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Andrew totally dominates the front pages – politicalbetting.com
Andrew totally dominates the front pages – politicalbetting.com
It is not often that one story totally dominates the front pages and this morning the deal that Prince Andrew did to put an end to the sex assault claims is all over all the papers. Only the Times does not make it the lead story.
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Stripping Andrew of the Dukedom would be an interesting betting market.
Chances of it happening under Charles? Quite high I would say.
The Queen has done a lot for this country but much must change after she dies. There have clearly been some terrible mistakes (e.g. Diana, Camilla, Andrew). A drastically pared down monarchy might help them survive but, really, the whole institution is quite ridiculous. As is the honours system.
https://twitter.com/RepublicStaff/status/1493586909762891785
Glad for the Queen it’s all sorted though, now it’s just Harry to sort out before the jubilee.
Funky fact - the last person to inherit the Dukedom of York from his father was killed at Agincourt. The title then went to his nephew, who rebelled against Henry VI and was attainted on his death at the Battle of Wakefield. Since then every creation has merged with the Crown or just died out.
If he’d stuck to tossing there would be much less of a problem.
Quite windy weather today.
February 4th: BoE boss Bailey calls for wage restraint to control inflation
https://www.cityam.com/boe-boss-bailey-calls-for-wage-restraint-to-control-inflation/
This morning: ‘We’ve had a run on champagne:’ Biggest UK banker bonuses since financial crash
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/16/weve-had-a-run-on-champagne-biggest-uk-banker-bonuses-since-financial-crash
Tovey, who uses his car to commute to work, has seen the cost of diesel rise sharply and is concerned that his pay packet will not keep up with the surge in gas and electricity bills due in April. “I’m quite fearful of how I’m going to manage,” he said.
He said it felt as if NHS staff had been ignored despite being on the frontline of the pandemic. “I worked through three waves, and they stood on their doorsteps and clapped, but they’re taking food away from our tables, really.”
Having gone to university to become a nurse, Tovey says he probably earns more than other people but is still struggling. “It feels like if I’ve worked hard and gone into a profession to better myself, and I’m in this position, how the hell are other people coping?
“It impacts on your mental health, there’s nowhere to turn. You’re caught between a rock and a hard place and you wonder, when are we going to have a break?”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/15/when-will-we-have-a-break-the-cost-of-growing-inflation
This week British bankers will start collecting the biggest bonuses since before the 2008 global financial crisis as their employers fight an “increasingly intense war for talent”.
As most Britons face the biggest squeeze on their incomes since at least 1990, already very highly paid bankers are celebrating “particularly obscene” bonuses in the City’s pubs and wine bars.
“We have had quite the run on champagne – the poshest champagne we stock,” says James, a bartender at the New Moon on the streets of Leadenhall Market near the headquarters of many of the City of London’s banks. “They come here to celebrate when they get told their ‘number’ – the numbers seem to have been particularly obscene this year.”
...
The bumper bonuses will tip several hundred more UK bankers into the EU’s “high earners” warning report which details every banker earning more than €1m (£835,000) a year. The European Banking Authority (EBA) found that 3,519 bankers working in the UK earned more than €1m-a-year last year – more than seven times as many as those working in Germany which has the second highest number of €1m-a-year bankers.
The EBA figures show 27 UK bankers earned more than €10m in 2019 (the latest year available). Two UK-based asset managers were paid between €38m and €39m, and one merchant banker was paid €64.8m. That banker received fixed pay of €242,000, topped up with a bonus of €64.6m.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/16/weve-had-a-run-on-champagne-biggest-uk-banker-bonuses-since-financial-crash
“Stupid or obnoxious person” is also a valid description, although opinion not fact
If that is what was being done, either Putin is actually as stupid as he looks, or he plans to have such overwhelming force that it's irrelevant whether they're off guard or not.
Another possibility might be he plans to say 'Look, I was withdrawing, I was doing what people wanted and then the nasty Ukrainians attacked me so I had to go in anyway, it's all their fault waa waa waa (insert other toddler tantrum noises).' The chances of this convincing anyone outside Russia are about the same as my chances of a date with Margot Robbie, but then we're not the target audience.
Whichever it is, it does rather look as though he - or whoever is in charge - is not acting rationally. Could he really be mad enough to want to reclaim the whole of Ukraine?
Biden and Johnson are the ones being made to look pretty stupid.
Lots of sabre-rattling and scaremongering and a failure to understand Russia.
As for the sabre rattling, I think it is fair to say it's Putin that's doing this. Sabre rattling by the West would be sending an American carrier group into the Black Sea. Suggesting that a gas pipeline might not be used if the country that built it commits a war crime is not.
ETA - my 'stupid as he looks' comment is based on the idea that surely nobody with a brain would have thought the Ukrainians would be fooled by such a feint.
But not today.
“It seems to me like I’m just working to be able to cover the bills,” said Matthew Tovey. The 30-year-old from Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, said his pay had not risen above inflation for a decade under the Conservatives’ austerity drive.
The Guardian appears to be unaware that Merthyr Tydfil is in Wales, that health is devolved, and that pay and conditions are the responsibility of the Welsh Government.
Off topic thanks to @pigeon for the piece on pay. This line stood out: "He said it felt as if NHS staff had been ignored despite being on the frontline of the pandemic. “I worked through three waves, and they stood on their doorsteps and clapped, but they’re taking food away from our tables, really.”
An awful lot of people in an awful lot of jobs worked tirelessly and at some risk through the pandemic and their reward appears to be getting screwed over and sneered at. NHS staff less likely to be Tory voters but plenty in all of the other key worker jobs who kept essential services going.
Their reward for their vote in 2019 and then their graft is a whopping tax rise, front line NHS cuts and being sneeringly told by ministers that asking for a pay rise is out of order. As the champagne corks pop amongst Tory banking friends.
A deep sense of unfairness drove first the Brexit vote then the Tory win in 2019. That unfairness, once the target is reversed, will do egregious things to Tory chances in 2024.
So here it isn't The Guardian that is ignorant of how things work, it is the *voter*. Exactly what the Tories wanted.
FWIW, I also think Matthew Tovey is wrong and the Welsh Government have paid nurses above the rate of inflation.
I dunno, maybe newspapers have some responsibility to check facts ?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/15/pictured-storms-send-300ft-welsh-wind-turbine-crashing-ground/
Or maybe I'm thinking of the Festival....
The fury in education over party gate is something to behold.
And you appear not to be able to read.
Again, the *voter* is blaming the Westminster government for something it hasn't directly done. Which is the reverse intent of the government spraying blame away from itself but something they can't really complain about.
My guess from Tovey's social media profile and the images of him with Jeremy Corbyn is he may not be entirely a political naif.
But in principle I agree.
Have a good morning.
CPIH is only 4.9% so pity those who rent or are poor and don't own their own home.
Inflation plus tax cuts equal unhappy voters. Hard to deflect the blame away from the government though some of you will valiantly try.
The real risk for the government is if Johnson survives through the summer. His kind of boosterism will clash rather badly with people's lived realities, and his (and his ministerial team's) tendency to sneer and patronise anyone challenging the spin lie will just make it worse. It'll be "you've never had it so good" just as so many of their own voters are thinking the opposite.
My only point is that the Welsh NHS is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.
What could also be a key issue in many rural / far flung / poorer areas is the axing of regional development monies. The EU cash has gone and the pledge to match it dropped. Many places will be viscerally and visibly poorer because of it, just at the time as the cost of living squeeze pinches hardest and the Tories try to parade Brexit benefits.
When the government itself demonstrates that it doesn't know how stuff works they can hardly complain that their voters are just as ignorant.
The young workers being screwed over and over again by this government are hardly going to be turning blue.
Some changes (NI on pensions) are possible, but otherwise it seems to be largely a matter of luck as to how well or badly a generation does. Baby boomers got lucky. Young people today much less so.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/15/covid-impact-in-poorer-areas-of-england-and-wales-worse-than-first-thought
They have also announced a care leavers basic income of 1,600 per month
Good how Westminster money sustains these policies?!!!
BBC News - Basic income: Wales pilot offers £1,600 a month to care leavers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-60391462
Where I do agree with you is that the increased cost of living will hurt the Government. In fact, my guess is that is why Johnson is still in place, to take some of the hit.
As regards Matthew Tovey, after rummaging around his extensive media profile, I rather like the guy -- but he is clearly on the "Starmer Out" wing of the Labour party
What he is not is an average, politically disengaged voter from Merthyr Tydfil, as the Guardian present him.
And the Guardian keep on making this mistake -- picking something wrong with the Welsh NHS and blaming the Tories. Time they learnt.
Does feel a bit like we're at a potential turning point in economic history, where we could be about to enter a period of many years, even decades, of high inflation as globalisation is somewhat reversed. Or it could be a blip while we wait for US gas production to ramp up again.
And throughout history attractive young women have either been thrown at, or thrown themselves at, princes.
Sometime's it's worked for them; more often, of course, it hasn't.
Good morning all; bit windy today, but dry.
It really needs to be implemented UK wide immediately rather than waiting to see the success.
Residential property tax.
RTB for private tenants.
Sensible to wait for the results as it is very expensive
Lack of foresight always costs.
Hermann Kahn pointed out - *before the Cuban Missile Crisis* - that this was incredibly dangerous.
To a fair approximation, every country that started a war since 1870 has lost that war. So starting a war is a stupid act, quite apart from minor stuff like morality.
Putin believes in Greater Russia. So do his supporters.
Yes, they are gang of incredibly wealthy thieves at the top levels. But Putin answers to the pyramid below him - he needs the support of the Barons, and they need the support etc etc. Think an medieval king. And while some of them may pay lip service to the ideology, many more Believe.
Consider Saddam Hussein - if he had been rational, he would have noticed in the First Gulf War that everyone on the planet was coming for him. Bush I created an alliance where the Arabs and the Israelis were on the same side... Yet with all of that he invaded Kuwait and tried to hold it.
The issue of isolation from the outside world and other things goes 10x for dictatorial politicians. How long since someone said no the Putin? How long since someone said "bad idea"?
- Putin may believe that when push comes to shove Germany will fold - prevent sanctions and any response.
- He may believe the Ukrainians will fold
- He may believe that a war in Ukraine - even if he loses - is better for his personal survival.
https://twitter.com/greatstrides65/status/1493566370201710603?s=21
Nobody has come forward and said this guys comments are misrepresentative of how people feel. People will blame the government for feeling worse off. That they may have their target wrong is unfortunate for he government in this instance but it has been direct government policy to pin blame for cuts onto the people who aren't responsible.
They - and you - can hardly now complain that punters don't know where to point the finger.
So Brenda is going to help pay the £12 million settlement, an utter disgrace.
The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is setting a marvellous example.
I appreciate that borrowing is important, but while SC/WA are in Union with England all that really means is borrowing off the English given the tax/expenditure differential.
@RochdalePioneers is wrong to suggest that voters have been hoodwinked by devolution. If they are holding the SG etc to account, while they have tax powers, then it's working exactly as it should.
But a Government that just did one of the top two would be worth voting for.
Your hero Dishy Rishi's convoluted furlough schemes, although in some form necessary, now they disincentivised.
Anyway, it's not like Andrew did something really, really bad like Harry.