It was only at the start of the lesson when you found out if he would be there or still in the pub.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
I guess the problem is that Labour could well be that stupid! They elected Corbyn!
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Amusing, but doesn't the very fact of speaking out on issues of disagreement later simply show previously thee must have been agreement?
That sounds very philosophical ! Agreement with Philip. Goodness! Well there is a thought!
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
In fairness Phillip, you are a free thinker but very guilty here of trotting out a cliched, hackneyed PB Tory favourite.
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Yes a policy from 15 years ago should be irrelevant, except the only reason Cooper is being highly regarded is because of a rose-tinted looking back at 15 years ago. If she wasn't in the Cabinet and doing policies like HIPs 15 years ago, she'd only be a minor backbencher that nobody is even talking about today.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
Total nonsense. Cooper is good because she talks sense, is articulate and has a good professional manner. She demonstrates good leadership potential. Williamson (the man The Clown took a long long time to fire) is none of these things so this is as false a comparison as is possible.
Discounting her time in Government, in recent years in what areas has she talked good sense and had a good professional manner?
When she was on Andrew Marr was the latest time I saw her. She was very impressive. I am less tribal than you Philip, I like to look for leadership capability in people in parties I don't support. @Richard_Tyndall was bang on with respect to his analysis on Starmer. I can never imagine you writing something similar. Actually, maybe I can. You are good at reinventing yourself. Maybe you should try?
I'm not tribal, though I won't deny I am opinionated.
I won't write that I respect Keir Starmer for the simple reason that I do not, but I have written something similar in the past on separate occasions giving credit to Jess Phillips, Jonathan Ashworth and Rachel Reeves who are three from the Labour Party I can respect even if I disagree with them.
For the Liberal Democrats I have written similar for Ed Davey before.
O/T Rachel Reeves is still a lightweight. Better than Nandy and the revolting and even more lightweight Angela Rayner. The best candidate for leader Labour has is Yvette Cooper. Sadly Labour are far too politically suicidal to use their best talent
Andy Burnham has been the most impressive Labour politician of the past year IMHO.
But he’s not even an MP.
He has gained a little gravitas, but still too much in the lightweightery department for me. Yvette Cooper is someone that could appeal to wavering Tories who don't like to be referred to as "scum". The rest just look, at best, like a bunch of lecturers from the local technical college. Actually that is unfair to hard working lecturers.
Is that the same Yvette Cooper whose great contribution to British politics was HIPs?
Cooper looks good with rose tinted glasses. She's just another failed politician from the past.
I am not a Labour Party supporter, but I have enough political nous to know that she is less failed than the numpties that are on the front benches of both major parties. She has gravitas and would be a great foil to the clownish oaf that you used to show blind loyalty to.
I never showed blind loyalty to Boris.
I had a position on Europe (that we should elect our lawmakers) that led me to agree with Boris post Brexit, apart from when he backed the third meaningful vote. At that point I disagreed with him.
People you disagree with are quite capable of making up their own mind without it being loyalty based.
You were cringingly, obsequiously loyal up until a few weeks ago. If you had been able to swear a feudal oath of fealty with head bowed, you would have been sharp elbowing your way to the front of the queue and prostrating yourself at his highly polished brogues and breathlessly asking "how can I best serve My Liege?" .
Amusing, but doesn't the very fact of speaking out on issues of disagreement later simply show previously thee must have been agreement?
That sounds very philosophical ! Agreement with Philip. Goodness! Well there is a thought!
You can rest assured that if I appear to be coming across as philosophical it is simply due to being convoluted and confused and not intent.
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
Indeed. The pattern of work has essentially shifted from 6 days/week to 5.5/days to 5 days. A clear trend.
In many professional, client-facing industries, it's now essentially 4.5 days/week – as nobody does much but entertain on a Friday afternoon.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
But many of those angry younger workers don't seek quietly managerial solutions, however. Posters even on the right on PB recently such as MaxPB and Casino Royale have been floating fairly radical options for dealing with the feudalisation and concentration of wealth, because that anger is out there more widely. Many younger voters are not in fact seeking steady-as-she--goes politics,, but neither are they seeking an overtly or excessively proudly anti-business platform like some of the Corbynites'. Starmer will have to find that balance acceding to both left and rights, as Wilson would have done, without gratuitously alienating either side, like figures like McCluskey or Mandelson might also want him to, and in a relatively short space of time, I would say.
I am probably in a small minority here but as a genuine non party affiliate - though admittedly from right of centre - I can't believe that Labour would be so stupid as to get rid of Starmer.
The polls at the moment reflect issues almost completely unrelated to the parties or their leaders. We are in a crisis management situation where, in spite of what the the media and PB regulars (including me) might think, the Government is not yet identified with catastrophic failings regarding the epidemic and its many and varied consequences. I think that will come and I doubt Johnson will survive - I hope he doesn't survive anyway. When that happens I think Starmer will be regarded as a steady and safe pair of hands and I think he is by far the best chance Labour have of winning power - if not a majority then at least the keys to Number 10.
We are 2-3 years out from the next election and there is a massive amount of fallout coming from the way in which Johnson and his Government have behaved since December 2019. I think he is toast and I think Starmer might be the one to benefit.
Of course it is possible that those opposed to him in the Labour Party realise this and want to make sure that when Johnson falls it is someone more ideologically sound who is there to benefit.
Morning Richard – a thoughtful post. Thanks.
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
There is a "fighting the last war" element to the change in nominations though. Corbyn would never have been nominated under the old rules had the MPs taken their responsibility of gatekeepers seriously and not "widened the debate" nominating him despite not supporting him.
We should not forget the 2007 Labour leadership election. Gordon Brown managed to get enough nominations to avoid a contest altogether. Doing that was not good for Labour and had there been a lower rather than higher nomination threshold then maybe people like David Miliband could have ran against Brown?
Now with the higher threshold, its made such an unsuitable leader getting a coronation even more plausible not less plausible.
Those are fair points, but one shouldn't underestimate the propensity of the PLP to repeat the mistakes of history. So the 20% rule does offer significant protections.
FWIW, I think the best option would be simply to adopt the Tory leadership rules, which seem to me to work fairly well. But the 20% threshold is better than a kick in the teeth.
If the 20% threshold leads to more herd-style coronations like the rules did for Brown then I think it is a kick in he teeth.
The problem with a 20% threshold is people like to back the winner. If everyone is judging that others may fail to get to 20% then that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as everyone nominates the favourite like Brown instead. That's bad for democracy and is like a political equivalent of how panic buying became self-fulfilling recently.
I see that SKS is being unexcoriated by his far left for not keeping a promise on a "£15 per hour" minimum wage.
Where was this promise?
And does setting a minimum wage at about 40% (rough number) of Median Wage work?
You know, if it is ever going to work it would be now when the labour market is incredibly tight and the supply of labour is more restricted than it was. Employers would need to focus on getting more out of their more expensive staff, even if it involved training them.
I think that you need to be very careful with policies such as the NMW so as not to overdo it and cause unnecessary unemployment but you should also take advantage of situations such as we have right now. Doing so will transfer more of the burden of financing the low paid from in work benefits to where it belongs, on those that employ them. It is an opportunity to reduce inequality and reduce government spending. I am not sure about £15 but an increase substantially beyond inflation and well over £10 makes sense.
Thankfully the market is doing a good job at the moment, of lifting many people above the minimum wage without needing any government intervention.
True, But I read on here that labour shortages are a bad thing. Or something.
They are a bad thing. Do you think the current pay rises to cover labour shortages will last once the labour pool rebalances?
If you want a sustained rise in pay and conditions you need a balanced labour market. Otherwise it is far too easy to reverse once alternate labour is available.
To an extent isn't this why we are where we are with tanker drivers? They used to be kings of the road with inflated wages compared to other HGV drivers. Supply and demand then took them back down to where they were earlier this year.
Probably pointless even suggesting it, but anyone interested in a nuanced, largely fact-based discussion on trans issues should listen to this morning's Woman's Hour where a lawyer who specialises in trans issues (and is trans herself), Robin Moira White, was interviewed.
I see that SKS is being unexcoriated by his far left for not keeping a promise on a "£15 per hour" minimum wage.
Where was this promise?
And does setting a minimum wage at about 40% (rough number) of Median Wage work?
You know, if it is ever going to work it would be now when the labour market is incredibly tight and the supply of labour is more restricted than it was. Employers would need to focus on getting more out of their more expensive staff, even if it involved training them.
I think that you need to be very careful with policies such as the NMW so as not to overdo it and cause unnecessary unemployment but you should also take advantage of situations such as we have right now. Doing so will transfer more of the burden of financing the low paid from in work benefits to where it belongs, on those that employ them. It is an opportunity to reduce inequality and reduce government spending. I am not sure about £15 but an increase substantially beyond inflation and well over £10 makes sense.
Thankfully the market is doing a good job at the moment, of lifting many people above the minimum wage without needing any government intervention.
True, But I read on here that labour shortages are a bad thing. Or something.
They are a bad thing. Do you think the current pay rises to cover labour shortages will last once the labour pool rebalances?
If you want a sustained rise in pay and conditions you need a balanced labour market. Otherwise it is far too easy to reverse once alternate labour is available.
To an extent isn't this why we are where we are with tanker drivers? They used to be kings of the road with inflated wages compared to other HGV drivers. Supply and demand then took them back down to where they were earlier this year.
Supply and demand means they're still kings of the road, just its going to take some time for the changes to filter through fully.
A new equilibrium will be reached and it will ultimately be higher wages for all HGV drivers, with even higher wages for specialists like tanker drivers.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
Forgive me, but how can you Google to find out if a petrol station is busy? This would be v useful to know.
Probably pointless even suggesting it, but anyone interested in a nuanced, largely fact-based discussion on trans issues should listen to this morning's Woman's Hour where a lawyer who specialises in trans issues (and is trans herself), Robin Moira White, was interviewed.
Thanks for the pointer. I know next to nothing on the issue.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
Forgive me, but how can you Google to find out if a petrol station is busy? This would be v useful to know.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
But many of those angry younger workers don't seek quietly managerial solutions, however. Posters even on the right on PB recently such as MaxPB and Casino Royale have been floating fairly radical options for dealing with the feudalisation and concentration of wealth, because that anger is out there more widely. Many younger voters are not in fact seeking steady-as-she--goes politics,, but neither are they seeking an overtly or excessively proudly anti-business platform like some of the Corbynites'. Starmer will have to find that balance acceding to both left and rights, as Wilson would have done, without gratuitously alienating either side, like figures like McCluskey or Mandelson might also want him to, and in a relatively short space of time, I would say.
As I keep telling our countryside friends - when the numbers stack up politically, good by Green Belt.
Better to get in now and build some Poundburys (or better) than the tower blocks the planners will line up for rural areas.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
Forgive me, but how can you Google to find out if a petrol station is busy? This would be v useful to know.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
Forgive me, but how can you Google to find out if a petrol station is busy? This would be v useful to know.
Click on the business in google maps. Sometimes it gives you a live estimate, but I wonder how accurate it is.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
We had a Quantum Geography teacher in 4th year. He used to teach the first lesson after Friday lunch. It was only at the start of the lesson when you found out if he would be there or still in the pub.
But surely that meant he wasn't a quantum teacher? Since his state would collapse to present or not present when he started teaching. Or not.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
Forgive me, but how can you Google to find out if a petrol station is busy? This would be v useful to know.
If you Google a shop, pub, restaurant etc then Google will show a little infobox and on that box it will say if its busier or quieter than usual with a bar chart showing how busy it usually is.
I'm presuming its Google eavesdropping on how many Android phones are at that location at the current time, versus how many usually there, for anyone who hasn't disabled location tracking.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
Isn't this why most schools put pupils in different sets based on ability? I haven't noticed this phenomenon at my kids' schools nor do I recall it from my own schooling. If anything, I think it's kids of average ability who tend to be the victims of our under-resourced education system.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
But many of those angry younger workers don't seek quietly managerial solutions, however. Posters even on the right on PB recently such as MaxPB and Casino Royale have been floating fairly radical options for dealing with the feudalisation and concentration of wealth, because that anger is out there more widely. Many younger voters are not in fact seeking steady-as-she--goes politics,, but neither are they seeking an overtly or excessively proudly anti-business platform like some of the Corbynites'. Starmer will have to find that balance acceding to both left and rights, as Wilson would have done, without gratuitously alienating either side, like figures like McCluskey or Mandelson might also want him to, and in a relatively short space of time, I would say.
Perhaps we are slightly at cross purposes. By competent, professional, managerial I am not suggesting status quo. The solutions are necessarily different and sometimes radical compared to what we have had before because the demographic trends are new and driving the problems. But if Labour want to attract new voters against a populist and incompetent government, they will only find enough in the non retired workers who have voted elsewhere in the past. To attract those votes being competent, managerial and professional is an obvious advantage but I agree it is not sufficient.
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I don't see this. All the time I have been at work, it has been up to 6 days a week, and weekend work being the norm. There is this performance of being 'at work', and then all the hours you work when not technically at work, for many people it is behind the scenes, others are more blatant about it. Also, there is holidays lost to work.
I overheard two girls talking behind me on a train to Newcastle, they were both on annual leave but working. When they got off the train, one of them said 'what is annual leave?'
Makes me want a £15 per hour job at McDonalds. Seriously.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
Isn't this why most schools put pupils in different sets based on ability? I haven't noticed this phenomenon at my kids' schools nor do I recall it from my own schooling. If anything, I think it's kids of average ability who tend to be the victims of our under-resourced education system.
Setting can help - for some things. At this point all the PB teachers will appear, rulers in hand....
I saw this first hand with my eldest. She and the other high achievers in her primary were pretty left to their own devices once they got to 65% on various assessments - using 65 as a short hand for "high B plus". This was a Primary which was very well thought of.
I was told by the teachers that this was how it was, and that was all they could do - staffing levels etc.
The difference with my youngest, when she attended the Local Free School primary was quite startling. The Head was specifically driving for a "private school" level of attainment. There was always more - on the lines of "well, now you've finished all of that, would you like to try some stuff from next year?"... Not flogging them on, but *offering* more....
The Head was not exactly the favourite of quite alot of people....
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
But many of those angry younger workers don't seek quietly managerial solutions, however. Posters even on the right on PB recently such as MaxPB and Casino Royale have been floating fairly radical options for dealing with the feudalisation and concentration of wealth, because that anger is out there more widely. Many younger voters are not in fact seeking steady-as-she--goes politics,, but neither are they seeking an overtly or excessively proudly anti-business platform like some of the Corbynites'. Starmer will have to find that balance acceding to both left and rights, as Wilson would have done, without gratuitously alienating either side, like figures like McCluskey or Mandelson might also want him to, and in a relatively short space of time, I would say.
Perhaps we are slightly at cross purposes. By competent, professional, managerial I am not suggesting status quo. The solutions are necessarily different and sometimes radical compared to what we have had before because the demographic trends are new and driving the problems. But if Labour want to attract new voters against a populist and incompetent government, they will only find enough in the non retired workers who have voted elsewhere in the past. To attract those votes being competent, managerial and professional is an obvious advantage but I agree it is not sufficient.
Agreed, yes. It's a key plank but more is need too.
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
Isn't this why most schools put pupils in different sets based on ability? I haven't noticed this phenomenon at my kids' schools nor do I recall it from my own schooling. If anything, I think it's kids of average ability who tend to be the victims of our under-resourced education system.
Setting can help - for some things. At this point all the PB teachers will appear, rulers in hand....
I saw this first hand with my eldest. She and the other high achievers in her primary were pretty left to their own devices once they got to 65% on various assessments - using 65 as a short hand for "high B plus". This was a Primary which was very well thought of.
I was told by the teachers that this was how it was, and that was all they could do - staffing levels etc.
The difference with my youngest, when she attended the Local Free School primary was quite startling. The Head was specifically driving for a "private school" level of attainment. There was always more - on the lines of "well, now you've finished all of that, would you like to try some stuff from next year?"... Not flogging them on, but *offering* more....
The Head was not exactly the favourite of quite alot of people....
There is much is common between Greta Thunberg and realists who say that the powerful are virtue signalling.
At what point do those who actually are interested in facts, like Greta, agree that if the science is correct the catastrophe is going to happen and we can't and won't stop it?
I don't like to diss a decent man, but he is either innumerate or he hasn't bothered to find out what the average (arithmetic mean) wage is.
He's well and truly fallen into a trap of his own making. I'll admit I don't know the exact minimum wage figure. The problem is that £15 does not pass the sniff test to me - in other words, it seems suspiciously high, enough to sound warning bells.
In the past there was the "price of a loaf of bread" test. The "minimum wage rate" test seems something most senior politicians should pass. But I bet many, on all sides, would fail.
Maybe the *Median* hourly wage got into the debate? Which is over £15 an hour -
At which point we can have a nice long discussion on median, mode and average. And the wage rate curve, where lots earn quite little, but the average is distorted.....
On the last point, I thought HYUFD and kjh had already done that. Several times. To the extent, I believe, that kjh ended up leaving* the country
*temporarily
(also, pedantically, they're all averages, as is the mean)
I posted before the fun/horrifying fact that the average (modal) age of death up until the early 1960s in this country was 0. Which is good example of mode, mean and median being quite different.
Yes indeed. After we have solved the "true" level of wages, we can trivially get the correct answers to Palestine, BREXIT, Northern Ireland, the Schleswig Holstein Problem.....
Did not Mr Gove, reputed to be one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, once demand that every pupil should be better than average? Or was he talking about them being better in the future than the average today?
I believe he was referring to the way that, in many state schools, when a pupil reaches (or is above) a certain level of attainment, they are often left to coast, while the teachers concentrate on those falling behind. This is because teachers have limited amounts of time - being unable to be in more than one place at a time.
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
Isn't this why most schools put pupils in different sets based on ability? I haven't noticed this phenomenon at my kids' schools nor do I recall it from my own schooling. If anything, I think it's kids of average ability who tend to be the victims of our under-resourced education system.
Setting can help - for some things. At this point all the PB teachers will appear, rulers in hand....
I saw this first hand with my eldest. She and the other high achievers in her primary were pretty left to their own devices once they got to 65% on various assessments - using 65 as a short hand for "high B plus". This was a Primary which was very well thought of.
I was told by the teachers that this was how it was, and that was all they could do - staffing levels etc.
The difference with my youngest, when she attended the Local Free School primary was quite startling. The Head was specifically driving for a "private school" level of attainment. There was always more - on the lines of "well, now you've finished all of that, would you like to try some stuff from next year?"... Not flogging them on, but *offering* more....
The Head was not exactly the favourite of quite alot of people....
65% is a fail as far as I'm concerned.
Imagine you are a teacher. 30 in the class. If you are really lucky you have a teaching assistant.
Children are divided into tables - 5-6 on each. They are grouped by ability, either formally or by the reality of the situation. Usually formally.
You run through todays maths lesson on the big board, Then the children get to do some work themselves, using the methods.
Which tables do you end up at, helping them out?
Meanwhile, on the top table, the children have finished way ahead of the rest of the class. If you are lucky, they are playing tic-tac-toe or even looking ahead in their books....
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I've noticed it at my work - lots of people are moving to 80-90% FTE contracts, and I intend to do so as well in a few years. A 20% pay cut for 50% more free time is a no brainer, especially if you're in the £50-65k or £100-125k brackets.
At £65k you take home £43k, at £52k you get £36.6k - so a 14% reduction in take home for 80% pay.
At £125k you take £67.4k, £100k is £60.2k, so a 10.7% cut in take home for an extra day off.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
And irony of all ironies it was empty when I passed this morning, though two other local garages had fuel and one with a tanker on their forecourt
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I know that's where the 3pm kickoff on Saturday afternoon came from. When I started work more than twenty years ago, although my accountancy firm didn't, one manager did remark that he thought it would be good if we went back to opening on Saturday mornings (never happened obviously). And its long gone, but my college I went to did open every other Saturday morning.
Average energy bills, come April ‘22 are gonna be approaching £2k at this rate.
Labour framing the “cost of living crisis” is looking quite smart and should pay dividends next April. I think it’s likely they’ll be leading the polls by May.
I see that SKS is being unexcoriated by his far left for not keeping a promise on a "£15 per hour" minimum wage.
Where was this promise?
And does setting a minimum wage at about 40% (rough number) of Median Wage work?
You know, if it is ever going to work it would be now when the labour market is incredibly tight and the supply of labour is more restricted than it was. Employers would need to focus on getting more out of their more expensive staff, even if it involved training them.
I think that you need to be very careful with policies such as the NMW so as not to overdo it and cause unnecessary unemployment but you should also take advantage of situations such as we have right now. Doing so will transfer more of the burden of financing the low paid from in work benefits to where it belongs, on those that employ them. It is an opportunity to reduce inequality and reduce government spending. I am not sure about £15 but an increase substantially beyond inflation and well over £10 makes sense.
Thankfully the market is doing a good job at the moment, of lifting many people above the minimum wage without needing any government intervention.
True, But I read on here that labour shortages are a bad thing. Or something.
Labour shortages are very obviously a bad thing. If they can be resolved through raising salaries then all well and good. If they can't, then we are in a whole heap of trouble.
Labour shortages is how the market works. It drives wage increases and makes the job more attractive. We are seeing exactly that with HGV drivers at the moment. They have been treated very badly for years but are suddenly getting higher wages, bonuses and a bit of respect. Labour surpluses do the reverse. If we are short of labour that is going to take to long to replace (eg lengthy training) we can still import those specialities.
If we go with the idea that shortages are a feature of Brexit, do actually exist, are not happening elsewhere, and they have consequences that could be be good or bad, I think a combination of four things will happen to wages.
1. Workers providing essential services will see their wages go up. Lorry drivers are in this category. 2. Goods and services that were provided from the UK will be imported instead. eg fruit and veg. This will result in indigenous workers in those industries losing their jobs. 3. Fewer workers do more productive work for higher pay. We're seeing this in hospitality where restaurants are closing during less busy periods and a simpler service offering is being made. 4. Less activity happens because people can no longer afford the service or can't access it. I suspect this will happen in caring professions.
It depends very much on the mix of these outcomes. Only 3 is definitively good. 1 is good for the people concerned, while the rest of the population pay for it in higher prices that aren't matched in their own wages. 2 and 4 are bad outcomes.
I would say increased demand is a much better way to drive up wages than labour shortages. Tyre hitting the road, shortages mean you can't do the things that are important and make you wealthy.
Reeves is certainly bright, but I must say from a political point of view I don't agree with the thread header. The appeal of managerialism for the left is very much exhausted since the financial crisis, and Cooper would face the same problems. Starmer may be able to square the circle if keeps both wings of the party on board, and also manages the party more carefully than he has up to now.
Labour's target audience, if they want to win an election and form a government, should not be the left, but workers, by which I mean anyone earning a living, not just the working class. Workers will give credit for professionalism and see the contrast with the government.
It does require a mindshift within the party but what could be more going back to the heart of Labour than supporting workers.
I think the issue is much broader than that. Particularly since the financial crisis, but also with changes brought about and by globalisation, baldly pro-globalisation technocracy just dies not have the purchase on voters across the board it had in the 1990's. The Tories' current politics may at times be irresponsible, but they're also as a result of a successful understanding on this. Professionalism is good and fine, but voters are seeking much more.
I think that was true of the 2010s. But that has passed too now. The 2020s is retired client state vs workers. The Tories have chosen their side and will retain those votes. Labour are on the sidelines trying to work out if they are in the 1980s, 2000s or 2010s.
But many of those angry younger workers don't seek quietly managerial solutions, however. Posters even on the right on PB recently such as MaxPB and Casino Royale have been floating fairly radical options for dealing with the feudalisation and concentration of wealth, because that anger is out there more widely. Many younger voters are not in fact seeking steady-as-she--goes politics,, but neither are they seeking an overtly or excessively proudly anti-business platform like some of the Corbynites'. Starmer will have to find that balance acceding to both left and rights, as Wilson would have done, without gratuitously alienating either side, like figures like McCluskey or Mandelson might also want him to, and in a relatively short space of time, I would say.
There is a mood for radical solutions amongst the young. This doesn't have to mean extreme. Nor be exclusively left or right. Indeed they could be centrist. Just not same old, same old. Look at where their votes went in Canada and Germany in the past week. And they don’t have anything like the wealth imbalance, nor the age disparities we do. Harold seems to be roaring back to fashion.
There is much is common between Greta Thunberg and realists who say that the powerful are virtue signalling.
At what point do those who actually are interested in facts, like Greta, agree that if the science is correct the catastrophe is going to happen and we can't and won't stop it?
It's not binary, catastrophe vs no catastrophe. We have some level of catastrophe on our hands regardless, but there's still things we can do to mitigate, prepare etc. I expect a good few centuries of The Road/Dredd type living conditions before the absolute end.
I do not know where people get the energy from to care deeply and passionately about so many things. The trans debate is one that has largely passed me by. I know that I should probably know more about it but I just don't have the bandwidth. There's too much else to think about.
Instinctively, it just seems wrong to me that someone can self ID as a woman - if biologically they are a man - and then immediately and unquestionably enjoy all the legal rights that women enjoy. I just know that should that be allowed there are evil men out there who will exploit it to do women harm.
I am also sure there is a lot more to it than that: I just do not have the time or the energy to explore it further. That may reflect badly on me, but I suspect I am in the large majority. And therein lies Labour's problem on this.
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I've noticed it at my work - lots of people are moving to 80-90% FTE contracts, and I intend to do so as well in a few years. A 20% pay cut for 50% more free time is a no brainer, especially if you're in the £50-65k or £100-125k brackets.
At £65k you take home £43k, at £52k you get £36.6k - so a 14% reduction in take home for 80% pay.
At £125k you take £67.4k, £100k is £60.2k, so a 10.7% cut in take home for an extra day off.
Those high marginal income tax rates, can and do have a big effect on work patterns and incentives.
Chancellor Rishi needs to find a way of smoothing them out.
In the longer-term I think "traditional" work may move to a 3-4 day a week pattern, with the balance of the economy being taken up by leisure time and leisure/creative industry expansion. Humans will do human-human interaction jobs at higher wages, because we want to interact with other people - not robots.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
I've noticed it at my work - lots of people are moving to 80-90% FTE contracts, and I intend to do so as well in a few years. A 20% pay cut for 50% more free time is a no brainer, especially if you're in the £50-65k or £100-125k brackets.
At £65k you take home £43k, at £52k you get £36.6k - so a 14% reduction in take home for 80% pay.
At £125k you take £67.4k, £100k is £60.2k, so a 10.7% cut in take home for an extra day off.
Those high marginal income tax rates, can and do have a big effect on work patterns and incentives.
Chancellor Rishi needs to find a way of smoothing them out.
And add graduate "tax" payments too where appropriate, as per the enlightening discussion here yesterday.
Comments
HIPS was a policy launched 15 years ago – a generation ago. Its relevance to Cooper's candidacy today is absolutely zero.
Oh and I've strongly and consistently argued in favour of the Scottish right to a second referendum based on the same principle of self determination.
I simply agreed with Boris on Europe (except for when he was weak on the third meaningful vote) as that is genuinely my position. It still is.
I still think self determination is important. That's why I still think we as voters MUST have the right to elect our lawmakers and why Scots MUST have the right to a second referendum.
My principles have not changed. The topic has moved on now though to other areas instead of Brexit being so all pervasive.
Personally, I would make an exception for the unvaxxed if they have proven antibodies on a blood test.
Indeed. There has been the traditional PB Tory autumnal projecting going on: The topics the PB Tories are completely obsessed with being assumed by the PB Tories to be being discussed at length at a Conference the PB Tories have never attended.
Happens ever year, come rain, shine, hell or high water.
An invisible shadow cabinet member is failing.
Just in time for the rising cases of COVID vs their unvaccinated selves....
You don't like me - I don't care, lets leave it at that. I can PM you a photo to throw darts at if it will help?
If you could solve that, you would solve a vast chunk of the education inequality in this country.
Quantum teachers, maybe?
Regardless of his election-winning prospects, what is often missed on PB is the sterling work Sir Keir is doing to clean the Augean Stables of the party, post the Corbyn disaster.
Take this week, for example. The newspapers were full of Sir Keir "defeated over leadership rules" stuff. Yet his alternative plan – the 20% threshold for PLP nominations – will often huge protection to against the appointment of any more nutters from the hard left. That plan has been approved.
There is a reason why @bigjohnowls and other extremists are constantly on here slagging off Sir Keir: they know that he's working daily to remove prevent their crackpot wing from ever holding the reins of power in the party again.
I'm willing to concede GE 2024 if it means the party is protected from Corbynite control for the long term.
Keep up the good work, Sir Keir. As ever in politics, your opponents are the guys in front of you. Your enemies sit behind you.
I agree with much of your analysis, but I'm not sure how Starmer fairs against a more Starmerish (i.e. 'safe pair of hands') Conservative leader. Of course, if Johnson leads the Conservatives into the next election then it doesn't matter how Starmer measures up against Sunak, Truss etc.
If we discount everything from 15 years ago, then what's she done in the last five years that justifies her being touted as having "gravitas"?
As time goes on we tend to assign "big beast", "heavyweight" or "gravitas" to people of the past and discount the reason why they weren't highly regarded at the time. She's only talked about as she's one of the few remaining former Cabinet ministers left on the Opposition benchers, not because she's any good.
If in fifteen years time we're in a position of Labour having won the next election and been in power for a decade, and one of the only former Cabinet ministers left is Gavin Williamson sitting on the backbenches, then there'd be people saying why that Williamson is a heavyweight and has gravitas and should be a contender.
I have an outpatient treatment session today. I will report back if the National Guard are running the facility now.
Of course the Tories might see sense and dump Johnson but I am not sure who there is who would be able to succeed him and keep the diverse support base satisfied.
So although I wouldn't necessarily welcome it I wouldn't fear a Starmer Government, all the more so if the alternative was Johnson. I think that is probably a position held by a large number of people in the country, or at least will be come 2023/4.
We should not forget the 2007 Labour leadership election. Gordon Brown managed to get enough nominations to avoid a contest altogether. Doing that was not good for Labour and had there been a lower rather than higher nomination threshold then maybe people like David Miliband could have ran against Brown?
Now with the higher threshold, its made such an unsuitable leader getting a coronation even more plausible not less plausible.
If the apparent message is "You will all be working at Foxxxxxxxconn wages and condition. Suck it up." - well, you sound like Gilded Age robber barons for a start.
If we're going to argue about this usefully you need a context, eg "if a colleague says they want to be addressed as a woman, do we address them as a woman" I think the answer is obviously yes, whereas if the question is "if convicted of a crime does the person get to go to a women's prison on request" the answer may be no, depending on various details of prison administration.
If people are trying to have a discussion that obviously requires context in a way that deliberately avoids the ability to have context, they're probably trying to get you riled up rather than solve a problem.
I looked on Google this morning and it showed that our local BP filling station was 'busier than usual'. That could only mean one thing, so off I went.
After around 15 minutes queuing I now have a full tank of E10 petrol. Happy days!
The chap behind the counter said that they'd been busy since 5:30 this morning, and he expected that they'd be out of fuel this afternoon, with no more due for 2 or 3 days.
Interestingly, the person who had used the pump before me had put exactly £40 worth of diesel into his tank, rather than filling right up. Old habits die hard.
I now have 400 miles range - more than enough to reach the Llandudno branch of Asda.
Best of luck to everyone else on the lookout for fuel.
If it sounds outlandish it's worth noting that Saturday morning working was normal 40-50 years ago and there's been a steady trend of reduction in average working hours since.
FWIW, I think the best option would be simply to adopt the Tory leadership rules, which seem to me to work fairly well. But the 20% threshold is better than a kick in the teeth.
I won't write that I respect Keir Starmer for the simple reason that I do not, but I have written something similar in the past on separate occasions giving credit to Jess Phillips, Jonathan Ashworth and Rachel Reeves who are three from the Labour Party I can respect even if I disagree with them.
For the Liberal Democrats I have written similar for Ed Davey before.
In many professional, client-facing industries, it's now essentially 4.5 days/week – as nobody does much but entertain on a Friday afternoon.
The problem with a 20% threshold is people like to back the winner. If everyone is judging that others may fail to get to 20% then that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as everyone nominates the favourite like Brown instead. That's bad for democracy and is like a political equivalent of how panic buying became self-fulfilling recently.
A new equilibrium will be reached and it will ultimately be higher wages for all HGV drivers, with even higher wages for specialists like tanker drivers.
Which is entirely reasonable.
Better to get in now and build some Poundburys (or better) than the tower blocks the planners will line up for rural areas.
https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1442777649458434049?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDaHdfa9qB4
I'm presuming its Google eavesdropping on how many Android phones are at that location at the current time, versus how many usually there, for anyone who hasn't disabled location tracking.
This is my local supermarket apparently.
I overheard two girls talking behind me on a train to Newcastle, they were both on annual leave but working. When they got off the train, one of them said 'what is annual leave?'
Makes me want a £15 per hour job at McDonalds. Seriously.
I saw this first hand with my eldest. She and the other high achievers in her primary were pretty left to their own devices once they got to 65% on various assessments - using 65 as a short hand for "high B plus". This was a Primary which was very well thought of.
I was told by the teachers that this was how it was, and that was all they could do - staffing levels etc.
The difference with my youngest, when she attended the Local Free School primary was quite startling. The Head was specifically driving for a "private school" level of attainment. There was always more - on the lines of "well, now you've finished all of that, would you like to try some stuff from next year?"... Not flogging them on, but *offering* more....
The Head was not exactly the favourite of quite alot of people....
At what point do those who actually are interested in facts, like Greta, agree that if the science is correct the catastrophe is going to happen and we can't and won't stop it?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/28/blah-greta-thunberg-leaders-climate-crisis-co2-emissions
Children are divided into tables - 5-6 on each. They are grouped by ability, either formally or by the reality of the situation. Usually formally.
You run through todays maths lesson on the big board, Then the children get to do some work themselves, using the methods.
Which tables do you end up at, helping them out?
Meanwhile, on the top table, the children have finished way ahead of the rest of the class. If you are lucky, they are playing tic-tac-toe or even looking ahead in their books....
At £65k you take home £43k, at £52k you get £36.6k - so a 14% reduction in take home for 80% pay.
At £125k you take £67.4k, £100k is £60.2k, so a 10.7% cut in take home for an extra day off.
Here's pretty good. Easily one of Labour's best communicators at the moment. Keeps his sense of humour under fire.
It seems very patchy
When I started work more than twenty years ago, although my accountancy firm didn't, one manager did remark that he thought it would be good if we went back to opening on Saturday mornings (never happened obviously).
And its long gone, but my college I went to did open every other Saturday morning.
Natural gas up another 10% today
https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5188705
Average energy bills, come April ‘22 are gonna be approaching £2k at this rate.
Labour framing the “cost of living crisis” is looking quite smart and should pay dividends next April. I think it’s likely they’ll be leading the polls by May.
1. Workers providing essential services will see their wages go up. Lorry drivers are in this category.
2. Goods and services that were provided from the UK will be imported instead. eg fruit and veg. This will result in indigenous workers in those industries losing their jobs.
3. Fewer workers do more productive work for higher pay. We're seeing this in hospitality where restaurants are closing during less busy periods and a simpler service offering is being made.
4. Less activity happens because people can no longer afford the service or can't access it. I suspect this will happen in caring professions.
It depends very much on the mix of these outcomes. Only 3 is definitively good. 1 is good for the people concerned, while the rest of the population pay for it in higher prices that aren't matched in their own wages. 2 and 4 are bad outcomes.
I would say increased demand is a much better way to drive up wages than labour shortages. Tyre hitting the road, shortages mean you can't do the things that are important and make you wealthy.
Just not same old, same old.
Look at where their votes went in Canada and Germany in the past week. And they don’t have anything like the wealth imbalance, nor the age disparities we do.
Harold seems to be roaring back to fashion.
Instinctively, it just seems wrong to me that someone can self ID as a woman - if biologically they are a man - and then immediately and unquestionably enjoy all the legal rights that women enjoy. I just know that should that be allowed there are evil men out there who will exploit it to do women harm.
I am also sure there is a lot more to it than that: I just do not have the time or the energy to explore it further. That may reflect badly on me, but I suspect I am in the large majority. And therein lies Labour's problem on this.
Chancellor Rishi needs to find a way of smoothing them out.