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At 20% both Trump and Biden are value in the WH2024 betting – politicalbetting.com

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  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    TimT said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    On the NT issue, my main problem with the current leadership is not their attitude to the sexuality of dead people (which is not frankly that interesting to me - it's what they have done which brings me to their properties not who they may have slept with). But rather their apparent abandonment of the skills and knowledge needed to preserve these properties, the sacking of so many skilled artisans and curators. It seems philistine and self-defeating. A sort of cultural vandalism.

    We should be encouraging and developing such skills not turning away from them. Very poor by the NT.

    Yes, that's true - they are increasingly poorly administered, and dumbed-down in the belief it makes them more accessible.

    NT to English Heritage is as Countryfile is to Clarkson's Farm.
    The Historic Houses Association has quite a few interesting houses in the Lake District so I find my membership of them more use than the NT's at the moment. There is also some grumbling about how the NT is caring for the land it owns here.

    I like being told about all aspects of history. What I object to is not being told the facts but what I am supposed to think about those facts. I can make up my own mind.

    There is a tendency to one "received opinion" and to that being the only acceptable opinion. It is not particularly a left or right thing. It's seen on both sides of the political divide. It's more an assumption that there can only be one or a narrow range of ways looking at an issue and an unwillingness to accept that there may be a different way of seeing things even if it is a view you disagree with or think wrong.

    Why people think differently - even if they're being utterly wrong-headed - is often very interesting indeed and, frankly, essential if one is to have any chance of countering their arguments. And there may also be a small element of truth or value in their arguments as well, of course.
    Indeed. You need no clearer example of this than to sit in a history class taught in another country.

    AQ Khan died 3 days ago. A very American Pakistani doctor (she is married to an American, is a US citizen, and has lived in the US for about 50 years) I know had no idea he was viewed as a terrorist by the US and, under US pressure, confined to 'house arrest' by Pakistan. To Pakistanis, he was a national hero. Not even a complicated one, just a hero.

    And this American was puzzled when I - who started out my career in arms control and disarmament - asked her the first time I walked into the AQ Khan auditorium at the Pakistan Academy of Sciences to take a picture of me at the doorway with his nameplate above me. She was puzzled because she simply missed the irony.
    I've mentioned before that one of my half-Thai granddaughters, at an international school in Bangkok, had, at 14, to do an essay on colonialism and was fascinated to realise that Thailand had maintained it's independence while all about them had fallen victim to European empire-building.
  • sladeslade Posts: 1,921
    kjh said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    kjh said:

    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    The NT went too far though.

    A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.

    The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.

    That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
    Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
    I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.

    Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.

    I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
    Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them.
    What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
    "They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged?
    Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
    If left handed people were routinely jailed or driven to suicide in the past then yes I think it would be very interesting to have that history uncovered at NT properties. There are two aspects to this - representation and history. On the representation side, yes of course being gay is normal, that's why we shouldn't pretend they don't exist. On the history side, being gay was not considered normal in the past, and gay people paid a heavy price for that, and that is worthy of note. The whole point of NT properties is to connect us to the past, not just the bits that aren't challenging for anyone.
    PB pedantry – left-handed children used to be forced to write right-handed, to which end they might be beaten or their dominant hand bound. And this was necessary in the liquid ink days because otherwise they'd have smeared ink all over the page. They were also denigrated in terms like sinister or cack-handed. Maybe we do need a left-handed history month couple of hours. :wink:
    I was going to post similar as an older left hander, but thought better of it as there is no comparison obviously between that and being gay in the 60s. It is amazing how most right handers don't know all the issues with being left-handed. Most of us end up using both hands as some tasks are just impossible in a right hand world and I am rather pleased by that.

    How many right handers think there is an issue with playing cards?
    What is the issue with cards?

    Only impacts a sliver of the population but in most team sports being left handed at the elite level a definite advantage.
    Fanning out cards

    Yes, left handedness (And footedness) is a big advantage in most sports.
    What sports can you not play left-handed?

    EDITED as Google suggests there are a few.
    Hockey
    Not entirely true. I had a colleague who was left handed but played with a right handed stick. He used it on his left side but upside down. He was a devil to get past.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    edited October 2021
    Dura_Ace said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    One of the interesting challenges coming up.

    Ideally, the government want to beliefs to be prevalent;
    1 Brexit Is Done (because that is a genuine substantial achievement, even if one thinks it's a foolish one, and most people would love to change the subject.)
    2 Brexit Is In Peril, and Only Boris Can Save Brexit (because otherwise why would Brexit Coalition continue to Back Boris?)

    Holding those two together isn't that difficult politically. The harder bit is the governmental aspect- keeping a situation where it's almost a crisis but not quite going is awfully hard work.
    Johnson's best chance at hanging on to his majority is to turn the next election into Brexit purity test. The shitmunchers still love banging on about WW2 so he has to position Brexit in similar state of cultural fixity.
    And in Starmer, Labour has put forward the perfect candidate for PM to allow him to run that line.

    Burnham? Not so much.....
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    kjh said:

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.

    Smarter Brexiteers know that their prize was a neverending shitshow.

    No wonder they are upset
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    As I get ready for NY, I am aware I will be entering the true citadel of wokerati.

    My friends are telling me I’m going to have to straighten up my act in a world of “affinity groups” etc.

    Should be fun.

    If 'Real Housewives of New York City' is representative, it is full of middle aged wealthy women who are gagging for it. (When not having arguments with each other.)
    Replace “women” with “men”, and that’s just PB on an average evening.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,404

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I'm not sure I agree. Claiming it is 'done' but that others (The EU, Labour etc) are trying to undo it or undermine it strikes me as politically useful (ie He got it done, now he's needed to keep it done). It's not as though the EU would mind that either.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,404
    edited October 2021

    As I get ready for NY, I am aware I will be entering the true citadel of wokerati.

    My friends are telling me I’m going to have to straighten up my act in a world of “affinity groups” etc.

    Should be fun.

    If 'Real Housewives of New York City' is representative, it is full of middle aged wealthy women who are gagging for it. (When not having arguments with each other.)
    Replace “women” with “men”, and that’s just PB on an average evening.
    We're not all wealthy :)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    When I visit a NT house (the last one being the astonishing Chastleton House in Oxfordshire), I love to hear any tawdry details about the previous inhabitants.

    It’s possible to do high brow and “low brow” simultaneously. The NT’s main issue is dumbing down, I think.

    Visited Cragside, near Alnwick, recently. There's a statue of an African woman in chains on the main staircase with what I thought was a rather desperate notice explaining why it was there and how it was meant to represent liberation from slavery.
    Just realised that the title of the statue is 'A Daughter of Eve' - a very pointed reference to our common humanity. Indeed, a lot of slavers loved the alternative hypothesis that Blacks were a separately created species and therefore sans human rights etc. The fact that Armstrong bought it for Cragside (vide my earlier posting) suggests his views on the matter - ergo a valid aspect of Cragside. If that isn't cvoming over in the label, them someone hasn't done a good job surtely.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    RobD said:

    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    The NT went too far though.

    A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.

    The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.

    That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
    Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
    I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.

    Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.

    I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
    Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them.
    What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
    "They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged?
    Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
    I’d thought the NT examples are from a time when gay people were marginalised, ie they could be imprisoned for pursuing their preferred form of sexual activity. Is that incorrect?
    I thought the example Charles was giving was contemporary, of a living person.
    He died in 1969.

    FWIW, our policy as a business is we don’t talk about clients from later than the end of the 19th century. Before 1900 counts as history.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.

    Attitudes towards sexuality vary enormously across time and place. If you were talk to Alexander the Great about homosexuals he'd just blink at you.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837
    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.

    No one knew anyone's sexuality in the past. You were either straight or at risk of prison. Unless you were extremely well-connected.
    Zoomers don't give a flying monkey's about it. So, I think it is a brief interlude.
    There are those C19 trials where the Times reporter usually shuts up with "The evidence was too disgusting to publish". As they were often a conflict between gent and proletarian it was never easy to be sure whether the prole was telling the truth or blackmailing an easy target.So gent often got let off - but the aura would remain.

    PS But yes, the point re the young today is a good one.
    The comparison with the earlier discussion about left handers coping in a right handed world is perhaps instructive.
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
    Paying tax on a benefit in kind is not paying for it.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Selebian said:

    RobD said:

    Cookie said:

    Charles said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    The NT went too far though.

    A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.

    The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.

    That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
    Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
    I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.

    Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.

    I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
    Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them.
    What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
    "They" aren't some weird other living among us. 'Their' lifestyles were for the most part indistinguishable from 'our' lifestyles. It would be weird if you applied this level of fascination to any other characteristic - lets celebrate left-handed history, so we attract left-handed people to NT properties and make sure left-handers' contribution to our story is fully acknowledged?
    Once upon a time - before my time, so I don't know of which I speak here - when gay people really were marginalised, perhaps I could see an argument for it. Now, it is just empty sloganeering.
    I’d thought the NT examples are from a time when gay people were marginalised, ie they could be imprisoned for pursuing their preferred form of sexual activity. Is that incorrect?
    I thought the example Charles was giving was contemporary, of a living person.
    I believe it is Robert Ketton-Cremer, who died in 1969 (two years after homosexuality was legalised), but I stand to be corrected.
    Having Googled that, it seems a bit crass and insensitive of the NT - you would have thought they would have consulted with near family (I accept godchildren are debatable for that definition) for someone who died recently enough to have living family/friends who might object to his story being told in this way.

    (I withdraw that comment if there were nearer family who were in favour of the NT's actions and who were consulted)
    The family weren’t consulted. They would have said “no” because they don’t like the limelight

    (And @Theuniondivvie PB doesn’t count as “limelight”!)
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    New thread
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    New thread

    Well, there was. It seems to have gone away again!
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Are you sure about that?

    I only knew that Frost had spoken yesterday because there was suddenly a whole swathe of FBPE-inspired Tweets getting posted here by people moaning (and people quoting people who were moaning) about what was said.

    Right now the Unionists are unhappy with the settlement and the UK government has the tactical advantage and holds all the cards so it makes sense to push hard for a victory in the dispute. That's just logic not animation. All the animation seem to be people horrified at the UK doing what is in the UK's best interests.
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MaxPB said:

    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.

    It seems it's been told to find £2bn of savings which I can't see myself. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/13/rail-bosses-slash-thousands-jobs-scramble-implement-2bn-cuts/

    £700m from staff cuts which means closing booking offices as near enough everything else is at minimal levels anyway...
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited October 2021

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    As I get ready for NY, I am aware I will be entering the true citadel of wokerati.

    My friends are telling me I’m going to have to straighten up my act in a world of “affinity groups” etc.

    Should be fun.

    Good luck. I expect it'll make our disagreements look like a picnic.
  • eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.

    It seems it's been told to find £2bn of savings which I can't see myself. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/13/rail-bosses-slash-thousands-jobs-scramble-implement-2bn-cuts/

    £700m from staff cuts which means closing booking offices as near enough everything else is at minimal levels anyway...
    A serious plan to transition eg the Tube and rail like that to being fully automated and driverless might help.

    Unions would hate it, but does the rail network exist to serve customers or unions?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Edit needed? Full unemployment?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Pro_Rata said:

    I think we in the UK are missing another chance.
    We have:
    a) A nasty exponential-looking rise in cases.
    b) Our main ways to avoid NPIs: a booster programme for the vulnerable & 1st doses for teens, being outpaced by glaciers.
    c) Enough doses to complete both programmes right now.


    https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1448223173259022339?s=20

    And when he writes "UK", Scotland is doing notably better than England on teens. Parliament in recess - no one to hold govt. to account?

    I think we are looking at some interventions now, though in the near term I'm hopeful the good weather last week will mean a small pause in the current increases.

    - I'd call a two week half term school holiday now: all schools to close England wide from 25/10-7/11. The reset in under 16 case rates should be rapid enough that this makes a big difference in the run up to Christmas. It is very late in the day to make this decision, I'd been advocating for this since August as a planned precautionary measure, but it looks needed.

    On the practicalities. schools would be open for already fixed vaccination dates and out of school and nurseries could operate as normal.

    - Bring back in the WFH where possible instruction. Make clear that offices can stay open, already organised mentoring, meetings etc are free to go ahead, and 'where possible' is at discretion.

    - Re-emphasise the importance of testing and minimising interaction as much as possible if you are a vaccinated contact, even whilst not re-mandating anything for that.

    These are mild NPIs but should make a difference and cam be reviewed as necessary.
    There's just absolutely no urgency around the school rollout whatsoever in England.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    I’m not aware of anyone “supporting the EU” per se, just folks arguing again and again that Brexit is a wrong turn.

    It’s Brexiters who turn everything into a Manichaean “us” versus “them”. Until we left the EU, “they” were also “us”!

    As for “unable to beat Boris”, I am very confused. 50% of the time you are telling us you don’t like him, the other 50% you appear to be in supine adulation of him.

    I guess it depends what channel you were watching last.
  • Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?

    There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and
    you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.

    Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
    To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
    A really big problem with the culture wars is that partisan hyperventilating posts like this scoop up more that twice as many likes as the well-balanced English Heritage one I posted earlier.

    That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
    I liked the bits of your English Heritage post about the position of their leader, but not the partisan conclusion - I don't know whether the current leadership of the NT needs to go, or if they're close enough to the English Heritage position that I'd be content with them.

    So it was the partisan parts of your post that put me off. A hitherto silent half of a like from me regardless, and I did appreciate it.
    I was in this position too. CR's posts are always eloquent and contain much good sense, but often go ultra-partisan in the final paragraph making them hard to "like". Incidentally CR I'm not sure why you think I need to apologise to you so please accept a Boris-style "I'm sorry if you were offended."
    You said the Restore Trust person was a loon and deeply-obsessed and troubled by gay-people, and then you associated me with this by saying he also found diversity forms "deeply triggering".
    Ah OK, I didn't really mean anything by that, other than noting that both you and the guy whose views you support both seemed to object to being asked your sexual orientation on a form (with the option of not saying) which I think is a bit weird - to me it's like asking your postcode. I wasn't trying to imply that you were obsessed with gays like this guy obviously is, and I am sorry that my comment sounded like that.
    Thank you - apology accepted.

    I don't see why it's weird. Sexuality is a deeply private and personal matter, and I find it as odd as discussing what sexual partners or proclivities one might have. I wouldn't dream of doing so outside a very close group of trusted friends - or no-one at all.

    I hope in time this question is dropped in its entirety.
    Lol. I've had more sex with more beautiful women than you could ever dream to hope for. You're just a tedious troll.
    in The big speech reaction – politicalbetting.com Comment by Casino_Royale October 6

    I bet more young women fancy me than you. So fuck off, old boy.
    in The big speech reaction – politicalbetting.com Comment by Casino_Royale October 6
    I post anonymously on here.

    Yes, those comments weren't my finest hour - and I shouldn't have allowed myself to be provoked by @Gardenwalker - but it's interesting how it's only my responses that attract opprobrium but the insults, misrepresentations and provocations he directed at me didn't get a drip of censure from you or anyone else.

    It's almost like you're also a tedious troll. I'll simply add you to my "ignore" list.
    All I did was repost your comments without adding or taking away a single thing! For that, I get labelled a tedious troll?

    Wait, it's ok, I see it now.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087

    As I get ready for NY, I am aware I will be entering the true citadel of wokerati.

    My friends are telling me I’m going to have to straighten up my act in a world of “affinity groups” etc.

    Should be fun.

    If 'Real Housewives of New York City' is representative, it is full of middle aged wealthy women who are gagging for it. (When not having arguments with each other.)
    Oh right. So that's where the Sex in the City gals ended up.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343
    edited October 2021
    Dura_Ace said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    One of the interesting challenges coming up.

    Ideally, the government want to beliefs to be prevalent;
    1 Brexit Is Done (because that is a genuine substantial achievement, even if one thinks it's a foolish one, and most people would love to change the subject.)
    2 Brexit Is In Peril, and Only Boris Can Save Brexit (because otherwise why would Brexit Coalition continue to Back Boris?)

    Holding those two together isn't that difficult politically. The harder bit is the governmental aspect- keeping a situation where it's almost a crisis but not quite going is awfully hard work.
    Johnson's best chance at hanging on to his majority is to turn the next election into Brexit purity test. The shitmunchers still love banging on about WW2 so he has to position Brexit in similar state of cultural fixity.
    The EU remains a work in progress after many decades. (Western Balkans. Turkey. Defence. Euro. Policy coordination. Democratic deficit. Defence(!!). Poland. Hungary. Unification of Cyprus and Ireland. EFTA. Switzerland, to name a few.)

    Brexit, while smaller and less important, will be a work in progress for the rest of the lives of most PBers. Including me.

    One of SKS's greatest weaknesses, despite his clear personal electability as a decent person, is both his record on Brexit, and the difficulty of campaigning on the basis that the best people to handle Brexit are the people and party who remain against it.

  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    In my experience, you tend to just shift the conversation to something else, cherry pick, or, in one case in recent days, accuse Northern_Al of being an antisemite with no justification whatsoever.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.
  • Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
    Just three World Heritage sites, that's basically nothing.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
    Just three World Heritage sites, that's basically nothing.
    That's right, poking their heads above the dunes of the desert. Sod all else to see except the natives and Wilfred Thesiger.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    New thread

    Well there was. About Dominic Cummings being wrong. Mysterious.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.

    It seems it's been told to find £2bn of savings which I can't see myself. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/13/rail-bosses-slash-thousands-jobs-scramble-implement-2bn-cuts/

    £700m from staff cuts which means closing booking offices as near enough everything else is at minimal levels anyway...
    A serious plan to transition eg the Tube and rail like that to being fully automated and driverless might help.

    Unions would hate it, but does the rail network exist to serve customers or unions?
    Well, its a public service so I am going with the latter.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
    Ooh, really? Didn’t know that.

    Can I take a wild guess, that it’s not priced at anything close to the market rent for a two-bed in Westminster.
  • It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 3,867
    edited October 2021

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
    Ooh, really? Didn’t know that.

    Can I take a wild guess, that it’s not priced at anything close to the market rent for a two-bed in Westminster.
    It's Chequers that I do wonder about.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Apologies if already posted but this article is as perfect an example of Covid Derangement Syndrome as any I have seen. It's been repurposed for the Guardian. The authors seem to ignore the effect of vaccination, for starters, but the flaws are manifold.

    https://theconversation.com/why-we-must-not-allow-covid-to-become-endemic-in-new-zealand-169608?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    New thread

    Well there was. About Dominic Cummings being wrong. Mysterious.
    Clearly people still underestimate his influence.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Apologies if already posted but this article is as perfect an example of Covid Derangement Syndrome as any I have seen. It's been repurposed for the Guardian. The authors seem to ignore the effect of vaccination, for starters, but the flaws are manifold.

    https://theconversation.com/why-we-must-not-allow-covid-to-become-endemic-in-new-zealand-169608?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton

    I see "Derangement Syndrome" Derangement Syndrome is spreading too.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Sandpit said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
    Ooh, really? Didn’t know that.

    Can I take a wild guess, that it’s not priced at anything close to the market rent for a two-bed in Westminster.
    Fascinating. I did not know that:

    https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/108880/response/270398/attach/3/Ernie Skillen FOI reply.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited October 2021

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    As I said, “there were predictions of a short-term recession” which did not occur, and I seem to remember these were Osborne-driven (and highly political) predictions.

    But my main contention is that Remainers did *not* predict mass economic collapse, which is constantly suggested on here.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.

    It's often the least interesting thing about a person. Which is one of the reasons I get so bored with people going on and on about it. It elevates who they have sex with as the only important thing about a person. When in reality unless you're interested in them sexually who bloody cares.

    Whether they are funny, witty, kind, tell good stories, make you feel better, have something interesting to say, are there to help when help is needed, etc is so much more important.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Sean_F said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?

    There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and
    you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.

    Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
    To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
    A really big problem with the culture wars is that partisan hyperventilating posts like this scoop up more that twice as many likes as the well-balanced English Heritage one I posted earlier.

    That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
    I liked the bits of your English Heritage post about the position of their leader, but not the partisan conclusion - I don't know whether the current leadership of the NT needs to go, or if they're close enough to the English Heritage position that I'd be content with them.

    So it was the partisan parts of your post that put me off. A hitherto silent half of a like from me regardless, and I did appreciate it.
    I was in this position too. CR's posts are always eloquent and contain much good sense, but often go ultra-partisan in the final paragraph making them hard to "like". Incidentally CR I'm not sure why you think I need to apologise to you so please accept a Boris-style "I'm sorry if you were offended."
    You said the Restore Trust person was a loon and deeply-obsessed and troubled by gay-people, and then you associated me with this by saying he also found diversity forms "deeply triggering".
    Ah OK, I didn't really mean anything by that, other than noting that both you and the guy whose views you support both seemed to object to being asked your sexual orientation on a form (with the option of not saying) which I think is a bit weird - to me it's like asking your postcode. I wasn't trying to imply that you were obsessed with gays like this guy obviously is, and I am sorry that my comment sounded like that.
    Thank you - apology accepted.

    I don't see why it's weird. Sexuality is a deeply private and personal matter, and I find it as odd as discussing what sexual partners or proclivities one might have. I wouldn't dream of doing so outside a very close group of trusted friends - or no-one at all.

    I hope in time this question is dropped in its entirety.
    AIUI data collected in this way is meant to be stored in such a way that it preserves anonymity. I would fill-in the form happily anyway - Google, FB etc already know more about us than our partners do, and I trust them a hell of a lot less than the National Trust.
    I have been applying for schools in New York recently, for my 6 yo daughter.

    I can now confirm I am not Latinx, and that my daughter’s 2 yo brother “identifies as” male.
    What on earth is Latinx?
    It’s a “non-binary” way of dealing with gendered pronouns in Spanish, in the USA. People from Latin countries (they mean Mexicans and South Americans) are not Latino nor Latina, they are collectively Latinx.
    So far as I can tell, people from that ethnic background mostly detest the term.
    Given (almost) every word in latinate languages like French and Spanish are gendered it would require a rework of epic proportions to neuterise the lingo.
  • Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
    It is, relative the the area between Manchester and Liverpool, which is what I wrote.

    Far more farmland and undeveloped areas between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The vast bulk of the square miles between the two cities is like that, unlike Liverpool to Manchester which is now essentially a single large conurbation.
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    I’m not aware of anyone “supporting the EU” per se, just folks arguing again and again that Brexit is a wrong turn.

    It’s Brexiters who turn everything into a Manichaean “us” versus “them”. Until we left the EU, “they” were also “us”!

    As for “unable to beat Boris”, I am very confused. 50% of the time you are telling us you don’t like him, the other 50% you appear to be in supine adulation of him.

    I guess it depends what channel you were watching last.
    Silly comment

    My observation is perfectly compatible with my preference for Rishi over Boris

    I have supine adulation for only one person and that is my wife of 57 years
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    But if you look at this chart you will see that there is no change at all in the rate of increase of employment from the date of the referendum until March 2020 when Covid struck: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281992/employment-rate-in-the-united-kingdom/#:~:text=In the three months to April 2021, the,a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020.

    The contention that unemployment would go up by 520k was the exact opposite of the truth: instead employment went up by rather more than that (nearly twice) in the 2 year forecast period. As forecasts go it is at the bottom end of crap.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited October 2021

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
    It is, relative the the area between Manchester and Liverpool, which is what I wrote.

    Far more farmland and undeveloped areas between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The vast bulk of the square miles between the two cities is like that, unlike Liverpool to Manchester which is now essentially a single large conurbation.
    But that's no different from Epping Forest, say, or the fields between Colchester and Epping. My (former) colleagues in an Edinburgh-based operation included commuters from Glasgow and the Borders as well as more local residents in [edit] the one building.

    Edit: this was in the context of their linkage for covid transmission purposes, rather than cow counting, obvs.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    As I said, “there were predictions of a short-term recession” which did not occur, and I seem to remember these were Osborne-driven (and highly political) predictions.

    But my main contention is that Remainers did *not* predict mass economic collapse, which is constantly suggested on here.
    Maybe not in their predictions, but some in the Remain camp did use alarmist rhetoric, including such phrases as 'cliff edge'.

    Looking back at Carney's pre-referendum pronouncements, he was actually quite balanced.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.


    I'm not sure it's always the case even now.

    I've been watching Blair & Brown on the telly. To what extent is Peter Mandelson's homosexuality essential to his identity? It strikes me that his identity revolves around his being ruthless, intelligent, articulate and very able. It has very little, if anything, to do with his being gay.
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Sean_F said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    You think the NT doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about homosexuals too?

    There are plenty of loons on your side too - your post alone shows how tone-deaf you are to seeing this - and
    you should read my post on English Heritage for an example of how to do it.

    Unfortunately, the NT leadership have been too obstinate and ignorant for too long though, so have to go.
    To be honest I have visited loads of NT properties and I don't recall ever seeing anything about homosexuals. Perhaps there was but I didn't notice it, because gay people are just a normal part of the world I live in. This guy spent his entire statement frothing about them. I have no interest in seeing the leadership at the NT replaced by a motley crew of gay-bashers and climate change deniers.
    A really big problem with the culture wars is that partisan hyperventilating posts like this scoop up more that twice as many likes as the well-balanced English Heritage one I posted earlier.

    That tells us so much about why we're in the pickle we are, and why social media algorithms work the way they do.
    I liked the bits of your English Heritage post about the position of their leader, but not the partisan conclusion - I don't know whether the current leadership of the NT needs to go, or if they're close enough to the English Heritage position that I'd be content with them.

    So it was the partisan parts of your post that put me off. A hitherto silent half of a like from me regardless, and I did appreciate it.
    I was in this position too. CR's posts are always eloquent and contain much good sense, but often go ultra-partisan in the final paragraph making them hard to "like". Incidentally CR I'm not sure why you think I need to apologise to you so please accept a Boris-style "I'm sorry if you were offended."
    You said the Restore Trust person was a loon and deeply-obsessed and troubled by gay-people, and then you associated me with this by saying he also found diversity forms "deeply triggering".
    Ah OK, I didn't really mean anything by that, other than noting that both you and the guy whose views you support both seemed to object to being asked your sexual orientation on a form (with the option of not saying) which I think is a bit weird - to me it's like asking your postcode. I wasn't trying to imply that you were obsessed with gays like this guy obviously is, and I am sorry that my comment sounded like that.
    Thank you - apology accepted.

    I don't see why it's weird. Sexuality is a deeply private and personal matter, and I find it as odd as discussing what sexual partners or proclivities one might have. I wouldn't dream of doing so outside a very close group of trusted friends - or no-one at all.

    I hope in time this question is dropped in its entirety.
    AIUI data collected in this way is meant to be stored in such a way that it preserves anonymity. I would fill-in the form happily anyway - Google, FB etc already know more about us than our partners do, and I trust them a hell of a lot less than the National Trust.
    I have been applying for schools in New York recently, for my 6 yo daughter.

    I can now confirm I am not Latinx, and that my daughter’s 2 yo brother “identifies as” male.
    What on earth is Latinx?
    It’s a “non-binary” way of dealing with gendered pronouns in Spanish, in the USA. People from Latin countries (they mean Mexicans and South Americans) are not Latino nor Latina, they are collectively Latinx.
    So far as I can tell, people from that ethnic background mostly detest the term.
    Given (almost) every word in latinate languages like French and Spanish are gendered it would require a rework of epic proportions to neuterise the lingo.
    Grammatical gender is commonplace in language, not just Latinate ones.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    TimT said:

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    As I said, “there were predictions of a short-term recession” which did not occur, and I seem to remember these were Osborne-driven (and highly political) predictions.

    But my main contention is that Remainers did *not* predict mass economic collapse, which is constantly suggested on here.
    Maybe not in their predictions, but some in the Remain camp did use alarmist rhetoric, including such phrases as 'cliff edge'.

    Looking back at Carney's pre-referendum pronouncements, he was actually quite balanced.
    Carney was a class act, by far the best Governor in my adult life.
  • Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full unemployment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    Awful when people never admit they're wrong, isn't it?
    Indeed. That's why I'm scrupulous in always admitting when I'm wrong and apologising when I am, which I've done multiple times before.

    It provides closure on the debate. There's really no reason to dig your heels in, but some people insist they have to.
    I will always treasure your gracious admission that your assertion that the area between Glasgow and Edinburgh was virtually empty was complete shite.
    It is, relative the the area between Manchester and Liverpool, which is what I wrote.

    Far more farmland and undeveloped areas between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The vast bulk of the square miles between the two cities is like that, unlike Liverpool to Manchester which is now essentially a single large conurbation.
    But that's no different from Epping Forest, say, or the fields between Colchester and Epping. My (former) colleagues in an Edinburgh-based operation included commuters from Glasgow and the Borders as well as more local residents in [edit] the one building.

    Edit: this was in the context of their linkage for covid transmission purposes, rather than cow counting, obvs.
    Agreed that's a better comparison. If you want to compare transmission rates in Epping Forest then that's smarter.

    The point in the conversation is that Covid transmission is happening in geographic areas with inevitably more transmission in contiguous conurbations without a natural firebreak between them. The virus can go from a person, to a shop, to a neighbour etc from Manchester to Liverpool without ever seeing a train or mass transit because of the way people are contiguously in together. That's natural firebreaks between Glasgow and Edinburgh in the way there isn't in NW England.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Carnyx said:

    When I visit a NT house (the last one being the astonishing Chastleton House in Oxfordshire), I love to hear any tawdry details about the previous inhabitants.

    It’s possible to do high brow and “low brow” simultaneously. The NT’s main issue is dumbing down, I think.

    Visited Cragside, near Alnwick, recently. There's a statue of an African woman in chains on the main staircase with what I thought was a rather desperate notice explaining why it was there and how it was meant to represent liberation from slavery.
    Just realised that the title of the statue is 'A Daughter of Eve' - a very pointed reference to our common humanity. Indeed, a lot of slavers loved the alternative hypothesis that Blacks were a separately created species and therefore sans human rights etc. The fact that Armstrong bought it for Cragside (vide my earlier posting) suggests his views on the matter - ergo a valid aspect of Cragside. If that isn't cvoming over in the label, them someone hasn't done a good job surtely.
    Thanks Mr C. Over lunch I had a look through the guidebook we brought back with us, and the statue is described much better in that.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704

    Apologies if already posted but this article is as perfect an example of Covid Derangement Syndrome as any I have seen. It's been repurposed for the Guardian. The authors seem to ignore the effect of vaccination, for starters, but the flaws are manifold.

    https://theconversation.com/why-we-must-not-allow-covid-to-become-endemic-in-new-zealand-169608?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton

    They've got no choice in it if they want to be open to the rest of the world.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited October 2021

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.


    I'm not sure it's always the case even now.

    I've been watching Blair & Brown on the telly. To what extent is Peter Mandelson's homosexuality essential to his identity? It strikes me that his identity revolves around his being ruthless, intelligent, articulate and very able. It has very little, if anything, to do with his being gay.
    You know I'd forgotten that Mandelson was gay.

    Of course that might be the effects of increasing age, rather than a reflection of its irrelevance.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    TimT said:

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    As I said, “there were predictions of a short-term recession” which did not occur, and I seem to remember these were Osborne-driven (and highly political) predictions.

    But my main contention is that Remainers did *not* predict mass economic collapse, which is constantly suggested on here.
    Maybe not in their predictions, but some in the Remain camp did use alarmist rhetoric, including such phrases as 'cliff edge'.

    Looking back at Carney's pre-referendum pronouncements, he was actually quite balanced.
    You're right. It's worth adding that some in the Leave camp did likewise, e.g. Turkey's accession, being compelled to join a European army, and so on. Both sides were a mix of the honest and the ridiculous, and the ridiculous are even to this day taken to be representative of the one camp by the ridiculous in the other.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Waving to Marquee Mark....in Torquay for a short stop Nd a coffee not far from the Marina.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    DavidL said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    But if you look at this chart you will see that there is no change at all in the rate of increase of employment from the date of the referendum until March 2020 when Covid struck: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281992/employment-rate-in-the-united-kingdom/#:~:text=In the three months to April 2021, the,a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020.

    The contention that unemployment would go up by 520k was the exact opposite of the truth: instead employment went up by rather more than that (nearly twice) in the 2 year forecast period. As forecasts go it is at the bottom end of crap.
    And, it should hardly need saying, since their forecast of lost growth was built upon lost employment when in fact employment increased by over 1m, that alleged loss of GDP is also crap.

    But if this sort of nonsense makes @Gardenwalker feel superior who am I to argue?
  • DavidL said:

    TimT said:

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    As I said, “there were predictions of a short-term recession” which did not occur, and I seem to remember these were Osborne-driven (and highly political) predictions.

    But my main contention is that Remainers did *not* predict mass economic collapse, which is constantly suggested on here.
    Maybe not in their predictions, but some in the Remain camp did use alarmist rhetoric, including such phrases as 'cliff edge'.

    Looking back at Carney's pre-referendum pronouncements, he was actually quite balanced.
    Carney was a class act, by far the best Governor in my adult life.
    He certainly did more to make the rich richer than any other Governor, which I assume is why he was appointed.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Unemployment is currently higher than it was 2 years ago.

    What does an "infinite" supply of labour mean. Taken literally it's obviously false, so you clearly mean something different.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.

    It seems it's been told to find £2bn of savings which I can't see myself. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/13/rail-bosses-slash-thousands-jobs-scramble-implement-2bn-cuts/

    £700m from staff cuts which means closing booking offices as near enough everything else is at minimal levels anyway...
    A serious plan to transition eg the Tube and rail like that to being fully automated and driverless might help.

    Unions would hate it, but does the rail network exist to serve customers or unions?
    Driverless' equals no drivers. In theory, that would be easy to do on many tube lines that have ATO (Automatic Train Operation). 'Fully automated' could be seen as driverless, except many 'fully automated' trains still have staff on board - just not at the front. Why?

    The darned public get in the way. Currently, 'drivers' on ATO lines are required to open and close the doors, because the public frequently don't act like the neat little automatons that engineers would like. Doors get blocked by bags. People crush in, leaving their backsides hanging out. Only when the public have behaved themselves can the driver let the train go.

    Then there are other issues, like the staff member helping in emergencies, or breakdowns.

    A way around this is to put doors on the platform edge - which is something the few true staffless train networks do. But doing this on the existing tube network would be humongously expensive - and next to impossible at stations where trains on different lines, with different door spacings, call at the same platform.

    This is why every 'driverless' DLR train still has a staff member on board: instead of a driver, they have train captains. But they're cheaper, right? Not by much. A tube driver earns around £56k. A DLR train captain earns ~£42k.

    This means, if you magically converted 3,300 drivers into train captains, you would save £14k by 3,300, or £46 million per year. Not a great saving on the ~£3 billion running cost of the tube network. Worse, some of those savings will be offset by other costs of implementing 'driverless' operation, such as refitting trains to allow a train captain.

    So; you either spend many, many billions converting all the platforms, including ones out in the boondocks, to have platform-edge doors and other safety systems, or you get small savings and have train captains instead of drivers.

    IMO the latter will eventually happen on the train network: but they will still have crew, even if they don't have drivers. The former won't happen in my lifetime.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168

    I would rather we focused on sorting out care homes or logistics right now, than spend a lot of senior government resource learning lessons from a global pandemic. This kind of event happens on average once a century or so, so any lessons learnt are likely to be long forgotten by the time it happens

    That rather depends on how you define a global pandemic... although by any definition, you're well out on your once a century claim.

    Presumably you're thinking Spanish flu (1918-20), then COVID-19, neatly a century apart. But there have been other pandemics. There have been 3 other significant flu pandemics: Asian flu (1957-8) and Hong Kong flu (1968-70) killed around 1-4 million worldwide each. (Hong Kong flu deaths in the UK weren't very different from seasonal flu, but Asian flu was bad, killing ~14k, £10M spent on sickness benefits, factories closing.) The 1977 Russian flu wasn't on the same scale, but around 700k died worldwide. Swine flu in 2009-10 was undoubtedly a pandemic, but we got lucky and it was a relatively mild flu. Still, that's another ~300k deaths (457 confirmed in the UK, although true figure probably higher).

    The other ongoing pandemic, albeit one with a very different course, is HIV/AIDS: >36 million deaths worldwide.

    Other epidemics/pandemics have had less impact on the UK. There isn't a formal definition of "pandemic", but we've seen multiple significant ebola outbreaks in recent years. There was Zika. SARS and MERS were both contained. Going back a bit further, there's the 7th global cholera pandemic of the '60s/'70s. Sometimes, the UK benefits from the wrong climate for certain disease vectors (thus no Zika risk). Sometimes, the UK benefits from being a rich, industrialised nation with good vaccination rates and infrastructure (so no cholera risk). Sometimes, the UK has benefitted from smart and quick action elsewhere to stop cases before they reached us (MERS, SARS). I think it would be a mistake to ignore these near-misses on the grounds we got lucky or action taken was successful. There are lessons to be learnt here too.

    Many would also say pandemics, or novel zoonotic epidemics at least, are getting more likely. Looking back over the last century may be misleading. SARS, MERS and COVID-19 were all in a relatively short period of time.

    Also overlooked area are animal pandemics. These can carry over to humans, but even if they don't (or don't much), they have huge impacts on the economy. You must remember BSE. UK deaths were 177. That's 177 more than you want, but admittedly much smaller that, say, seasonal flu, but it also had a huge impact on British beef farming. Another coronavirus that you don't hear about is Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, an ongoing pandemic that began in Europe and has had a big impact on pig farming.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    Well, I have no quarrel with that.

    I think “slightly lower” will become “notably lower” over time, though.
  • It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    Its also worth thinking about whether you want better GDP or better GDP per capita.
    Its almost a truism that every person in this country is adding to GDP, even an unemployed individual. Having someone paid minimum wage will boost GDP. But if they're claiming more in benefits than they are paying in taxes and deflating GDP per capita then is that a good thing?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    Its also worth thinking about whether you want better GDP or better GDP per capita.
    Its almost a truism that every person in this country is adding to GDP, even an unemployed individual. Having someone paid minimum wage will boost GDP. But if they're claiming more in benefits than they are paying in taxes and deflating GDP per capita then is that a good thing?
    And then PT had to come along to fuck it up.
  • kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    I am a one time "Remainer", though it is now an obsolete title. The only thing the remain campaign was wrong about was that it might win. That was clearly wrong. Pretty much everything else that I was concerned about has come to pass, though sometimes masked by the scourge of Covid. We all have to live with Brexit, but the reality is, that as many of us predicted, it was a pointless pile of shite.

    I, for one, Philip am not grumpy at all. I find that people like yourself who are deranged enough to think Brexit was worth it are highly amusing in your total sillyness. I do, though, find it a little sad that a young man such as yourself has so little to do with his life that he has to spend hours on here trying to convince himself that Brexit was a good thing. Get out more. Meet some foreigners, you might find they are not secretly trying to take something off you that you don't have anyway. Brexit may be shit (we know that you know it is), but there are wonderful things out there. Have fun, I am going to have a late lunch!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    edited October 2021
    RobD said:

    malcolmg said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??

    More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
    Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
    That’s a little bit of an unfair way to describe his time in ICU
    LOL , he had a spoonful of oxygen and staff dancing around catering to his every whim. he was in and out in a few days and every one of them showed him smiling etc. Give us a break.
    Any evidence to back that up? All the reports suggest he was in a serious condition.
    well he was showing as fine , then said he needed some oxygen and was discharged a day or so later. I saw someone on maximum oxygen for 3 weeks , that is close to dying. An hour or two on low level oxygen is not near dying as far as I am concerned. @RobD
  • Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Unemployment is currently higher than it was 2 years ago.

    What does an "infinite" supply of labour mean. Taken literally it's obviously false, so you clearly mean something different.
    When economists say full employment they for good reason don't mean 100% of people employed. I've always considered 5% to be "full employment" and we've been at full employment or higher for many years now.

    I said effectively infinite. When there's hundreds of millions of people who can come here to fill vacancies who are living on wages below our minimum wage, then that's an almost infinite pool of potential staff to fill your vacancies when vacancies are not in the millions. It's not literally infinite but given the pool of potential labour at minimum wage increased to about 100,000% or more of our amount of vacancies its effectively infinite.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited October 2021

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Wrong then and wrong now, Philip.

    You have chosen an intuitively satisfying but tiny part of the whole picture, itself anecdotal and incomplete, and projected it as explaining everything.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    Well, I have no quarrel with that.

    I think “slightly lower” will become “notably lower” over time, though.
    Fair enough, and that's where you and I disagree.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    I've always said that the quality of our government will make much more difference than our EU membership to our future prospects as a nation.

    It also seems obvious, given how important the identities of Leaver and Remainer have become, that most people prioritised the question of identity over economics.

    So an economic blame game over Brexit is pure displacement activity.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Carnyx said:
    Not quite as compelling as this though: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/09/tribunal-finds-evidence-of-sexist-culture-in-scotlands-armed-police

    Add in the recent story of, what was it, 156 officers facing allegations of sexual misconduct and zero dismissed and we clearly have real institutional problems with our police on both sides of the border. Indeed, when you look at America it seems that such attitudes and cultures seem to go with the territory.

    I am really not sure what the answer is.
  • TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Wrong then and wrong now, Philip.

    You have chosen an intuitively satisfying but tiny part of the whole picture, itself anecdotal and incomplete, and projected it as explaining everything.
    Except its not anecdotal its factual and demonstrable - and I was wrong to dismiss it in 2016 and apologised recently to isam for calling this wrong. But I did call this wrong, the effect was real, so we should accept that and move on.

    If I'm making a mistake then point out the mistake. If you can't, then 'satisfying' will have to do. As will the expectation of real pay rises for millions of people to come.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Are you sure about that?

    I only knew that Frost had spoken yesterday because there was suddenly a whole swathe of FBPE-inspired Tweets getting posted here by people moaning (and people quoting people who were moaning) about what was said.

    Right now the Unionists are unhappy with the settlement and the UK government has the tactical advantage and holds all the cards so it makes sense to push hard for a victory in the dispute. That's just logic not animation. All the animation seem to be people horrified at the UK doing what is in the UK's best interests.
    None of us can be sure, it is just a gut feeling and we are impacted by our own biases. I wasn't really referring to yesterday, but just the overall feeling that many leavers are still angry at the EU.

    The reply was also specifically in response to the comment that this stuff harms Boris and it is this conclusion that I disagree with. I believe it helps him. I guess it comes down to what people thinks motivates the troops more:

    a) We are victorious

    or

    b) The battle is still to be won

    I think b) does, hence my disagreement with the previous poster
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168
    edited October 2021

    I've always said that the quality of our government will make much more difference than our EU membership to our future prospects as a nation.

    So we're doomed!? Shit...
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Unemployment is currently higher than it was 2 years ago.

    What does an "infinite" supply of labour mean. Taken literally it's obviously false, so you clearly mean something different.
    When economists say full employment they for good reason don't mean 100% of people employed. I've always considered 5% to be "full employment" and we've been at full employment or higher for many years now.

    I said effectively infinite. When there's hundreds of millions of people who can come here to fill vacancies who are living on wages below our minimum wage, then that's an almost infinite pool of potential staff to fill your vacancies when vacancies are not in the millions. It's not literally infinite but given the pool of potential labour at minimum wage increased to about 100,000% or more of our amount of vacancies its effectively infinite.
    I think I preferred "infinite" to "100,000%" which is clearly mad.
    The EU's population is about 6x ours, give or take, and a great number of people have no interest in moving to another country. So words like "infinite" and ratios like "100,000%" look like yet more rhetoric than anything soberly quantified.

    By your definition, we've had "full employment" since... oh, before the referendum, which I think is the point someone else was making.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Afternoon. On topic, some cheery reading for all you regulars out there:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/trump-winning-2024-real-election-nightmare/620368/
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    I hold no pen for Boris and I really don't understand why we seem to begrudge all PMs a holiday.

    Johnson's are secretive, frequent and ALWAYS paid for by somebody else.
    So what....
    If you are in a job where conflict of interest can occur having a holiday paid for by someone else is rather important even if no conflict occurs. I had such a role before I retired and I would never have done that.
    As longvas it is decared its not an issue. Blair had lots of holidays paid for by others eg Branson
    Such hospitality really should be subject to benefit-in-kind rules for ministers. If it’s £20k a week to rent a house, then it attracts a £9,000 (45%, his marginal rate) income tax liability.
    I suspect there is an argument that were it not for security reasons he would be heading somewhere far cheaper...
    Oh I’m sure ministers would like to make that argument, and it’s not the PM’s fault that he has to travel everywhere with half a dozen policemen - but he knew what he signed up for, and has the rest of his life to take expensive holidays.

    The PM’s generic personal cost of living is minimal, they have no day-to-day accommodation nor transport costs to pay out of a £150k salary.
    IIRC they pay for accommodation in Downing Street as a BiK
    LOL, I doubt he ever pays for anything , a scrounger who lives of bungs and freebies.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    Many people see their gender, sexuality and/or ethnicity as key characteristics that they define themselves by.

    I don't. And I consider the reason for that being that male, straight and white are all 'so what?' when it comes to those criteria.

    My class background and being from Tyneside are characteristics that I see as more defining of me.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    It’s another PB Tory meme that Remainers predicted mass economic collapse.

    I don’t think they did.

    The Treasury predicted a slowdown in growth which as far as I can see has happened.

    It’s true, there were expectations of a short-term recession but in the event we did not exercise A50 immediately, and the pound took the strain (making us a smidgeon poorer).

    PB Tories are always trying to change history.
    Or perhaps senility makes them act this way.

    "The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted.

    In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%."

    Even if Brexit has constrained the UK economy, there has been no such shock.

    (I voted Remain)
    I see this as simple: global free movement, a global single market, and a global single currency would undoubtedly be a boon to UK economic growth, and I've even seen one or two articles penned in the Economist arguing as such, however, we do perfectly well without it.

    I see being a member of the EU (or not) as the same argument.

    Yes, growth might be slightly lower for the UK across the broader European market due to increased border "frictions" but I see that as acceptable and a perfectly credible choice.
    An interesting post. I agree with the first two paragraphs, although the first is utopia, but doesn't mean we shouldn't aspire to it and the 2nd para is an attempt to do so.

    What is your reason for not wanting to do it?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Surprised to learn that the rail industry thinks it can easily cut £2bn per year in costs without rail users really noticing. If that's the case then why have they waited this long?! It surely can't be that rail franchise operators were getting rich from state subsidies having bought themselves a monopoly position for a few years at a time. No way at all.

    It seems it's been told to find £2bn of savings which I can't see myself. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/13/rail-bosses-slash-thousands-jobs-scramble-implement-2bn-cuts/

    £700m from staff cuts which means closing booking offices as near enough everything else is at minimal levels anyway...
    A serious plan to transition eg the Tube and rail like that to being fully automated and driverless might help.

    Unions would hate it, but does the rail network exist to serve customers or unions?
    Driverless' equals no drivers. In theory, that would be easy to do on many tube lines that have ATO (Automatic Train Operation). 'Fully automated' could be seen as driverless, except many 'fully automated' trains still have staff on board - just not at the front. Why?

    The darned public get in the way. Currently, 'drivers' on ATO lines are required to open and close the doors, because the public frequently don't act like the neat little automatons that engineers would like. Doors get blocked by bags. People crush in, leaving their backsides hanging out. Only when the public have behaved themselves can the driver let the train go.

    Then there are other issues, like the staff member helping in emergencies, or breakdowns.

    A way around this is to put doors on the platform edge - which is something the few true staffless train networks do. But doing this on the existing tube network would be humongously expensive - and next to impossible at stations where trains on different lines, with different door spacings, call at the same platform.

    This is why every 'driverless' DLR train still has a staff member on board: instead of a driver, they have train captains. But they're cheaper, right? Not by much. A tube driver earns around £56k. A DLR train captain earns ~£42k.

    This means, if you magically converted 3,300 drivers into train captains, you would save £14k by 3,300, or £46 million per year. Not a great saving on the ~£3 billion running cost of the tube network. Worse, some of those savings will be offset by other costs of implementing 'driverless' operation, such as refitting trains to allow a train captain.

    So; you either spend many, many billions converting all the platforms, including ones out in the boondocks, to have platform-edge doors and other safety systems, or you get small savings and have train captains instead of drivers.

    IMO the latter will eventually happen on the train network: but they will still have crew, even if they don't have drivers. The former won't happen in my lifetime.
    Not to mention loud, lairy drunks. And that most stations don't have ticket barriers in rural areas. Or even the facility to purchase one in quite a few.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Many people see their gender, sexuality and/or ethnicity as key characteristics that they define themselves by.

    I don't. And I consider the reason for that being that male, straight and white are all 'so what?' when it comes to those criteria.

    My class background and being from Tyneside are characteristics that I see as more defining of me.

    Easier to say of course as a white, straight, cis male.

    But, yeah.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Johnson has nothing to gain by Brexit becoming an issue and everything to lose.

    His Brexit majority is built on the fact he was best placed to "Get Brexit done".

    The less done it looks, the more shaky that majority looks.


    https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1448230833622589440?s=20

    I disagree with that. I think it helps him if he can get the message over that the evil EU is still messing with us.

    Normally when one wins the losers are unhappy and the winners happy, but leavers seem more animated than remainers currently. It's as if they lost.
    Brexit was significantly driven by Grumpy Old Man syndrome, being perpetually angry about x, y and z, and things not being as good as they used to be. None of those things are changing, or ever will, so many Brexiteers will always be moaning about something or other, or just modernity.
    Brexit is a nasty bout of dyspepsia, fashioned into an economic and geopolitical policy.
    The fact is that those who support the EU failed to win the argument and have ever since acted like grumpy old men and continue their angst and have so far been unable to beat Boris so resort to name calling as everything else seems to have no effect on his popularity

    We had years of Remainers saying that Britain would face economic chaos of mass unemployment and that Europe would bind us to their sphere of influence as they were so big and we were so small.

    Now we have full unemployment and the UK is carving its own path and the same people are complaining about the full employment and the "disruption" to "alliances" with Europe.

    They might be less grumpy if they could just admit they were wrong.
    We already had full employment prior to Brexit. That's why closing the door to foreign drivers, care staff, and food pickers and packers wasn't such a great idea and is likely to cause economic damage to the UK.
    We're at full employment because the open door meant the market there was an effectively infinite supply of labour, dropping the market clearing rate for wages to the floor, meaning that there'd always be a shortage of minimum wage labour.

    Importing new "drivers, care staff, pickers and packers" etc would fill the vacancies at that moment but then new vacancies would appear as those new people would need their own drivers, food etc so the labour shortage was never filled.

    Which is why there's no economic damage to closing the door. What closing the door will do is sever the link between vacancies and infinite labour meaning that wages have to rise off the floor in order to see vacancies get filled.
    Wrong then and wrong now, Philip.

    You have chosen an intuitively satisfying but tiny part of the whole picture, itself anecdotal and incomplete, and projected it as explaining everything.
    Except its not anecdotal its factual and demonstrable - and I was wrong to dismiss it in 2016 and apologised recently to isam for calling this wrong. But I did call this wrong, the effect was real, so we should accept that and move on.

    If I'm making a mistake then point out the mistake. If you can't, then 'satisfying' will have to do. As will the expectation of real pay rises for millions of people to come.
    Shall we head over to the other thread? I will repost this there.

    It is anecdotal because you are taking a situation "infinite immigration" (we'll forgive you the clumsy language) and projecting from that a theoretical situation whereby they are all ready to come at the merest hint of the minimum wage rising. And from that you assume that without that "infinite" PAW, as Alan Greenspan termed it, wages would have risen.

    But that's all you've got.

    Whereas all we actually have is the number of immigrants who did come and what happened to employment and wages. Unemployment has ebbed and flowed over the past 17 years and of course we had the GFC shock. Trying within that to determine that throughout those events it was this imaginary workforce poised, like a gazelle, to leap into action in the UK is, well, anecdotal.

    Look how many people did come. Why do you suppose that ever more might have than did. Do we know that they were keeping tabs of the ONS wage data ready for the moment to mobilise? No of course we don't.

    Is why it's a satisfying theory, but anecdotal at best.

    And now you, amongst others, are lauding the fact that wages are rising now that there is a labour shortage but at least seem to have accepted the role of demand that the departed labour force played and hence we are likely to end up back where we started.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    malcolmg said:

    RobD said:

    malcolmg said:

    Charles said:

    Sandpit said:

    We ought to have had a thread, just to even things up on Starmer being a prat, unable to reverse a lorry without crashing into something. It's a metaphor for his leadership innit??

    More to the point, why was he using up the valuable resource of a lorry and instructor, at a time when there’s an urgent need for more driver training? Thankfully he just hit a light barrier, rather than anything more solid which might have taken the lorry out of service.
    Yes, of course Boris has never taken up the time of valuable resources, such as in the NHS, through publicity stunts, has he?
    That’s a little bit of an unfair way to describe his time in ICU
    LOL , he had a spoonful of oxygen and staff dancing around catering to his every whim. he was in and out in a few days and every one of them showed him smiling etc. Give us a break.
    Any evidence to back that up? All the reports suggest he was in a serious condition.
    well he was showing as fine , then said he needed some oxygen and was discharged a day or so later. I saw someone on maximum oxygen for 3 weeks , that is close to dying. An hour or two on low level oxygen is not near dying as far as I am concerned. @RobD
    Well that's just wrong. He came out of intensive care after three days of treatment, and stayed in hospital for a further three days.

    Apr 7 - Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms worsen
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604
    Apr 9 - Coronavirus: Boris Johnson out of intensive care but remains in hospital
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-52238276
    Apr 12 - Boris Johnson leaves hospital as he continues recovery from coronavirus
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/12/boris-johnson-leaves-hospital-as-he-continues-recovery-from-coronavirus
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    One of the things I am interested in (vaguely) is that the modern assumption is that one’s sexuality is utterly essential to one’s identity.

    I don’t think that’s always been the case.


    I'm not sure it's always the case even now.

    I've been watching Blair & Brown on the telly. To what extent is Peter Mandelson's homosexuality essential to his identity? It strikes me that his identity revolves around his being ruthless, intelligent, articulate and very able. It has very little, if anything, to do with his being gay.
    Great on the dance floor apparently. Every indication from that he joined the wrong party.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    I've always said that the quality of our government will make much more difference than our EU membership to our future prospects as a nation.

    So we're doomed!? Shit...
    I'm not optimistic about our standards of governance and the likelihood of further deterioration, no.

    However, there is still a lot of good happening in the country despite this. Voluntary work by associations of citizens (such as parkrun and community gardens). New technologies being developed. Rewilding projects. The young becoming politically engaged over the climate.

    Maybe I'm in a glass one-eighth full kind of mood.

    No-one fills a brandy glass to the brim do they?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    The NT went too far though.

    A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.

    The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.

    That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
    Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
    I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.

    Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.

    I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
    Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them.
    What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
    Would you find it inappropriate for a living gay man who was still in the closet to be outed against their will? How is it different in principle if they are dead?
    I have said elsewhere on this thread that I don't agree with outing living people. Dead people become part of history and I think it is totally valid to discuss any aspect of their life as part of efforts to enquire into, and understand better, the past. More generally, if you can't see a distinction between living people and dead people then I'm not sure I can help you, except to say that you are the little boy in the Sixth Sense and I claim my £10.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    tlg86 said:
    Nope, but I support it.

    They have absolutely no-one to blame but themselves for its creation.
    Some of them are absolute loons though, reading through their statements in the voting bumf I got sent by the NT. One of them obviously spends a *lot* of his time thinking about homosexuals. It will be a shame if the small steps the NT has recently made in the direction of no longer whitewashing the history of their properties are reversed if these dinosaurs get elected. Anyway, I've voted against them and many NT members of my acquaintance have done too.
    The NT went too far though.

    A good friend of mine’s cousin gave a family home to the NT. He (the cousin) was a very private man who never talked about his sexuality but was probably gay.

    The NT announced gleefully to the world that he was gay and did a big song and dance about it.

    That strikes me as a gross invasion of privacy.
    Maybe the NT just don't think there's anything wrong with being gay? Maybe they don't want gay people and gay history to be invisible? I thought it was highly revealing that one of these "anti woke" people described discussions of people's sexuality as "salacious".
    I don't think that's highly revealing, unless you're confused as to what salacious means.

    Salacious means having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters. Like Charles says, some people prefer to keep these things private - and it is a very private matter. The reason the NT like to do is so they can signal things about themselves to others, so it's actually a very selfish thing to do, wrapped up in moral superiority, with an oven-ready go-to defence of bigotry to anyone who objects.

    I refuse to answer questions on my sexuality on diversity forms out of principle - that doesn't mean I have a problem with anyone being gay.
    Congratulations on googling "salacious". My point is that talking about gay people and gay history isn't salacious - it isn't inappropriate or undue. Rather, it is appropriate and overdue. Their history is a vital and important part of our history and heritage. Their lives and lifestyles are interesting, in the same way as the lives and lifestyles of heterosexual people are interesting. More so, sometimes, because their stories haven't been told before. It is entirely right that visitors to NT properties, gay and straight alike, should have the opportunity to find out about them.
    What you fill in in diversity monitoring forms is entirely up to you, there is always a prefer not to say option. These forms help organisations to understand who they are reaching. I noticed that the gay obsessed guy standing for election at the NT found this form deeply triggering too.
    Would you find it inappropriate for a living gay man who was still in the closet to be outed against their will? How is it different in principle if they are dead?
    I have said elsewhere on this thread that I don't agree with outing living people. Dead people become part of history and I think it is totally valid to discuss any aspect of their life as part of efforts to enquire into, and understand better, the past. More generally, if you can't see a distinction between living people and dead people then I'm not sure I can help you, except to say that you are the little boy in the Sixth Sense and I claim my £10.
    Surely there's a continuum here.

    If John dies on Saturday, outing him on Sunday is at the very best poor manners.

    If John died in 1823, then outing him is just - as you say - a part of history.
This discussion has been closed.