Johnson’s Nightmare November continues with another bad poll – politicalbetting.com

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

That’s pretty much played out: the U.K. is low regulation, and high labour flexibility. Yet the “North” is still poor, and getting (comparatively) poorer. Why?

How does this sit with your assertion that "Trade is pretty much a function: Value = (Proximity x Economic size) - Regulatory Friction"?

You are confusing “trade” with “growth”, although the two things are obviously related.

It is true that Leeds is very much likely to “trade” more with Bradford, but that tells us nothing really about growth in Leeds or Bradford.

The point is that the treasury rates the clusters that govern economic development between Leeds and Birmingham and Leeds and London as low potential (lower than £4bn apparently). It's they say making the proximity part of the equation makes no difference to the overall picture. It's like the UK/Morocco example I was talking about, the official rating is extremely low, like hilariously so. Yet as we know there are multiple UK/Morocco deals in the pipeline including a solar energy interconnect, investment by UK companies in Moroccan infrastructure, export of planning services, export of solar energy expertise etc... The treasury model says that this relationship is of zero value and will always be of zero value, yet those projects will add up to tens of billions in value within a few years for both countries.

Proximity is a much smaller factor than, IMO, inertia.

Aslan said:

Gardenwalker said:

JBriskin3 said:

Gardenwalker said:

JBriskin3 said:

Gardenwalker said:

JBriskin3 said:

LostPassword said:

kinabalu said:

Gardenwalker said:

Scott_xP said:

It’s very clear from listening to the prime minister that the rethink of the eastern leg of HS2 is all about the politics of a new trainline running through Tory seats in midlands without new stations. They’ve clearly been scarred by the first leg from London- Birmingham
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1461331841714167808

There is a “Midlands Engine” prospectus for new transport infrastructure which I presume will also never see the light of day.

There was nothing stopping Boris also funding that if he wanted to bribe those Tory seats.

No, Boris (and the country) has been fucked by Treasury and the Transport Ministry.

I’ll say it again, ex-London and the SE, U.K. economic performance is being overtaken by former Warsaw Pact countries.

My advice to young people living in the North is to move to London. Or perhaps better, just emigrate. This country doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to let you prosper.

Why can't a 'larger than life' PM with a landslide majority won substantially off the back of his own persona stand up to the Treasury?

Because he's never stood up to anyone in his life. He's always had someone to do the standing up for him. It was Gilligan for cycle lanes in London, Frost for Brexit, Cummings for various things, Bingham for vaccines.

It's clear he doesn't have anyone to drive through levelling-up, or infrastructure improvements, so it dies.

He's got our man from the north Govey on the job doesn't he?

Let's see how it plays out.

*I’m a great admirer of Thatcher by the way, but her economic view is not fit for 2021.

You a MMT fan?

(Apologies, since you gave me a decent response)

No.

But I do note:

- U.K. prints it’s own money.
- The fear that 100% debt-to-GDP impaired economic growth has pretty much been debunked.
- Interest rates are very low.

I therefore wonder why the hell we want to fetishise debt levels over the future prosperity of 65% of the country.

Anyway, my point about Thatcher was more about the general theory that you can deregulate your way to growth. That’s pretty much played out: the U.K. is low regulation, and high labour flexibility. Yet the “North” is still poor, and getting (comparatively) poorer. Why?

I don't know why.

I'll guess your answer might be infrastructure?

I agree we should be borrowing heavily in these times of low interest rates (which won't be along for much longer by my reading.)

Infrastructure + Skills + Local Autonomy is the magic recipe.

Local Autonomy can be too local though. Put it down to the sub-city region level and it's too small for politicians to care about economic development and just focus on NIMBY issues.

I also think infrastructure needs to be about more than telecoms and travel. If you want to keep the newly skilled people leaving you need to spend a lot on making the place nice to live. Concrete brutalism and high rises are disastrous for this. You need community based streets, trees, parks, public art, little shops and restaurants.

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

AlistairM said:

In the late 90s it once took me 2 days to get home by train from the West Highlands to Berkshire.

I was doing the West Highland Way but my feet had been consumed by blistersnso had to stop half way. Turned up at the station in the early afternoon and the last train to Glasgow had gone. Had to stay in a YMCA overnight and caught the first train the next day which want until about 10. By the time I got to Glasgow I had missed the last train to Reading so another overnight stay. Finally got home after 48 hours!

JBriskin3 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JBriskin3 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JBriskin3 said:

malcolmg said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

How about a PB meet on the Plymouth to Aberdeen train?

We could commandeer a few coaches and PBers just join along the route, we could have convivial chats on there, and then party when we get to Aberdeen.

Can you get a week off work

You're exageratting. I once drove from Aberdeen to Somerset in a day. By train they might need a pit stop though I guess.

I have business interests in Zummerzet. Easily driveable from an hour north of Aberdeen in a day.

I think it took me about 12 hours - I wouldn't have had much time to update my potential spreadsheets.

Drive down daytime. Hotel, run, fud. Off to the client the following morning, drive home from lunchtime.

Which by my calculations you'd get back by midnight? I guess the meeting/s must have been important.

eek said:

MaxPB said:

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

That’s pretty much played out: the U.K. is low regulation, and high labour flexibility. Yet the “North” is still poor, and getting (comparatively) poorer. Why?

How does this sit with your assertion that "Trade is pretty much a function: Value = (Proximity x Economic size) - Regulatory Friction"?

You are confusing “trade” with “growth”, although the two things are obviously related.

It is true that Leeds is very much likely to “trade” more with Bradford, but that tells us nothing really about growth in Leeds or Bradford.

The point is that the treasury rates the clusters that govern economic development between Leeds and Birmingham and Leeds and London as low potential (lower than £4bn apparently). It's they say making the proximity part of the equation makes no difference to the overall picture. It's like the UK/Morocco example I was talking about, the official rating is extremely low, like hilariously so. Yet as we know there are multiple UK/Morocco deals in the pipeline including a solar energy interconnect, investment by UK companies in Moroccan infrastructure, export of planning services, export of solar energy expertise etc... The treasury model says that this relationship is of zero value and will always be of zero value, yet those projects will add up to tens of billions in value within a few years for both countries.

Proximity is a much smaller factor than, IMO, inertia.

The irony there is that London to Leeds is only a small part of the true gain there.

You have Leeds to Sheffield, Sheffield to Derby, Leeds to Derby, Grantham to Peterborough. Heck you even get more trains from Leeds to Wakefield / Selby just by increasing the capacity in and out of Leeds.

If the treasury are merely looking at just the end points they've missed all the gains in between that the extra capacity opens up and that is a flaw within their modelling that could be seized upon.

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

The media is full of innumerate twats who don’t do detail.

Did you know, BTW, Boris used to be a journalist?

Do you think a Treasury drone would be preferable to Boris?

TheScreamingEagles said:

The North East, East Midlands, and Yorkshire & Humber already receive the lowest public investment per head in rail.

Cutting HS2's eastern leg is the opposite of levelling up and a disaster for those regions.

https://twitter.com/larry_turner/status/1461321128039915521/

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

I do sometimes feel like we are watching a country failing in real time right before our eyes. No part of it is working.

tlg86 said:

kinabalu said:

tlg86 said:

kinabalu said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Scott_xP said:

Yesterday Boris Johnson admitted he crashed the car when it came to sleaze.

Today he has derailed the trains.

He’s taking the country absolutely nowhere.

https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1461325245038698497

The same Starmer who is opposed to HS2

That's nimby stuff coming not from the leader of the Labour Party but from the MP for Holburn & St Pancras whose constituents are dead against it due to the disruption to the locale. Similar to John McDonnell and the Heathrow expansion. He was against it not as Shadow Chancellor but as the MP for Hayes & Harlington. It's an interesting notion. That in a sense the local MP and the national politician are different people despite also being the same people.

It's a good reason for executive politicians (or, in this case, aspiring executive politicians) to also be members of parliament for specific constituencies. It shows what two-faced ****s they are.

Is that a typo? Surely you mean it's a good reason for them NOT to be MPs for specific constituencies.

No, I think it's good to see them showing their ability (or lack thereof) to stand up to nimbyism.

Stuartinromford said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

The media is full of innumerate twats who don’t do detail.

Did you know, BTW, Boris used to be a journalist?

Do you think a Treasury drone would be preferable to Boris?

Fair question.

Something I wish I understood about Sunak but don't;

Does he go along with Treasury penny pinching because he believes in it, or is he just too small in stature and ability to argue against it?

I wish he'd spent time running a spending department on the way up.

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Anabobazina said:

The one good thing about Bozza was his belief in grands projets. Now, he’s lost even that. The hopeless little twerp has been sent packing by the big boys in the Treasury.

Anabobazina said:

The one good thing about Bozza was his belief in grands projets. Now, he’s lost even that. The hopeless little twerp has been sent packing by the big boys in the Treasury.

Stuartinromford said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

The media is full of innumerate twats who don’t do detail.

Did you know, BTW, Boris used to be a journalist?

Do you think a Treasury drone would be preferable to Boris?

Fair question.

Something I wish I understood about Sunak but don't;

Does he go along with Treasury penny pinching because he believes in it, or is he just too small in stature and ability to argue against it?

I wish he'd spent time running a spending department on the way up.

Carnyx said:

kinabalu said:

LostPassword said:

kinabalu said:

Gardenwalker said:

Scott_xP said:

It’s very clear from listening to the prime minister that the rethink of the eastern leg of HS2 is all about the politics of a new trainline running through Tory seats in midlands without new stations. They’ve clearly been scarred by the first leg from London- Birmingham
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1461331841714167808

There is a “Midlands Engine” prospectus for new transport infrastructure which I presume will also never see the light of day.

There was nothing stopping Boris also funding that if he wanted to bribe those Tory seats.

No, Boris (and the country) has been fucked by Treasury and the Transport Ministry.

I’ll say it again, ex-London and the SE, U.K. economic performance is being overtaken by former Warsaw Pact countries.

My advice to young people living in the North is to move to London. Or perhaps better, just emigrate. This country doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to let you prosper.

Why can't a 'larger than life' PM with a landslide majority won substantially off the back of his own persona stand up to the Treasury?

Because he's never stood up to anyone in his life. He's always had someone to do the standing up for him. It was Gilligan for cycle lanes in London, Frost for Brexit, Cummings for various things, Bingham for vaccines.

It's clear he doesn't have anyone to drive through levelling-up, or infrastructure improvements, so it dies.

He's made the Gove appointment. I took that to be a sign of intent but maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

It's also a question whether he expects Mr Gove to succeed. And what the consequences might be for Mr Gove's career.

An interesting calculation - which now has to be redone.

kinabalu said:

LostPassword said:

kinabalu said:

Gardenwalker said:

Scott_xP said:

It’s very clear from listening to the prime minister that the rethink of the eastern leg of HS2 is all about the politics of a new trainline running through Tory seats in midlands without new stations. They’ve clearly been scarred by the first leg from London- Birmingham
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1461331841714167808

There is a “Midlands Engine” prospectus for new transport infrastructure which I presume will also never see the light of day.

There was nothing stopping Boris also funding that if he wanted to bribe those Tory seats.

No, Boris (and the country) has been fucked by Treasury and the Transport Ministry.

I’ll say it again, ex-London and the SE, U.K. economic performance is being overtaken by former Warsaw Pact countries.

My advice to young people living in the North is to move to London. Or perhaps better, just emigrate. This country doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to let you prosper.

Why can't a 'larger than life' PM with a landslide majority won substantially off the back of his own persona stand up to the Treasury?

Because he's never stood up to anyone in his life. He's always had someone to do the standing up for him. It was Gilligan for cycle lanes in London, Frost for Brexit, Cummings for various things, Bingham for vaccines.

It's clear he doesn't have anyone to drive through levelling-up, or infrastructure improvements, so it dies.

He's made the Gove appointment. I took that to be a sign of intent but maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

JBriskin3 said:

Stuartinromford said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

The media is full of innumerate twats who don’t do detail.

Did you know, BTW, Boris used to be a journalist?

Do you think a Treasury drone would be preferable to Boris?

Fair question.

Something I wish I understood about Sunak but don't;

Does he go along with Treasury penny pinching because he believes in it, or is he just too small in stature and ability to argue against it?

I wish he'd spent time running a spending department on the way up.

He didn't penny pinch at the last budget; he spent practically all the growth dividend didn't he?

Carnyx said:

MightyAlex said:

Carnyx said:

kinabalu said:

LostPassword said:

kinabalu said:

Gardenwalker said:

Scott_xP said:

It’s very clear from listening to the prime minister that the rethink of the eastern leg of HS2 is all about the politics of a new trainline running through Tory seats in midlands without new stations. They’ve clearly been scarred by the first leg from London- Birmingham
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1461331841714167808

There is a “Midlands Engine” prospectus for new transport infrastructure which I presume will also never see the light of day.

There was nothing stopping Boris also funding that if he wanted to bribe those Tory seats.

No, Boris (and the country) has been fucked by Treasury and the Transport Ministry.

I’ll say it again, ex-London and the SE, U.K. economic performance is being overtaken by former Warsaw Pact countries.

My advice to young people living in the North is to move to London. Or perhaps better, just emigrate. This country doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to let you prosper.

Why can't a 'larger than life' PM with a landslide majority won substantially off the back of his own persona stand up to the Treasury?

Because he's never stood up to anyone in his life. He's always had someone to do the standing up for him. It was Gilligan for cycle lanes in London, Frost for Brexit, Cummings for various things, Bingham for vaccines.

It's clear he doesn't have anyone to drive through levelling-up, or infrastructure improvements, so it dies.

He's made the Gove appointment. I took that to be a sign of intent but maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

It's also a question whether he expects Mr Gove to succeed. And what the consequences might be for Mr Gove's career.

An interesting calculation - which now has to be redone.

Should Gove now do a Johnson and resign. Become the 'True leveller' and make the leadership battle interesting. He could even drag Cummings back...

This would also distract him from breaking more things.

Rather depends how popular Mr Gove is with both the Red Wall MPs and the old second jobs and Brexit guard, and (separately) with the CP membership. Amd who else might be more popular.

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

Gardenwalker said:

Anabobazina said:

The one good thing about Bozza was his belief in grands projets. Now, he’s lost even that. The hopeless little twerp has been sent packing by the big boys in the Treasury.

There will be many on here who believe Boris was lying when he promised levelling up.

I don’t believe he was. His speech on levelling up - though shambling - demonstrated that he was actually right across the latest academic thinking on how to deliver growth.

At the same time, it was obvious (to me) right from the Budget in March, that this was not going to happen. Of course the spin at the time, accepted by most of the media, was of “big spending Rishi”.

I’m not sure when Boris figured out he was being played. Maybe not until very very recently.

JBriskin3 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

I didn't read it (although I did click to confirm the gist) but I assume it's very dry and for the PB crowd.

dixiedean said:

eek said:

rottenborough said:

Might be a vote on new social care amendments sneaked out by minister yesterday while everyone was rowing about sleaze.

With 100 2019 mainly Red Wall type MPs who now have less care of what whips tell them - this could be lost.

Be interesting to see if plans are pulled or Johnson tries to win the vote.

Let's be clear here it's the constituents of those 100 Red Wall seats who will be the biggest losers in the new scheme.

There aren't 100 Red Wall Tory seats. Unless your definition is anywhere north of Birmingham.

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

RochdalePioneers said:

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

I keep banging on about renewables but it is an area where we should be leading the world. We can and should be developing and building our own wind turbines and battery storage facilities for use here and export. Be developing and building our own Hydrogen from seawater processing plants for use here and export. Using the expertise and natural resources we have to make ourselves relevant and self-sufficient.

But we aren't. Because investment is communism, and takes longer than the next election. So actually still being ahead in the polls is actually Better for Britain than a viable long-term future actually.

Carnyx said:

kinabalu said:

LostPassword said:

kinabalu said:

Gardenwalker said:

Scott_xP said:

It’s very clear from listening to the prime minister that the rethink of the eastern leg of HS2 is all about the politics of a new trainline running through Tory seats in midlands without new stations. They’ve clearly been scarred by the first leg from London- Birmingham
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1461331841714167808

There is a “Midlands Engine” prospectus for new transport infrastructure which I presume will also never see the light of day.

There was nothing stopping Boris also funding that if he wanted to bribe those Tory seats.

No, Boris (and the country) has been fucked by Treasury and the Transport Ministry.

I’ll say it again, ex-London and the SE, U.K. economic performance is being overtaken by former Warsaw Pact countries.

My advice to young people living in the North is to move to London. Or perhaps better, just emigrate. This country doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to let you prosper.

Why can't a 'larger than life' PM with a landslide majority won substantially off the back of his own persona stand up to the Treasury?

Because he's never stood up to anyone in his life. He's always had someone to do the standing up for him. It was Gilligan for cycle lanes in London, Frost for Brexit, Cummings for various things, Bingham for vaccines.

It's clear he doesn't have anyone to drive through levelling-up, or infrastructure improvements, so it dies.

He's made the Gove appointment. I took that to be a sign of intent but maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

It's also a question whether he expects Mr Gove to succeed. And what the consequences might be for Mr Gove's career.

An interesting calculation - which now has to be redone.

Malmesbury said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

I keep banging on about renewables but it is an area where we should be leading the world. We can and should be developing and building our own wind turbines and battery storage facilities for use here and export. Be developing and building our own Hydrogen from seawater processing plants for use here and export. Using the expertise and natural resources we have to make ourselves relevant and self-sufficient.

But we aren't. Because investment is communism, and takes longer than the next election. So actually still being ahead in the polls is actually Better for Britain than a viable long-term future actually.

Hydrogen from water is a fools errand. Thermodynamic efficiency of electrolysis is appealing... So, unless you can do something interesting with catalysts.....

The problem is that if the government does investment it tends to pick using peanuts from West Africa to provide an alternative source of oil* Then spend all the money on that.

A better plan would restructure the financial incentives away from short term investment/financial engineering in the private sector and encourage longer term schemes with a slower payback.

*I actually pitched this one to an MP who seemed very keen on picking winners. So I thought he needed an idea. He was worryingly enthused.

Scott_xP said:

From this week's @spectator and @KateAndrs's Economics newsletter, out tomorrow morning. Sign up here: https://spectator.co.uk/the-economics-newsletter https://twitter.com/SpecCartoons/status/1461361989607821315/photo/1

NickPalmer said:

isam said:

Boris is still leading on Gross Positive Leader Ratings, but Sir Keir is in the lead on Net Satisfaction.

The problem with the satisfaction test is that the question conflates "I like X" with "I think X is being successful" (and sometimes a bit of "I want X to do badly so I'm satisfied that he's crap"). Thus good poll ratings for X can push up a "doing well" rating with no actual change in whether people think X is any good. And vice versa.

Best PM may be better, though that tends to have an incumbency bias, since it's easier to imagine a current PM as suitable for the job.

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

I keep banging on about renewables but it is an area where we should be leading the world. We can and should be developing and building our own wind turbines and battery storage facilities for use here and export. Be developing and building our own Hydrogen from seawater processing plants for use here and export. Using the expertise and natural resources we have to make ourselves relevant and self-sufficient.

But we aren't. Because investment is communism, and takes longer than the next election. So actually still being ahead in the polls is actually Better for Britain than a viable long-term future actually.

Hydrogen from water is a fools errand. Thermodynamic efficiency of electrolysis is appealing... So, unless you can do something interesting with catalysts.....

The problem is that if the government does investment it tends to pick using peanuts from West Africa to provide an alternative source of oil* Then spend all the money on that.

A better plan would restructure the financial incentives away from short term investment/financial engineering in the private sector and encourage longer term schemes with a slower payback.

*I actually pitched this one to an MP who seemed very keen on picking winners. So I thought he needed an idea. He was worryingly enthused.

At least it wasn't East Africa, with old Sherman tanks to provide the oomph.

Malmesbury said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

I keep banging on about renewables but it is an area where we should be leading the world. We can and should be developing and building our own wind turbines and battery storage facilities for use here and export. Be developing and building our own Hydrogen from seawater processing plants for use here and export. Using the expertise and natural resources we have to make ourselves relevant and self-sufficient.

But we aren't. Because investment is communism, and takes longer than the next election. So actually still being ahead in the polls is actually Better for Britain than a viable long-term future actually.

Hydrogen from water is a fools errand. Thermodynamic efficiency of electrolysis is appealing... So, unless you can do something interesting with catalysts.....

The problem is that if the government does investment it tends to pick using peanuts from West Africa to provide an alternative source of oil* Then spend all the money on that.

A better plan would restructure the financial incentives away from short term investment/financial engineering in the private sector and encourage longer term schemes with a slower payback.

*I actually pitched this one to an MP who seemed very keen on picking winners. So I thought he needed an idea. He was worryingly enthused.

Gardenwalker said:

JBriskin3 said:

Gardenwalker said:

JBriskin3 said:

Stuartinromford said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

MaxPB said:

I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate just how shit our media class is. Where is anyone asking these fucking questions of Rishi, why is the treasury using the same economic modelling that failed to predict the rise of the internet and halted our investment in fibre optic cabling in the early 2000s?

The media is full of innumerate twats who don’t do detail.

Did you know, BTW, Boris used to be a journalist?

Do you think a Treasury drone would be preferable to Boris?

Fair question.

Something I wish I understood about Sunak but don't;

Does he go along with Treasury penny pinching because he believes in it, or is he just too small in stature and ability to argue against it?

I wish he'd spent time running a spending department on the way up.

He didn't penny pinch at the last budget; he spent practically all the growth dividend didn't he?

1. No
2. What growth dividend

There definately was a growth dividend of IIRC about 3/4pc GDP for a year or two.

In case you didn’t notice, we had Covid and still haven’t recovered to pre-March 20 levels.

Talk of a dividend is Treasury spin.

eek said:

Malmesbury said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Nigelb said:

MaxPB said:

Final point on why we're all fucked by the Treasury's addiction to outdated models - they are unable to deal with the concept of making something where nothing previously existed. It's why we're in the slow lane for investment outside of a few specialist areas funded by the MoD budget (which the treasury has repeatedly tried to cut). If something is zero in a model it can't ever really amount to much more than that. We've failed to invest in the "zero" value places and "zero" value trade relationships because the treasury has deemed them unworthy by the models. It's a completely farcical way to run a country.

Today they have reasserted the dominance of this failed predictive model in the UK, we're all going to have to get used to it because Labour or Tory, the same wankers in the treasury pushing the same broken models will exist and the nation will be starved of any kind of investment beyond maintenance of what already exists and a few token bits here and there.

Fibre optic is the classic example of this, 20 years ago countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere were investing billions into fibre optic cabling despite the value of the internet and ecommerce being fairly low compared to where it is now. We had that opportunity but the same arseholes in the treasury blocked it because the multiplier on increasing the value of the internet was poor at the time. The bean counters can't see beyond their spreadsheets and the rubbish outputs they get from them. We're going to keep missing opportunities until someone goes in and sacks them all.

Electric vehicles another case in point.
S Korea, a smaller economy, will have perhaps a quarter of the world market for battery manufacturing.
One of their leading companies was an oil refiner until recently.

I keep banging on about renewables but it is an area where we should be leading the world. We can and should be developing and building our own wind turbines and battery storage facilities for use here and export. Be developing and building our own Hydrogen from seawater processing plants for use here and export. Using the expertise and natural resources we have to make ourselves relevant and self-sufficient.

But we aren't. Because investment is communism, and takes longer than the next election. So actually still being ahead in the polls is actually Better for Britain than a viable long-term future actually.

Hydrogen from water is a fools errand. Thermodynamic efficiency of electrolysis is appealing... So, unless you can do something interesting with catalysts.....

The problem is that if the government does investment it tends to pick using peanuts from West Africa to provide an alternative source of oil* Then spend all the money on that.

A better plan would restructure the financial incentives away from short term investment/financial engineering in the private sector and encourage longer term schemes with a slower payback.

*I actually pitched this one to an MP who seemed very keen on picking winners. So I thought he needed an idea. He was worryingly enthused.

But if you have an endless supply of electricity (when the wind blows) and nothing else it can be used for?

eek said:

Carnyx said:

eek said:

dixiedean said:

eek said:

rottenborough said:

Might be a vote on new social care amendments sneaked out by minister yesterday while everyone was rowing about sleaze.

With 100 2019 mainly Red Wall type MPs who now have less care of what whips tell them - this could be lost.

Be interesting to see if plans are pulled or Johnson tries to win the vote.

Let's be clear here it's the constituents of those 100 Red Wall seats who will be the biggest losers in the new scheme.

There aren't 100 Red Wall Tory seats. Unless your definition is anywhere north of Birmingham.

For the social care plan it really is - the numbers impacted per a constituency will be in the low 000s..

Yet remember how an earlier version did for Mrs May. Very sensitive issue.

Why do you think the impact is going to be a longer term - as I mentioned earlier.

The first time it will be really picked up on is when Martin Lewis looks at it and reports the obvious flaws.

dixiedean said:

ping said:

BigRich said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

who is David Herdson?

Used to post here (and write threads) frequently.

Very sharp punter and all round decent chap.

Yes. And formerly active in and extremely knowledgeable about the Conservative Party. Called the loss of majority the weekend before 2017 from his canvassing in Yorkshire.
Astonishing folk on here so much that a few suspected his account had been hacked.

dixiedean said:

ping said:

BigRich said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

who is David Herdson?

Used to post here (and write threads) frequently.

Very sharp punter and all round decent chap.

Yes. And formerly active in and extremely knowledgeable about the Conservative Party. Called the loss of majority the weekend before 2017 from his canvassing in Yorkshire.
Astonishing folk on here so much that a few suspected his account had been hacked.

Theuniondivvie said:

JosiasJessop said:

Theuniondivvie said:

If you can’t polish a turd, grow tomatoes from it.

https://twitter.com/kentindell/status/1461100613140467721?s=21

My dad did lots of work on sewage farms. Tomato plants were everywhere for this reason.

As far as I know he was never brave enough to pick any ...

As I may have mentioned my dad fought in the Korean War. Though he didn’t talk that much abut it, one thing he did say was that the whole country smelled of shit. Human excrement was the main fertiliser and it being a largely agricultural country, the reek was pervasive. Bully beef and tinned jam all round..

isam said:

dixiedean said:

ping said:

BigRich said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

who is David Herdson?

Used to post here (and write threads) frequently.

Very sharp punter and all round decent chap.

Yes. And formerly active in and extremely knowledgeable about the Conservative Party. Called the loss of majority the weekend before 2017 from his canvassing in Yorkshire.
Astonishing folk on here so much that a few suspected his account had been hacked.

He did, and people did think that. He also rowed back on the comment later that day

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

David Herdson has joined The Yorkshire Party.

https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1461360223369654273

You absolutely should join him. You could end up running it!

I don't have the time, I'm getting another promotion at work and I'm thinking of proposing next year.

But your county needs you.

I may well be living in Lancashire, if not Mordor Manchester itself at some point next year.

That might be a sticking point for some in the Yorkshire Party. LCCC membership may also be an issue.