I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
Another way this might end, is for a group of Conservative MPs to leave the whip in Parliament, so that Johnson is removed as PM by the House rather than as party leader by his party.
Unlikely, you'd think. But politics is ultimately personal, and within the Conservatives you can see that several of their internal bridges are already on fire.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
Mr. Sandpit, just so. But between Merkel's stupid energy policy, German addiction to Vlad's delicious gas, and the lingering remnant of war guilt, the Germans aren't exactly enthusiastic about such realpolitik.
Another way this might end, is for a group of Conservative MPs to leave the whip in Parliament, so that Johnson is removed as PM by the House rather than as party leader by his party.
But then, nobody saw the Western Roman Empire's collapse coming. And that was altogether more significant.
I suspect the EU will hang together and integrate more in the coming decades, before national and EU tensions erupt. Perhaps it won't. Perhaps it will become a country. Neither would be good for the UK.
The problem is that the French haven't quite come to terms with the fact that they are, increasingly, not running the EU. The EEC was created when they were the largest and most poor country in it. Now Germany is.
Germany hasn't got to the point of realising that commercial transactionality is a nice theory. But that the countries who see their interests being bought and sold don't see it that way. The EU will not work, even at the current level of integration, if the Eastern European countries think that they will be increasingly made part of Russia's "Sphere of Influence", against their will, because Germany prefers selling stuff to Russia,.
Another way this might end, is for a group of Conservative MPs to leave the whip in Parliament, so that Johnson is removed as PM by the House rather than as party leader by his party.
It says something for the lack of momentum in the feeble bid to oust the PM that we're discussing, once again, the UK-EU situation.
There's nowhere for any momentum to remove the PM to go, except to have achieved the deed.
It's an awkward situation now for the small number of MPs who have called for him to go and who haven't managed to convince enough of their colleagues of the urgency of the situation.
It will be interesting to see to what extent Johnson's polling numbers recover as this drifts into the rear view mirror. In part it will depend on how well the Opposition manage to tie any future issues into a question of lack of trust in the PM, "He can't identify a party when he sees one, so we shouldn't be surprised he doesn't recognise a cost of living crisis" sort of thing (but better, obviously).
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but the last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany. However, the Trussell Trust and others were (and I think still are) doing a good job of increasing the number.
But then, nobody saw the Western Roman Empire's collapse coming. And that was altogether more significant.
I suspect the EU will hang together and integrate more in the coming decades, before national and EU tensions erupt. Perhaps it won't. Perhaps it will become a country. Neither would be good for the UK.
The problem is that the French haven't quite come to terms with the fact that they are, increasingly, not running the EU. The EEC was created when they were the largest and most poor country in it. Now Germany is.
Germany hasn't got to the point of realising that commercial transactionality is a nice theory. But that the countries who see their interests being bought and sold don't see it that way. The EU will not work, even at the current level of integration, if the Eastern European countries think that they will be increasingly made part of Russia's "Sphere of Influence", against their will, because Germany prefers selling stuff to Russia,.
If the EU were to become a country, it’d mean Germany and France giving up power for a federalised Europe.
Tories actually increased their vote share in a Scottish by election in the current environment !
Labour (Elected) ~ 1793 (38.5%, -4.2) SNP ~ 1217 (26.2%, -1.4) Conservative ~ 1154 (24.8%, +0.7) Green ~ 231 (5.0%, +1.9) Lib Dem ~ 136 (2.9%, +0.5) Miller (Ind) ~ 122 (2.6%, new)
Again not what I would expect at all.
Clearly quite a stubborn Tory vote in East Lothian, in this case in middle class Longniddry, Labour was unable to squeeze the Tory vote in 2019 and 2021.
Still bodes well for Labour remaining the largest party in East Lothian however with remarkably small change all round on 2017, if the Tories are retaining representation in 4 member wards at the expense of the SNP.
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
Yes, and that is the essential stupidity of a soft Brexit. Either Remain, or accept true third nation status with respect to the EU with all the border paraphernalia that entails. Something that the Brexiteers still haven't got their heads around.
I was pointing out in 2016 that the first thing the UK needs to do is recruit customs and excise staff and build the physical and IT infrastructure. Instead Big Dog was asleep in his basket, dreaming of bones.
Pretty much agree there.
Mr Cameron prevented preparation, then walked away from his vow to see the process through.
Big Dog did not get power until the end of July 2019. Agree that he has been somewhat asleep however, even allowing for Covid.
Getting power in July 2019 is no excuse. The EU were willing to delay until we were ready. He rushed it not anybody else.
The EUs own rules prevented delay "until we were ready". IIRC it was must be decided before July 2020, and can only be done once.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
But then, nobody saw the Western Roman Empire's collapse coming. And that was altogether more significant.
I suspect the EU will hang together and integrate more in the coming decades, before national and EU tensions erupt. Perhaps it won't. Perhaps it will become a country. Neither would be good for the UK.
The problem is that the French haven't quite come to terms with the fact that they are, increasingly, not running the EU. The EEC was created when they were the largest and most poor country in it. Now Germany is.
Germany hasn't got to the point of realising that commercial transactionality is a nice theory. But that the countries who see their interests being bought and sold don't see it that way. The EU will not work, even at the current level of integration, if the Eastern European countries think that they will be increasingly made part of Russia's "Sphere of Influence", against their will, because Germany prefers selling stuff to Russia,.
If the EU were to become a country, it’d mean Germany and France giving up power for a federalised Europe.
…I cannot see that ever happening
I think that Germany *thinks* (in general political terms) that they have given up lots of power to the EU.
I agree that both will guard the structures that keep them as the er... big dogs of the EU for as long as they can.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
I just read the whole thing and it's extremely offensive. She's in a party funded by patriotic tax avoiders and brexit-supporting shitty employers, and she must know this as she meets them on a regular basis to ask them for money, yet she's decided to blame all this bad behaviour on people who aren't enthusiastic enough about waving the little flags. Boris is a lying scumbag but I'd take him over that.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Simply absurd, but I know on past form that I won't change your mind.
Peanuts compared to No such thing as society. Wilful misconstruction is sadly part of the game
See also Had enough of experts
Yes, the 'no such thing as society' misrepresentation was even more extraordinary, since Maggie was clearly saying the exact opposite of what she was portrayed as saying. It does seem to be a particularly unpleasant characteristic of the Left to twist things in this way and make an alternate history out of it to portray their opponents as villains.
The right thinks the left is misguided, the left thinks the right is evil.
Sadly too often true. Although in America both sides seem to want to consider the other side evil, and that's much worse.
I think we got to both sides evil when the Labour government was to be led by Jezbollah...
"Evil" and competent seems able to win elections. Not sure if nice but incompetent can.
Nice but competent, as people imho wrongly thought Tony Blair was in 1997, can win landslides.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
IIRC the biggest driver in foodbank demand was that the coalition lifted the Brown-era ban on the DWP referring benefit claimants to foodbanks.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
I guess it's one of those things where you pick up the spoken and unspoken rules as you go along, and there's a lot of scope for pockets of very different cultures perhaps by industry or by generation. What I've observed personally is that drinking at your desk would be a wtf moment, but going out for a pub lunch with one pint of beer on a Friday before coming back to work in the afternoon would not occasion comment; and an employer might occasionally arrange to bring in a barrel of beer or glasses of champagne for an afternoon "we don't expect you to work after this" celebration of a big deal or similar company achievement. I'd find somebody drinking-while-wfh surprising but not report-to-HR-worthy, I think.
Under my current contract of employment drinking alcohol while working is grounds for gross misconduct and instant dismissal, and we're hardly a company of teetotallers after working hours.
Company Christmas dinners have been on a Thursday evening with senior management casting around for people to drink with them until dawn, with the expectation that sick leave would be granted for those who'd fail a breath test the next day - but never drinking and working at the same time.
Therefore alcohol is a clear indicator of it being a social event, rather than a work event, and is why my reaction to that excuse was incredulity.
Not all employers operate the same though.
I've had jobs were alcohol was strictly banned at work, and other jobs were alcohol was allowed in moderation at work.
Getting drunk certainly could cause you to do things that would be gross misconduct in any job, but simply having a drink is absolutely not universally gross misconduct..
In my first job I had to do a huge amount of client entertaining - in December it could involve lunches and or dinners four days a week. Generally you would follow the mood of the client and gauge if it was going to be pissy or not but most of my clients and professional counterparts were raging alcoholics so was quite messy. So was social but also was work.
So it was accepted that drinking was part of work but drinking only happened on work premises after markets closed.
The one rule we had though was that if you weren’t back to your desk by 2.45 from a client lunch you didn’t come back - there was no negative reaction from on high as they applied the rule to themselves too but the reasoning was twofold - firstly that if you had gunned a bottle of wine then came back to the office inevitably you would be either loud and annoying or a little “tired” and so not great for colleagues. The second was that if you made an error after a few drinks it could be that the error would have happened if sober but wouldn’t look good if affected client had known or seen you drinking.
I believe things are very different now with drinking and entertaining but clearly in some workplaces and cultures it’s definitely considered an element of work……
I always book client lunches at 2.30pm or even 3pm if the restaurant allows. So there is no pressure on anyone to return to the office. You just have a great lunch, then go home.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
IIRC the biggest driver in foodbank demand was that the coalition lifted the Brown-era ban on the DWP referring benefit claimants to foodbanks.
The government lifted the ban on referring people on to foodbanks as soon as it came in, in 2010, first by using a voucher system. The spike in demand was in 2015.
Some years ago, before we had recycling collections at home, at Wor Lass's workplace there was a facility to recycle empty drinks cans. I had drunk a few tinnies at home, so asked her to take them in for recycling.
There then followed a major flap as the management thought that someone had been swigging cans of ale at work. She didn't say anything!
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
As an aside, in Ammianus Marcellinus' history I've just reached a part in which a talented man defects because court corruption is threatening him, putting the empire at great risk from those pesky Persians.
So the Council election in the ward next to me was close, Tories just got it - by 8 votes! Once again the non-Tory vote splits itself and lets them through the middle. Wonder what would've happened if the Yorkshire Party had stood.
Byram and Brotherton (Selby) council by-election result:
Isn't that ward based a pit village outside Castleford ?
Its traditionally been safe Labour and was won by them in 2015.
But its a local byelection in winter.
Used to be Fairburn and Brotherton until 2015 when it changed to Brotherton with Byram. Fairburn was the pit village, mine now a nature reserve. Back in the day of course there were pits all around Selby.
Interesting mix as northern_monkey suggests. Selby District council is blue, map here shows the distribution of seats. Skewed of course as a lot of the blue is the rural bits with fewer people.
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
As and when there is any sign at all of this government going off signing new enhanced trade deals I would consider the point. There isn't. In Liz We Trust has copy pasted existing deals. The only "new" deal massively favours Australia in 15 years should it ever get implemented which it won't. Nor are there any prospects of major trading partners like Japan or America granting us new enhanced trade deals - we've openly been told to stick it.
The whole point about trade is that you form a block and negotiate en masse. The EU trade deals were better than anything we can realistically hope for because the EU is bigger than the GB. As we're now finding out.
Our post Brexit trade policy is scarcely a policy. It’s purely tactical, across the board. Looking for little wins that will impress the voters (or backbenchers) rather than any long term strategic direction that will make the country fertile ground for investment, or have a noticeable impact on consumers.
In fact the whole Brexit realignment so far has been net bad news for consumers. Not disastrous, and outweighed by other problems caused by Covid, but not positive.
The trouble is the downsides are boring. Somewhat reduced choice in retail. Traffic jams of stationary lorries in Kent. Increased costs and back office paperwork for businesses. It’s bad, but boring. So almost completely absent from media. Downing st parties, a pandemic and Russian aggression are all much more exciting.
The impact analysis by the Government on the Australian trade deal is interesting. It concedes that British agriculture will be damaged, but estimates overall that the economy will benefit by a tiny amount (0.08%) - because farming is a small industry in Britain, selling more whisky and financial products outweighs selling less British beef. But it's an odd decision by a Tory government to encourage a drift further away from farming and food security. The report is here - you have to read the whole executive summary to spot the downsides for farming:
It is, I think, true that Liz Truss saw her sole KPI as "sign several trade deals", and any benefit is hard to spot. Most of them have been rollovers from the EU, with the Australian and NZ deals the first to have at least a little significant content. Next up is probably a deal with the GCC (Saudi etc.).
I think a further element of the Oz deal missed by some are trade in services.
Serious question: @NickPalmer do you know why the Govt remain adamant about their claim that Hormone Treated Beef will still be excluded? Are they relying on a "no backward steps in welfare" provision in the Agreement?
Some sources (eg Indy) question that: No 10 has refused to guarantee that a ban on hormone-injected beef will remain in place in the trade deal with Australia, set to be sealed within weeks.
others support it (eg Countryside Online). Any substances and practices currently banned in the UK on food safety grounds will currently not be allowed into the UK. So, for example, while hormone-reared beef is produced in Australia it will not be imported into the UK as a result of this deal.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
I'd rather people rely on food banks than go to payday lenders. Neither should be considered as "good" though one is definitely much less bad than the other.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No, and the government changed this in around 2012. It was partly, though, because despite the public rhetoric on charities and the big society, they were worried that it was bringing too many people directly to foodbanks. The new system of indirect referrals was actually supposed to be more distant.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the first and biggest expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out at job centres.
Which is absolutely a better situation for those people than either going hungry or having to go to a payday lender to afford the weekly shop.
Yes, there shouldn't be a situation where people are unable to afford to buy food, it is lamentable that in the UK working people are often left with rubbish choices such as paying for the electricity bill or paying for food, yet I'd rather these people in that situation were able to go to a foodbank than be forced to borrow money from pay day lenders.
Even if we have policies to solve the wider issue, it isn't going to happen overnight, foodbanks are absolutely the right short to medium term solution while society figures out how to eliminate low pay.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
Precisely. The continuing efforts to rewrite history and blame the pig's breakfast we have now on anyone other than the fools in the Conservative and Unionist Party who delivered it are laughable. May's Citizens of Nowhere speech (probably the only speech in my lifetime that gets raised regularly in casual conversation among non political types) closed off the soft Brexit route. As did the Tory whipping against those options in the Commons votes. It is nobody else's fault.
The way that May's 'Citizens' of Nowhere' speech has been traduced and misrepresented is one of the most extraordinary feature of the of politics of the last decade. You obviously haven't read it, but you have strong views about it.
It's not even principally about Brexit, but here's what she actually said about the relationship with the EU:
It is, of course, too early to say exactly what agreement we will reach with the EU. It’s going to be a tough negotiation, it will require some give and take. And while there will always be pressure to give a running commentary, it will not be in our national interest to do so.
But let me be clear about the agreement we seek. I want it to reflect the strong and mature relationships we enjoy with our European friends. I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work. I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services.
I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within the Single Market – and let European businesses do the same here.
But let’s state one thing loud and clear: we are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration all over again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That’s not going to happen.
There's no closing off there, quite the opposite. She was genuinely trying to find a route which respected the referendum result but kept trade frictions to a minimum. It was of course a hugely difficult circle to square, and she failed in the end, thanks to the 2017 election disaster and Labour joining the ERG in torpedoing any compromise, but she was certainly trying hard.
And the 'citizens of nowhere' phrase was about tax evaders and irresponsible employers, but was seized upon by the Guardian-reading classes and twisted into something which bore no relation to what she was saying.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I've done work while intoxicated before.
Posting on PB isn’t work Phil!
I thought he had changed names here as he did not to use his real life name.
It is straightforward courtesy to respect that request.
No, and the government changed this in around 2012. It was partly, though, because despite the public rhetoric on charities and the big society, they were worried that it was bringing too many people directly to foodbanks. The new system of indirect referrals was actually supposed to be more distant.
And not all food banks require a referral of any kind.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
I agree with your main point, but AUIU the Reeves policy is simply to make sure that the 1.25% extra "income tax" (effectively) for health and social care is borne on unearned income as well as earned income - which seems pretty just. It wouldn't have any impact on income received by pension funds because they aren't within scope of the taxes that would be affected. As for rents rising, that seems pretty unlikely (as far as I know, the restriction of mortgage interest relief on personally-owned BTLs has not been shown to have a significant impact on rents, and for a normally-leveraged property it has a far bigger impact on tax cost than a 1.25% rate increase would).
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Yep. Got my notification from EDF yesterday. My fixed rate is coming to an end. Currently my electricity is costing me £152 a month. If I move onto the variable rate that goes up to£206 a month but with the risk of higher prices. The best fixed rate deal they are offering is £310 a month
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
This is nonsense, as I've mentioned, but I know I'm not going to change your mind.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
Agreed. Lord Heseltine having helpfully offered up his Henley seat to Boris in 2001, has now offered to shore up Boris just a week before a likely VONC by suggesting removing Boris as PM would offer an opportunity to reconsider Brexit
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
The citizen of nowhere speech was very ill judged, at least coming from a Tory. Loads of my European friends felt the same way as you describe - they said the PM was making them feel unwelcome in the UK. Happily none of them left because ultimately they know they aren't but I can understand why they felt that way. I'm sure they weren't the targets of her speech but it was poorly worded and it came across as extremely parochial. I don't think Boris would give the same speech, even forgetting the last couple of years where his speech making ability has clearly dwindled.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
Wow, that's an even more bonkers misrepresentation than the standard one! Bravo!
I had a former editor of Labour List (not Dolly) fall over his own feet on that one.
He had been imbued with the Thatcher not believing in society myth by endless repetition to the extent that he so believed it he had never bothered to check the speech. Embarrassing.
That's one reason why the Momentum-schtick does not work for long.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
First Scottish voting intention poll of 2022 is by Savanta ComRes for the Scotsman (14-18 January; sample size=1,004)
The only statistically significant change from their last poll, in October, is a 4 point drop in SCon VI for the regional list vote, enough to cost several MSPs their jobs, as nearly all the parliamentary group come from the lists.
It is notable that VI in Scotland remains steady and predictable, whereas we have seen huge changes in VI in England, N Ireland and Wales. The Union rarely marches in step these days.
Douglas Ross has played a blinder. As the English Tories sink like a stone, the wily football linesman keeps the Unionists’ heads above water.
No still at 50% despite PM Boris and despite Brexit. I was sure Nationalists were telling us all that meant Yes would be on 60%+ by now? Even more reason to respect the once in a generation 2014 vote
So your back to the respect the once in a generation stuff? Doesn’t apply to a Tory party that will always block Indy ref II according to one little Vlad supporter.
OT getting a few malware/spam texts purporting to be from NHS Tracing. Luckily they address me by the wrong name to make it easy to spot. A less cynical soul might assume someone had signed up with my mobile number but the password reset text was a bit naughty. Be careful out there.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
Well, if a whole roomful of people thought they fell into one of these categories:
So if you’re a boss who earns a fortune but doesn’t look after your staff…
An international company that treats tax laws as an optional extra…
A household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism…
A director who takes out massive dividends while knowing that the company pension is about to go bust…
.. then I guess it must have been a pretty extraordinary roomful, but it doesn't alter the plain meaning of what she said.
Devastated today that my rock hero Meatloaf has died. His songs were just magnificent and his dramatic gothic style performances of them just unbeatable. The west end musical "bat out of hell" is by far the best I have seen as well. My former CEO and me once had argument over who was best -Queen or Meatloaf and I just could comprehend how anyone can think Queen (decent enough ) is better than Meatloaf especially when most of the other Senior managers also agreed with him (maybe they were just brownnosing a bit but I think they genuinely believed what they said !)
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
One interesting aspect is certainly the 2011-2012 increase. That may be the one caused by the 2010 voucher referrals scheme which caused the government to then change the system ; there was actually some embarassment at the numbers using foodbanks in government circles, so it was actually made more indirect after that.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
This is nonsense, as I've mentioned, but I know I'm not going to change your mind.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You need to adjust for foodbank supply, though. I haven't looked recently, but last time I looked we had nowhere near the number of foodbanks of those Thatcherite, low-welfare dystopias France and Germany, but the Trussell Trust and others were doing a good job of increasing the number.
Cameron changed various rules, but there was no sudden increase in foodbank supply in that specific period of the Coalition. At the same period, there was also a rise in homelessness and other social indicators, as discussed many times before on here.
That may be, but anyone who points to figures on the number of foodbank users and/or parcels supplied, without taking account of the expansion of availability, is being deliberately misleading.
As mentioned though, the key expansion of availability to people was actually in 2010, when the government first started allowing vouchers for foodbanks to be handed out from job centres.
No it wasn't, look at the first graph here (Trussell ones only, but a good proxy for the total number):
The first round of welfare cuts, with a look-up seeming to have confirmed this, were actually in 2013. This graph gives homes in on the picture of that particular period, emphasising the huge growth between 2013 and 2015.
Food bank use is capped by food bank supply, not food bank demand.
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
This is nonsense, as I've mentioned, but I know I'm not going to change your mind.
How is it nonsense?
Do you think that pre-2013 the food banks were receiving donations that they were binning as they had nobody demanding it?
Don't be ridiculous. Supply has always been the limiter for charity, not demand.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
I agree with your main point, but AUIU the Reeves policy is simply to make sure that the 1.25% extra "income tax" (effectively) for health and social care is borne on unearned income as well as earned income - which seems pretty just. It wouldn't have any impact on income received by pension funds because they aren't within scope of the taxes that would be affected. As for rents rising, that seems pretty unlikely (as far as I know, the restriction of mortgage interest relief on personally-owned BTLs has not been shown to have a significant impact on rents, and for a normally-leveraged property it has a far bigger impact on tax cost than a 1.25% rate increase would).
It is true that all taxes have a good and bad effect but if you add a further tax buy to let there will be an inevitable rise in rents to defray the extra tax
I am waiting to hear details of labours wealth tax which I assume will hit Londoners and overpaid footballers hardest
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Turn on the old lignite burners like Germany? No thanks. We've already trashed the planet enough.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
I agree with your main point, but AUIU the Reeves policy is simply to make sure that the 1.25% extra "income tax" (effectively) for health and social care is borne on unearned income as well as earned income - which seems pretty just. It wouldn't have any impact on income received by pension funds because they aren't within scope of the taxes that would be affected. As for rents rising, that seems pretty unlikely (as far as I know, the restriction of mortgage interest relief on personally-owned BTLs has not been shown to have a significant impact on rents, and for a normally-leveraged property it has a far bigger impact on tax cost than a 1.25% rate increase would).
Context: It's had significant effect on how many BTLs are now owned by companies. Especially amongst medium sized portfolios. There's been a polarisation as the Osborne measures have driven a polarisation.
The number that have low % of mortgage, or have mortgages paid off, is a further impact, which has reduced the resources available for investment in improving housing.
I'd say that "huge energy bills for two years" is mainly industry scaremongering.
Rebel Tory MPs, known as the "pork pie plotters", are considering publishing a secretly recorded "heated" exchange with the government chief whip, according to reports.
As The Sun pointed out in its brilliant pie chart that was actually a pie, the plotters can’t cut the mustard. 😆
We have to admit Z, the putsch is log jammed, unable to call vonc because nowhere near numbers to win vonc. It’s turned out there is too much support for Boris still, everywhere, cabinet, back benches, certainly in the media.
Maybe beyond Norman manufacturing the partygate media shitshow a lot of the underlying Boris is still very strong? Economy not tanking, Brexit delivered, covid beaten ahead rest of world, levelling up ongoing - means he is still just to strong to topple, at least this end of 2022?
That’s my assessment, that’s where I think we are.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Yep. Got my notification from EDF yesterday. My fixed rate is coming to an end. Currently my electricity is costing me £152 a month. If I move onto the variable rate that goes up to£206 a month but with the risk of higher prices. The best fixed rate deal they are offering is £310 a month
I was with Green Networks who went our of business in the summer and EDF took over and to be fair continued with their tariff until Ist September when I decided to take quite an increase to fix for two years and it turns out to have been inspired as only a few weeks later the prices exploded
I really do not know the answer and this is not just a UK problem it is likely to trigger a global recession
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
Wow, that's an even more bonkers misrepresentation than the standard one! Bravo!
I had a former editor of Labour List (not Dolly) fall over his own feet on that one.
He had been imbued with the Thatcher not believing in society myth by endless repetition to the extent that he so believed it he had never bothered to check the speech. Embarrassing.
That's one reason why the Momentum-schtick does not work for long.
Older PBers may recall a time when Tories routinely denied Mrs Thatcher had ever said "there's no such thing as society". Perhaps they were misled by lefties; perhaps they were gaslighting us. Since the text was made available on the web, they put a kinder spin on it.
For me the more interesting part is that Mrs Thatcher expected the people she was enriching to become generous philanthropists, and was said to be disappointed later when it did not happen.
I'm surprised that Johnson is being allowed to get away with this crap ...the most successful roll out anywhere .... 'the best vaccine program'... 'The best track and trace'....'the best economy in the G20' ....'The best recovery....The most sought after destination blah blah blah...."
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
I watched her make the speech live on the trading floor at work. It went down like a bucket of cold sick with everyone - lots of foreigners, also Brits, probably a net tax contribution in the tens of millions between them, they all felt like the line was directed at them personally. Mostly not Guardian readers, believe me. People still talk about it, refer to themselves as Citizens of Nowhere. Maybe that's not what May meant, in which case it was very poorly communicated. If you really want these people to fuck off, fine. But they are paying for all the stuff that Red Wall Brexit voters say they want.
Oh, it was clumsily worded, to be sure. She's not a great communicator. That doesn't alter the fact that it's been completely misrepresented.
The point is it isn't being misrepresented. I saw it live and my impression of her meaning was formed then, not because Polly Toynbee has misrepresented it to me later on. Now maybe I have misinterpreted it, but if a whole room full of people watched the speech and all took the meaning from it that the government despised them then I think you have to ask yourself whose fault that is. Hint: It's not the fault of the Guardian.
Well, if a whole roomful of people thought they fell into one of these categories:
So if you’re a boss who earns a fortune but doesn’t look after your staff…
An international company that treats tax laws as an optional extra…
A household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism…
A director who takes out massive dividends while knowing that the company pension is about to go bust…
.. then I guess it must have been a pretty extraordinary roomful, but it doesn't alter the plain meaning of what she said.
It was the line "But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means." May's meaning there is abundantly clear.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Its not 'orders' They were'nt ordered to bring drinks etc. It was the culture that was set. And that does come partly from the top, but also the civil service. In this country we don't replace the civil service when a new PM or party takes over. This continuity is seen as good in many ways, but it seem to me that some of the culture failings have come from the civil service and not just the government.
I'm really struggling to understand how much of a cultural failing having a drink at your desk is. In lots of political comedies/dramas like West Wing/Yes, Minister etc senior people having alcohol in their office is not noteworthy. And throughout the pandemic many people were drinking at home while working.
Illegal parties etc absolutely are contemptible. But legal and tolerated drinking at your desk, for people who aren't operating heavy machinery or working on a frontline and where its allowed . . . I'm really struggling to see what the issue is.
I've done work while intoxicated before.
Posting on PB isn’t work Phil!
I thought he had changed names here as he did not to use his real life name.
It is straightforward courtesy to respect that request.
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I can sympathise with your friends because I felt much the same when I voted for him, but that was for MAyor of London, a largely ceremonial post and the alternative was a discredited Ken Livingstone.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Devastated today that my rock hero Meatloaf has died. His songs were just magnificent and his dramatic gothic style performances of them just unbeatable. The west end musical "bat out of hell" is by far the best I have seen as well. My former CEO and me once had argument over who was best -Queen or Meatloaf and I just could comprehend how anyone can think Queen (decent enough ) is better than Meatloaf especially when most of the other Senior managers also agreed with him (maybe they were just brownnosing a bit but I think they genuinely believed what they said !)
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
Wow, that's an even more bonkers misrepresentation than the standard one! Bravo!
I had a former editor of Labour List (not Dolly) fall over his own feet on that one.
He had been imbued with the Thatcher not believing in society myth by endless repetition to the extent that he so believed it he had never bothered to check the speech. Embarrassing.
That's one reason why the Momentum-schtick does not work for long.
Older PBers may recall a time when Tories routinely denied Mrs Thatcher had ever said "there's no such thing as society". Perhaps they were misled by lefties; perhaps they were gaslighting us. Since the text was made available on the web, they put a kinder spin on it.
For me the more interesting part is that Mrs Thatcher expected the people she was enriching to become generous philanthropists, and was said to be disappointed later when it did not happen.
Thatcher wanted them to behave like her dad, but enabled them to behave like her son. One of the more convincing arguments against socialism is that it's naive about human nature, but arguably Thatcher was equally naive.
I honestly don't know what is misconstrued about "There's no such thing as society" interview.
Shes whinging about people skiving on the dole, her meaning is pretty clear.
If you read the speech, she was talking about a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect, where people think that "This problem is going to be fixed by Society*, not me".
*As in some remote, amorphous organisation that exists completely separately from the population at large.
That is what some people on the left want though it seems. A perfect example is food banks.
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
This is complete nonsense. Foodbank demand exploded in 2014-15, immediately after the first round of welfare cuts
You're looking at it completely backwards
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Celebrating widespread reliance on foodbanks?
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
No, celebrating widespread availability of foodbanks.
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
So your policy objective is food banks all over the place but nobody using them?
Basic economics says the demand for free is infinite. There will always be demand.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
You've never been to a food bank. Or spoken to people who use food banks. Or the people who run food banks.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
Its a major problem with no quick or cheap or easy fix. We handed over energy policy to PLCs who shockingly enough delivered best value for their shareholders and didn't think about the strategic national interest.
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
On the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.
Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.
The furies are now descending upon this prime minister. Having thoroughly chewed him up and digested every last point of polling advantage, the party he led to its first serious majority in 30 years is about to spit him out; the very MPs who most directly owe him their seats are plotting his demise. The obit already being written is about how one man, beset by monstrous flaws of character, presided over a rotten, insensate culture in Downing Street. Scarcely a word is said about how a rotten political culture chose this cracked actor to be prime minister in the first place.
That last line is completely incorrect. Quite a lot of words were said about why Tory MPs chose him and, when the GE came, about the alternative on offer and why, faced with him, voters chose this manifestly unsuitable person to lead the country.
The attraction of Boris to some of my friends was that he was "not a normal politician" he was "different" and (God help us) "a bit of a laugh". They wanted a change from the weasley ways of politics and they definitely got a change!
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
I can sympathise with your friends because I felt much the same when I voted for him, but that was for MAyor of London, a largely ceremonial post and the alternative was a discredited Ken Livingstone.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
Yes - the Labour madness with Corbyn was a big part of this. It underscores the importance of the LOTO
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
There are solutions - bring on more generating capacity would be a good start. Are there any mothballed power stations that run on coal or oil to act as a stop gap.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Talking of coal or oil as stop gap creates the vapours with the green lobby, hence why the Cambo oilfield is in difficulty
Politics is about choices. And choices have consequences.
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in
Can you identify any western country who is doing that
Much as it galls me to say it but any hint of a new relationship with the EU which brings back FoM let alone a full rejoin is probably the best way to shore up Boris's leadership or ensure a hard-line replacement. It will also likely to shore up the Tory vote considerably.
Why galled? Are you a supporter of FOM?
I'm ambivalent - living in Spain I get the advantages but I understand the issue for some in the UK. The problem is the UK benefits system is generous compared to many EU countries. Had the EU been more flexible to take account of these matters a major reason for the vote to leave would have gone.
Comments
In the Labour days food banks etc were heavily restricted and what wasn't very restricted was legalised loan sharks like Wonga etc
David Cameron reversed that. The restrictions on food banks were lifted and restrictions were put on for the loan sharks.
As a result the loan sharks went out of business and the food banks have thrived. Instead of celebrating that, the left bemoans the rise of food banks instead of celebrating them as a success of people donating what they can spare to help others rather than forcing others to go to loan sharks instead as they had to under Blair and Brown.
Unlikely, you'd think. But politics is ultimately personal, and within the Conservatives you can see that several of their internal bridges are already on fire.
Germany hasn't got to the point of realising that commercial transactionality is a nice theory. But that the countries who see their interests being bought and sold don't see it that way. The EU will not work, even at the current level of integration, if the Eastern European countries think that they will be increasingly made part of Russia's "Sphere of Influence", against their will, because Germany prefers selling stuff to Russia,.
It's an awkward situation now for the small number of MPs who have called for him to go and who haven't managed to convince enough of their colleagues of the urgency of the situation.
It will be interesting to see to what extent Johnson's polling numbers recover as this drifts into the rear view mirror. In part it will depend on how well the Opposition manage to tie any future issues into a question of lack of trust in the PM, "He can't identify a party when he sees one, so we shouldn't be surprised he doesn't recognise a cost of living crisis" sort of thing (but better, obviously).
…I cannot see that ever happening
Still bodes well for Labour remaining the largest party in East Lothian however with remarkably small change all round on 2017, if the Tories are retaining representation in 4 member wards at the expense of the SNP.
I agree that both will guard the structures that keep them as the er... big dogs of the EU for as long as they can.
Food bank demand is limited by food bank supply. The demand for free food is essentially infinite, what is not infinite is generosity and people choosing to give.
Also 2015 is when Wonga started losing instead of making money.
So yes the two are intrinsically linked. The regulations on food banks were eased and thus people started giving to them more, so people started demanding from them more, which is a virtuous rather than vicious circle.
The regulations on Wonga etc were tightened, so the likes of Wonga weren't the free cash making machines preying on the vulnerable that they were under Brown.
You should be celebrating 2014/15 seeing food banks replace Wonga not bemoaning it.
Nice but competent, as people imho wrongly thought Tony Blair was in 1997, can win landslides.
Some years ago, before we had recycling collections at home, at Wor Lass's workplace there was a facility to recycle empty drinks cans. I had drunk a few tinnies at home, so asked her to take them in for recycling.
There then followed a major flap as the management thought that someone had been swigging cans of ale at work. She didn't say anything!
Orwellian right wing Doublespeak.
Interesting mix as northern_monkey suggests. Selby District council is blue, map here shows the distribution of seats. Skewed of course as a lot of the blue is the rural bits with fewer people.
Serious question: @NickPalmer do you know why the Govt remain adamant about their claim that Hormone Treated Beef will still be excluded? Are they relying on a "no backward steps in welfare" provision in the Agreement?
We have secured a dedicated chapter on animal welfare. This includes a non-regression clause, which means both countries are committed to not lowering their animal welfare standards for the purpose of encouraging trade.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041372/uk-australia-free-trade-agreement-fta-agri-food-explainer.pdf
Some sources (eg Indy) question that:
No 10 has refused to guarantee that a ban on hormone-injected beef will remain in place in the trade deal with Australia, set to be sealed within weeks.
others support it (eg Countryside Online).
Any substances and practices currently banned in the UK on food safety grounds will currently not be allowed into the UK. So, for example, while hormone-reared beef is produced in Australia it will not be imported into the UK as a result of this deal.
Looking at the docs, it's going to take hours and hours to find.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/free-trade-agreement-between-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-australia
Do you happen to have a briefing as to what it actually says?
Yes, there shouldn't be a situation where people are unable to afford to buy food, it is lamentable that in the UK working people are often left with rubbish choices such as paying for the electricity bill or paying for food, yet I'd rather these people in that situation were able to go to a foodbank than be forced to borrow money from pay day lenders.
Even if we have policies to solve the wider issue, it isn't going to happen overnight, foodbanks are absolutely the right short to medium term solution while society figures out how to eliminate low pay.
https://citizen-network.org/library/uk-food-banks-in-2019.html
It is straightforward courtesy to respect that request.
Senior civil servant says - yes.
"We’ve all let standards slip... I think the blatant lies come from the political side, more than us." 😬
New from @e_casalicchio 👇
https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnsons-uk-covid19-downing-street/
I wonder if after Boris, being a "normal" politician will be an electoral advantage?
People will always run into hard times. When they do it is better to have foodbanks than Wonga, theft or starvation.
I hope and expect Boris to be asked to resign by the 1922 next week and ultimately it will be his character flaws that will finally catch up with him
However, I shall always be grateful to Boris for Brexit and while mistakes were made his management of covid generally was good
I would just say that I thought I would check my energy deal which I signed with EDF on 1st September 2021 for 2 years
I know energy prices have increased since, but I was actually warned not to change as the cheapest deal available today is £1,366 pa more or twice my monthly direct debit,
I showed my wife the figures and she was dumbfounded and simply asked how on earth are people meant to pay, especially those on low or modest incomes. Sunak and Reeves can offer help on the margins but to defray this cost will cost many tens of billions of pounds and over the next two years
Reeves is talking of raising money by taxing buy to lets and investment/shares but that will only see increases in rents and lower returns on pension funds
None of this is easy for any government and as some say, (though I do not agree) the next election is a good one to lose
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/22/food-bank-users-uk-low-paid-workers-poverty
So that there was a huge explosion of supply between 2013 and 2015 is because people were feeling generous and able to help, not because of problems creating demand.
The demand was always there, but until the supply was there it was sated by the likes of Wonga or even less reputable loan sharks or pawn shops etc
But there does seem to the same old issues on standards bubbling beneath the surface. The claims made by backbenchers re. Whips, the Sue Gray report..
If not now, when? I cannot see the PM recovering from the current perceptions around his leadership. So the tories March bravely toward failure? Hmmm
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-resign-brexit-heseltine-b1997429.html
He had been imbued with the Thatcher not believing in society myth by endless repetition to the extent that he so believed it he had never bothered to check the speech. Embarrassing.
That's one reason why the Momentum-schtick does not work for long.
But yes food banks all over the place is fantastic. The more the merrier, let people give what they can afford to give so that those in need can get from those who have something to spare.
What is bad about that in your eyes?
So if you’re a boss who earns a fortune but doesn’t look after your staff…
An international company that treats tax laws as an optional extra…
A household name that refuses to work with the authorities even to fight terrorism…
A director who takes out massive dividends while knowing that the company pension is about to go bust…
.. then I guess it must have been a pretty extraordinary roomful, but it doesn't alter the plain meaning of what she said.
You know... actually DO something rather than worry about whose pocket to pick to have money to hose around
Do you think that pre-2013 the food banks were receiving donations that they were binning as they had nobody demanding it?
Don't be ridiculous. Supply has always been the limiter for charity, not demand.
I am waiting to hear details of labours wealth tax which I assume will hit Londoners and overpaid footballers hardest
A very sharp operator, who would have established a lasting dynasty had he had a single worthy successor (Alexander was a good man but lacked steel).
That isn't what the coronavirus figures show. We have the sixth biggest death toll in the world and a bigger death toll than any country in the EU.
What exactly have we done that makes us the best?
I went to Chester two days ago and there were more rough sleepers than I've even seen in Barcelona. It was back to the dark days of Thatcher when you couldn't pass a doorway in the West End without stepping over a cardboard box with someone sleeping in it.
Well done Rory!
Meatloaf wrote to the PM when I was at No 10 -& pen in hand a moments discussion was had if the reply should be signed
Dear Meatloaf
Dear Mr loaf
Dear Meat
Dear Meaty
or name
Dear Marvin
😂
https://twitter.com/RTHondavehanson/status/1484448103935934465
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60080934
We don't have enough power generation capacity. We don't have the ability to build more capacity as we can't build things like nuclear power stations or wind turbines and we don't have the fuel for the ones we have.
So we're stuck, paying £lots on the global energy markets with few options available.
The number that have low % of mortgage, or have mortgages paid off, is a further impact, which has reduced the resources available for investment in improving housing.
I'd say that "huge energy bills for two years" is mainly industry scaremongering.
We have to admit Z, the putsch is log jammed, unable to call vonc because nowhere near numbers to win vonc. It’s turned out there is too much support for Boris still, everywhere, cabinet, back benches, certainly in the media.
Maybe beyond Norman manufacturing the partygate media shitshow a lot of the underlying Boris is still very strong? Economy not tanking, Brexit delivered, covid beaten ahead rest of world, levelling up ongoing - means he is still just to strong to topple, at least this end of 2022?
That’s my assessment, that’s where I think we are.
I really do not know the answer and this is not just a UK problem it is likely to trigger a global recession
For me the more interesting part is that Mrs Thatcher expected the people she was enriching to become generous philanthropists, and was said to be disappointed later when it did not happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country
Germany and the USA have more homeless than the UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population
May's meaning there is abundantly clear.
When we look back at Boris's career we should never overlook the part Labour played in offering up unacceptable alternatives.
Demand is not infinite. The profound shame that so many users feel having to resort to using them means that demand is far from infinite.
Nor is having a lot of food banks in your area something to celebrate. They are a physical demonstration of a society that has gone very wrong, especially with so many people with jobs still having to shame themselves using them as their wages do not pay the bills.
Is a food bank better than a loan shark? Yes. In the same way that losing your leg below the knee is better than losing it below the hip. In no way is people having to beg for charity to survive "fantastic".
They could bring old dirty capacity back on line for (say) 5 years to stop people starving or freezing whilst getting green solutions rolled out.
Wittering in public will not help anyone. Sometimes you actually have to put the work in