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Punters think Johnson will survive the by-elections – politicalbetting.com

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  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/17/northern-ireland-protocol-brexit-tories-eu

    This should be required reading. I would quote the best bits but that would involve pasting the entire article.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    I think you're spot on with every part of this post.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    edited May 2022
    Apparently inflation is out of control because Bank of England staffwork from home:


  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    Scott_xP said:

    👀 UK CPI inflation rate hits 9% in April.
    - 40 year high
    - but if the @bankofengland is right, it could be higher still in winter
    - and they've underestimated inflation for the past year and a bit

    - https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1526805689284313088

    The string of sneering patronising ministers doing the media round has not helped the Tory cause. "Just get another job". "Just work more hours". "Just shop in Lidl". Because all the people suffering from the inflation bomb are lazy and stupid.

    Sunak showed in that single photoshoot at Sainsburys that he has no clue what the problem is or how people live so can't comprehend what needs to be done. Filling up someone else's car, then trying to pay for it by waving someone else's credit card nowhere near the chip and pin terminal like he's never seen one before (which is true, he hasn't).
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    "Everyone who disagress with me is Hitler"
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Presumably the police detective who says she has £1,200 a month to live on, has a massive mortgage or childcare costs which she’s excluding? Either that, or she only works two days a week.

    I’ll take a random guess that she’s the Union rep for her department.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007

    Heathener said:

    There’s a particular story on front of every paper, but even so, Truss announcement, which seemed a big moment to me, doesn’t feature at all, not even much on the websites. Odd? 🤔

    Well obviously a rape accusation against a tory MP is huge. You don't need to be coy about 'a certain story' - it's not libellous or sub judice to talk in general terms.

    I think most of the political world is well aware that Liz Truss is just lobbing grenades into every delicate situation in order to shore up her leadership ambitions with the tory faithful. Most aren't taken in by it.
    I think the media have filed Northern Ireland as "far too complicated". Truss says she might do something about a protocol that few understand, and if she did then the EU might retaliate in some unspecified way, and the combined result might be to have unknown effect on the anyway obscure Irish problem. I challenge you to write a good eye-catching story out of that.

    If there's a trade war, then of course it'll be on the front page. But that's probably a year away, and likely to be complicated too - suspension of tariff reductions on car batteries and chimneys, or something.
    The trade bit of the NI quagmire is simple:
    There are trade barriers between GB and NI
    Trade barriers create cost, red tape and damage the economy
    Trade barriers must be removed

    Except that its not GB to NI, its GB to EU. And what the other side of the equation shows is that NI is doing rather well economically because its still in the single market.

    So in threatening to torch the NIP the government are spelling out in detail the reasons to torch the TCA and the rest of the oven-ready deal. But apparently they think people are as thick as porridge and won't get that NI is EU.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    The ‘deplorables’ still have a vote though, and increasingly they’re voting against the party that took them for granted for decades.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Oregon Primary 2022

    The Beaver State gained a congressional district after 2020 Census, the 6th which under Democratic-controlled redistrcting process leans same way, though NOT sure thing in a good Republican year.

    Democratic Primary OR CD6
    Andrea Salinas
    12,712 38.0%
    Carrick Flynn
    6,400 19.1%
    Cody Reynolds
    3,945 11.8%
    Loretta Smith
    3,276 9.8%
    Kathleen Harder
    2,678 8.0%
    Matt West
    2,392 7.2%
    Teresa Alonso Leon
    1,789 5.3%
    Ricky Barajas
    130 0.4%
    Greg Goodwin
    121 0.4%
    Total reported
    33,443

    Ballot printing problems in one county will delay results, but appears clear Salinas is Dem nominee. DESPITE fact that Carrick Flynn was bankrolled by Crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried in what is (so far) the most expensive congressional race in whole USA (allegedly with blessing of Nancy Pelosi, in return for much moneys donated via DCCC to members of her caucus hard-pressed this year by Republicans OR (in some cases anyway) fellow Democrats. Which resulted in much criticism of Speaker & DCCC by Hispanic Democrats.

    More importantly, it seems obvious that the vast amount of spending in form of TV, web, direct mail was overkill, and generated backlash among Democratic primary voters. (Both D & R primaries being closed, that is restricted to registered party voters.

    End result was voters rejecting big money candidate, and Democrats rallying around state representative Salinas as the (dare I say) "true" Democrat in the race.

    Interestingly, Carrick Flynn is affiliated with University of Oxford as "a Research Affiliate with the Future of Humanity Institute focusing on AI strategy, policy, and governance. He studied at Yale Law School, where he received his Juris Doctor and The University of Oregon where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Economics and International Studies. He has lived and worked in public interest organizations in the United States, Kenya, Liberia, Timor-Leste, India, Malaysia, Ethiopia, and the United Kingdom. He currently works as a Research Fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology in Washington, D.C."

    Do any PBers know anything about any of the above? Bottom line is that he and/or cryto-king tried to buy him (or them) a seat in Congress. But failed rather spectaularly, thanks to overeaching and esp overspending. VERY similar to how Jeff Bezos tried to buy several seats on Seattle city council in 2019 but failed for exactly same reason: pissing voters off by obviously attempting to buy their votes...

    That's OK.
    With the latest Supreme Court ruling, you can now buy politician's votes after they've been elected.
    Much more efficient.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited May 2022


    Interestingly, Carrick Flynn is affiliated with University of Oxford as "a Research Affiliate with the Future of Humanity Institute focusing on AI strategy, policy, and governance. He studied at Yale Law School, where he received his Juris Doctor and The University of Oregon where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Economics and International Studies. He has lived and worked in public interest organizations in the United States, Kenya, Liberia, Timor-Leste, India, Malaysia, Ethiopia, and the United Kingdom. He currently works as a Research Fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology in Washington, D.C."

    Do any PBers know anything about any of the above? Bottom line is that he and/or cryto-king tried to buy him (or them) a seat in Congress. But failed rather spectaularly, thanks to overeaching and esp overspending. VERY similar to how Jeff Bezos tried to buy several seats on Seattle city council in 2019 but failed for exactly same reason: pissing voters off by obviously attempting to buy their votes.

    There's some more on it here, they have Flynn down as an Effective Altruism luminary, and SBF is an Effective Altruism enthusiast:
    https://www.vox.com/23066877/carrick-flynn-effective-altruism-sam-bankman-fried-congress-house-election-2022

    For people not familiar with it Effective Altruism is tied up with the Rationalist movement, notably Slate Star Codex. They're generally progressive but sometimes have run-ins with the conventional left because they're willing to *entertain* various kinds of wrong-think and say "what's the evidence that this is wrong".

    Effective Altruism tends to be consequentialist, for instance EA people would tend to say that if you have a million dollars to give away you should be sending it to buy mosquito nets in Africa where you can save a live for $4000 instead of saving a life closer to home. (I'm not sure what the EA case is for spending your money losing primaries in Oregon when you could be saving 2000 lives in Africa but maybe you can make it, and SBF is a funny guy.)

    Personally I'd really like to see people like this in government - for instance pandemic preparedness turned out to be important like the EA wonks said - but I can see how they'd have a hard time getting through the emoting-and-lying contest that is an election.
    If the EA folk think that sending $1m to Africa to buy $2 mosquito nets (which crowds out a whole host of local endeavour among other "mosquito net" problems) then they have no right to be in charge of or influential in anything.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/books/review/the-poverty-puzzle.html
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    Foxy said:

    Apparently inflation is out of control because Bank of England staffwork from home:


    Yep. HM Treasury had a huuuuge reputation for competence and fairness before Covid. Always right, seer-like insight, on point making the Right Calls.

    Now look at them. Lost, confused, divided. If they all commute in every day from Sevenoaks and Hove and Esher and buy a Starbucks on their way in then go to some hipster sandwich bar for lunch they would once again be energised and focused and the inflation would be gone before the Henley Regatta. Huzzah.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited May 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    The ‘deplorables’ still have a vote though, and increasingly they’re voting against the party that took them for granted for decades.
    Very true.

    And it's the flip side. So to Taz I say, that I have been just as condemnatory of the way in which the Metropolitan elites especially under Blair and Cameron took working class voters outside of London for granted.

    It's not "baiting". It's called debate. Just because I have a different view from you on some things don't throw an unnecessary incendiary word into the discussion.

    I admit I really struggle with those, like my elder sister, who turned from being a nice decent person into a fairly overt Boris-loving racist.

    Thankfully she has now ditched the buffoon and didn't vote for him at the locals.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Foxy said:

    Apparently inflation is out of control because Bank of England staffwork from home:


    I hope security guarding the gold aren't working from home!
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096

    Foxy said:

    Apparently inflation is out of control because Bank of England staffwork from home:


    Yep. HM Treasury had a huuuuge reputation for competence and fairness before Covid. Always right, seer-like insight, on point making the Right Calls.

    Now look at them. Lost, confused, divided. If they all commute in every day from Sevenoaks and Hove and Esher and buy a Starbucks on their way in then go to some hipster sandwich bar for lunch they would once again be energised and focused and the inflation would be gone before the Henley Regatta. Huzzah.
    :smiley:
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.

    Apart from the monitored by software bit (pointless in so many different ways) yep WFH allows me to employ staff anywhere.

    Working out how to sanely meet them once in a while is difficult though.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Foxy said:

    Apparently inflation is out of control because Bank of England staffwork from home:


    Yep. HM Treasury had a huuuuge reputation for competence and fairness before Covid. Always right, seer-like insight, on point making the Right Calls.

    Now look at them. Lost, confused, divided. If they all commute in every day from Sevenoaks and Hove and Esher and buy a Starbucks on their way in then go to some hipster sandwich bar for lunch they would once again be energised and focused and the inflation would be gone before the Henley Regatta. Huzzah.
    The next Conservative manifesto should have 'Whatabout' in large print at the top.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,081
    Sandpit said:

    Presumably the police detective who says she has £1,200 a month to live on, has a massive mortgage or childcare costs which she’s excluding? Either that, or she only works two days a week.

    I’ll take a random guess that she’s the Union rep for her department.

    Depends what you mean by massive. A normal mortgage for younger people is an insane number of pounds a month, renting is just as bad and childcare is notoriously expensive.

    Which is why we have young working people struggling massively and people in their late 50s/early 60s who are comfortable enough to stop working.

    Two nations, two economies.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    edited May 2022
    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    eek said:

    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.

    Apart from the monitored by software bit (pointless in so many different ways) yep WFH allows me to employ staff anywhere.

    Working out how to sanely meet them once in a while is difficult though.
    It isn't easy! But Mrs RP worked for a home working business for a few years long before Covid as a QA manager, doing remote training coaching and monitoring of people who worked remotely and flexibly. So I know it works because we've done it, and now we all can see how hybrid working releases people from time wasted commuting and opens the labour pool to everyone everywhere.

    So why are the government suddenly against it? Its like the profits of their friends and patrons are worth more than strategic national interests or the wider economy. Can't be true...
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    Thanks RP and spot on.

    I think you're absolutely right that events will finish them off anyway. This desperate attempt to stir up the very worst in human nature, to which everyone is susceptible no matter what their background or education, is just sickening to the core.

    But they will lose because the reality is overtaking them. The cost of living crisis is hitting everyone. The Government's stupid decisions which have fuelled inflation is going to hurt us all. Brexit is proving to be the disaster that some predicted.

    So they're appealing to the basist instincts of human nature but it ultimately won't work next time. As MacMillan once said, it's all about events.

    I shall laugh my head off if they manage to lose the blue wall seats AND their newfound red wall supporters.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    The ‘deplorables’ still have a vote though, and increasingly they’re voting against the party that took them for granted for decades.
    I know you are a long way away, but there is no data to back up the word "increasingly". The opposite is true. On the ground people were promised all kinds of amazing benefits from Brexit, which would transform their communities. Suddenly they realised decades of inertia had happened, binned off the established politicians (usually Labour) and ran towards the promised bright future from the oven-ready deal.

    That it was all lies - thats now official government policy as Truss seeks to scrap the deal because it has delivered the opposite of what it was supposed to - red wallers are increasingly voting against the party who lied to them and made outrageous promises of riches.

    Thats reality, at least on the ground. Your local experience in the UAE red wall may be different.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    edited May 2022
    Mr b,

    "Estonian PM explaining with astonishing clarity how Russians use appeasement to achieve their agenda.
    https://twitter.com/overdryven/status/1525916446307635200"

    Straight from the Putin playbook. I remember Labrov explaining when he was being booed that being unpopular abroad didn't matter. They achieve things as long as they have the domestic audience. They ask for the moon on a stick and people like Corbyn will cheer them on. "NATO are the warmongers, Russia is only voicing its legitimate concerns." type of drivel.

    Incidentally, why do Estonians etc have good-looking women in top jobs? Sorry, Liz, she's out of your league.

    At least, we haven't had a prominent left-winger carping the Soviet script from the sidelines this time. Give it a couple of months and they'll be back. Poor old Putin, he's currently looking like the Wizard of Oz - he munchkin version, but if he wins a battle or two, the apologists will be back in droves.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited May 2022
    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,007
    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Plenty of people can't cook very well, myself included. But the "poor people can't cook" lie was insulting. If you actually go to a food bank and see what is being distributed it isn't ready meals and takeaways, you have to prepare a meal with it. So they can cook.

    As for the data, look beyond the headline figures to the detail. We both have huge pockets of unemployment and underemployment (both regional and demographic) and huge numbers of unfillable vacancies. The people working part time can't "work more hours" because UC won't let them or they have kids and there isn't free childcare. Nor can they "get a better job" as in the harder hit areas economic output is stagnating the shops are shutting and the jobs aren't there.

    So for the people below the layer this is the worst of both worlds. Runaway inflation driven both by commodity price rises and wage growth for the people who can demand it, and income which is growing at 10-20% the rate of prices. They literally get poorer each week that goes past. And then the sneering starts to make them feel even worse.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,743

    Heathener said:

    There’s a particular story on front of every paper, but even so, Truss announcement, which seemed a big moment to me, doesn’t feature at all, not even much on the websites. Odd? 🤔

    Well obviously a rape accusation against a tory MP is huge. You don't need to be coy about 'a certain story' - it's not libellous or sub judice to talk in general terms.

    I think most of the political world is well aware that Liz Truss is just lobbing grenades into every delicate situation in order to shore up her leadership ambitions with the tory faithful. Most aren't taken in by it.
    I think the media have filed Northern Ireland as "far too complicated". Truss says she might do something about a protocol that few understand, and if she did then the EU might retaliate in some unspecified way, and the combined result might be to have unknown effect on the anyway obscure Irish problem. I challenge you to write a good eye-catching story out of that.

    If there's a trade war, then of course it'll be on the front page. But that's probably a year away, and likely to be complicated too - suspension of tariff reductions on car batteries and chimneys, or something.
    The trade bit of the NI quagmire is simple:
    There are trade barriers between GB and NI
    Trade barriers create cost, red tape and damage the economy
    Trade barriers must be removed

    Except that its not GB to NI, its GB to EU. And what the other side of the equation shows is that NI is doing rather well economically because its still in the single market.

    So in threatening to torch the NIP the government are spelling out in detail the reasons to torch the TCA and the rest of the oven-ready deal. But apparently they think people are as thick as porridge and won't get that NI is EU.
    Unionism as embodied in the likes of the DUP seem intent in fcking up NI doing rather well economically because it’s still in the single market. These people say correctly that currently Norners are not gagging for a border poll and there isn’t a consistent majority for reunification, but it seems to me taking away the having and eating of cake is a sure way to increase support for both. BJ and co picking at an anti EU scab for low political reasons in a Brexity nation (England) is a risky pursuit, in remain voting NI it looks mental.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    This stuff about the people expected X from Brexit? Expectations of politicians are incredibly low. A good start is for politicians not to actively insult them, but some Remainers couldn't even do that.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,154
    edited May 2022
    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Ah yes, I did hear about what happened at Everton. As well as being deeply unpleasant, how thick are some people? What do they think is going to happen? Same for the Burnley "fans".
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited May 2022

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Plenty of people can't cook very well, myself included. But the "poor people can't cook" lie was insulting. If you actually go to a food bank and see what is being distributed it isn't ready meals and takeaways, you have to prepare a meal with it. So they can cook.

    As for the data, look beyond the headline figures to the detail. We both have huge pockets of unemployment and underemployment (both regional and demographic) and huge numbers of unfillable vacancies. The people working part time can't "work more hours" because UC won't let them or they have kids and there isn't free childcare. Nor can they "get a better job" as in the harder hit areas economic output is stagnating the shops are shutting and the jobs aren't there.

    So for the people below the layer this is the worst of both worlds. Runaway inflation driven both by commodity price rises and wage growth for the people who can demand it, and income which is growing at 10-20% the rate of prices. They literally get poorer each week that goes past. And then the sneering starts to make them feel even worse.
    Was the quote actually "poor people can't cook" as you have put it in quotation marks?

    And as for getting on your bike to find a job well at some point there have to be jobs around because not every community suffers from the problems you describe, and which I don't dismiss. We are in a (to the BoE) nightmarish wage inflation cycle. You can't just say "there aren't really the jobs out there" when the stats show that there are and, especially in service industries, the employers are acutely aware of it. And I'm unsure that all the vacancies are in the Upper Street branch of Starbucks.

    Am I suggesting moving from Flintshire to Surrey? No I don't think I am but the country has a labour shortage. It is perhaps what people voted for in 2016 (whether it comes as a result or Brexit or other factors is beside the point) and it is not unreasonable to point it out.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.

    Apart from the monitored by software bit (pointless in so many different ways) yep WFH allows me to employ staff anywhere.

    Working out how to sanely meet them once in a while is difficult though.
    It isn't easy! But Mrs RP worked for a home working business for a few years long before Covid as a QA manager, doing remote training coaching and monitoring of people who worked remotely and flexibly. So I know it works because we've done it, and now we all can see how hybrid working releases people from time wasted commuting and opens the labour pool to everyone everywhere.

    So why are the government suddenly against it? Its like the profits of their friends and patrons are worth more than strategic national interests or the wider economy. Can't be true...
    Nope it's because they are a bunch of luddites / low quality middle managers, who only believe work is being done if they physically can see people.

    Their worry is that with work being done in the background, the lack of value the middle manager adds becomes obvious so they will be the first on the block...
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    I think this is wrong, and perhaps comes from lack of close acquaintance with many of them. Red Wallers vary like everyone else, but basically many feel life is hard, metropolitans don't understand then, immigration is burdening services, and there must be a simple way to make things a bit better. Ah, Boris says he can do it, OK, let's try him.

    None of that is totally unreasonable and they remain the same generally kind, decent people as most of the world. The fact that reality is complex and Boris isn't delivering a solution has become apparent, so they are tending to return to Labour, who they feel seem at least vaguely to understand that things are tough. I don't think it's much more than that.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Drugs tunnel connecting US and Mexico found"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61477775
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Ah yes, I did hear about what happened at Everton. As well as being deeply unpleasant, how thick are some people? What do they think is going to happen? Same for the Burnley "fans".
    Not racist but unpleasant, a Forest fan dropped the nut on a Sheff Utd player, Billy Sharp, at last nights game.

    Billy Sharp likes to wind up other teams fans. He has a reputation for it. Not an excuse for sure but hardly likely to be racist.

    They have arrested someone.

    Time at her majesties pleasure is the order of the day.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,743
    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    The ‘deplorables’ still have a vote though, and increasingly they’re voting against the party that took them for granted for decades.
    Yes, they've found someone else to take them for granted.
    The cycle is speeding up though; used to take decades for voters to realise they were being taken for granted, now the scales can fall from their eyes within months.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    eek said:

    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.

    Apart from the monitored by software bit (pointless in so many different ways) yep WFH allows me to employ staff anywhere.

    Working out how to sanely meet them once in a while is difficult though.
    It isn't easy! But Mrs RP worked for a home working business for a few years long before Covid as a QA manager, doing remote training coaching and monitoring of people who worked remotely and flexibly. So I know it works because we've done it, and now we all can see how hybrid working releases people from time wasted commuting and opens the labour pool to everyone everywhere.

    So why are the government suddenly against it? Its like the profits of their friends and patrons are worth more than strategic national interests or the wider economy. Can't be true...
    That might be the case but I think there is a more pressing reason the government has turned against WFH which is that it screws their levelling up plans to regenerate godforsaken red wall town centres.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
  • Andy_JS said:

    "Drugs tunnel connecting US and Mexico found"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61477775

    With its own rail track?

    Will our resident train aficionados be paying it a visit?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited May 2022

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure. Constrictions on supply force up prices.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    RIP UK Economy!
  • Heathener said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure.
    You're a lying troll. I never said that, please stop trolling with lies about other people.

    Inventing lies about others and repeating them to try and get a rise out of people is pretty much the textbook definition of trolling so all it does is reveal you to be a troll, it doesn't make me look silly because I never said such a stupid thing and never would.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,743
    I tend to think analysing VV Putin and his motivations is somewhat futile and the commentariat landscape is littered with terrible takes, but this thread from Timothy Snyder seems logical.

    https://twitter.com/timothydsnyder/status/1526705581368778753?s=21&t=F_cGrxTb8Dj8fAEksiFHxg
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    Sometimes it really, really, really shows that you don't live anywhere near the United Kingdom.

    You are so out of touch.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    Evening all.

    Behind the scenes we have a Republican Primary in Pennsylvania. (We also have a Dem one, but the candidates are so BORING, it hardly bears mentioning.)

    In PA, we have:

    Dr Oz, a TV doctor who until he was running for the Republican nomination appeared to be very pro-Choice. Trump has endorsed Dr Oz. (Dr Oz is also a Turkish citizen. But let's leave that for now.)

    Dave McCormick, who runs one of the world's largest hedge funds, is richer than God, and more boring than a night in a lift with IDS. He has spend absurd amounts of money painting Dr Oz as further left that AOX.

    Kathy Barnette, who is madder than a box of frogs. She contends that Presidential election was stolen, and that if she fails to win the Republican Primary, then that is proof that that too is crooked. She's too cuckoo even for Trump.

    With 11% reported it's (roughly): 32% for the boring but sane man, 26% for the pro-Choice TV doctor, and 21% for the loon.

    You've missed the PA Gov primary where the winner was almost certainly one of the people who stormed the capital during the coup attempt.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Ah yes, I did hear about what happened at Everton. As well as being deeply unpleasant, how thick are some people? What do they think is going to happen? Same for the Burnley "fans".
    Not racist but unpleasant, a Forest fan dropped the nut on a Sheff Utd player, Billy Sharp, at last nights game.

    Billy Sharp likes to wind up other teams fans. He has a reputation for it. Not an excuse for sure but hardly likely to be racist.

    They have arrested someone.

    Time at her majesties pleasure is the order of the day.
    The pitch invasion is a tricky one. On the one hand, there is something pleasing about seeing fans mobbing their own players in celebration. Unfortunately, there always seems to be some who are complete idiots.

    Is it enough for the football authorities to say "well, the idiot who did that will get a prison sentence" or does more need to be done to stop supporters going on to the pitch? If so, then playing games behind closed doors as punishment for pitch invasions is perhaps the only solution.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    Labour expect these people to vote for them but have a barely disguised contempt for them.

    Many of whom are some of the most marginalised and least well off in society.

    Labour supporters abuse these people and their communities then wonder why they won’t vote for them.

    I think the problem is that a lot of them are not graduates, which in itself isn't a problem as long as you're not being stupid with it, and many of them are covert and overt racists.

    So it's quite difficult to love them.

    I'm just being honest. They're a difficult demographic for anyone with a heart and brain to like.
    I think this is wrong, and perhaps comes from lack of close acquaintance with many of them. Red Wallers vary like everyone else, but basically many feel life is hard, metropolitans don't understand then, immigration is burdening services, and there must be a simple way to make things a bit better. Ah, Boris says he can do it, OK, let's try him.

    None of that is totally unreasonable and they remain the same generally kind, decent people as most of the world. The fact that reality is complex and Boris isn't delivering a solution has become apparent, so they are tending to return to Labour, who they feel seem at least vaguely to understand that things are tough. I don't think it's much more than that.
    Red wall seats tend to have older populations and higher levels of home ownership. Legacy issues delayed them becoming more Tory-inclined. Now they are, but those legacy issues mean the Tories have yet to seal the deal - except, I would argue, in the East Midlands and North Warwickshire, which are rapidly becoming the most solidly Tory parts of the country.

  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited May 2022

    Heathener said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure.
    I never said that,
    If I had the time and energy I would go back to EXACTLY where you said that very thing.

    But, and I hope this isn't too offensive, you're not worth the time. If I can be arsed later on I will find the exact quote.

    You have form on denying things you've said. You told us all that you would be prepared to see the Troubles return to Northern Ireland as a price worth paying for a pure Brexit. When Mike Smithson and many others expressed their outrage you tried to claim you never said it, even changing your name presumably so the stain evaporated.

    You're pretty unpleasant.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    On this mornings inflation figures we are living in extraordinary times and it will force changes in behaviour with unpredictable results and consequences

    Rishi's spring budget was an enormous own goal, but listening to him at the dispatch box yesterday the thought occurred to me that he may be playing this right in so far as it was near impossible then to foresee where we will be in the autumn and had he done the popular thing and showered money to the public and applied a windfall tax, then how would he address what is looking like a very serious position later this year

    It was clear from his comments he is not only preparing for a windfall tax but substantial help later this year which would have been more difficult if he had spent more in March and by the way his measures in March cost 22 billion

    The media are on a blitz of depressing stories of hardship, but they are not getting to the heart of the problem and that is while governments can alleviate some of the hardship on those worst affected they cannot just pour billions into people's pockets to sustain their lifestyle so most everyone will need to address whether they can adapt and adjust their way of life to the new normal
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Right, off to work.

    Have a pleasant day everyone. Be nice.

    xx
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Heathener said:

    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    Sometimes it really, really, really shows that you don't live anywhere near the United Kingdom.

    You are so out of touch.
    But completely right, and backed up numerous statistics and scientific studies.

    Suggested reading: Rationality by Steven Pinker
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rationality-What-Seems-Scarce-Matters/dp/0241380278/
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    tlg86 said:

    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Ah yes, I did hear about what happened at Everton. As well as being deeply unpleasant, how thick are some people? What do they think is going to happen? Same for the Burnley "fans".
    Not racist but unpleasant, a Forest fan dropped the nut on a Sheff Utd player, Billy Sharp, at last nights game.

    Billy Sharp likes to wind up other teams fans. He has a reputation for it. Not an excuse for sure but hardly likely to be racist.

    They have arrested someone.

    Time at her majesties pleasure is the order of the day.
    The pitch invasion is a tricky one. On the one hand, there is something pleasing about seeing fans mobbing their own players in celebration. Unfortunately, there always seems to be some who are complete idiots.

    Is it enough for the football authorities to say "well, the idiot who did that will get a prison sentence" or does more need to be done to stop supporters going on to the pitch? If so, then playing games behind closed doors as punishment for pitch invasions is perhaps the only solution.
    We saw what happened when they tried to put barriers around the ground so that is out.

    So yes perhaps playing behind closed doors is a solution but you are then penalising the legitimate season ticket holders for the actions of a tiny minority.

    Not sure what the solution is tbh. There will always be idiots and you can't legislate for that, sadly.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    If Bart did not spend so much time on here he could be earning a fortune as an economist in the City, an international lawyer, the CEO of a major food retailer or running a cross-border logistics business.

  • Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    One doesn’t have to go back very far, to see John Barnes, Emile Heskey, Andy Cole and others being greeted by monkey chants and bananas thrown on the pitch by their own ‘supporters’. Football has come a long, long way since then.
    That of course is true, but there's also less tolerance of it than there was before and quite right too.

    So just because things were worse in the past doesn't mean we can't make it better in the future. Which is a moderate and relatively boring position to take rather than the extremist headbangers who want to suggest everything is fine (it isn't) or everything is going to hell in a handcart (it isn't).
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited May 2022
    Just one final thought very quickly. Margaret Thatcher thought that inflation was THE scourge. High inflation was the hallmark of the 1970's and we have largely forgotten about what a blight it is on everyone, including the poorest.

    It is possible that of all the things which will finish off Boris Johnson, it's inflation that will.

    Not helped of course by the fact that whereas Maggie had a parsimonious 'housewife's purse' approach to understanding this scourge, Boris Johnson is a spaffing spendthrift whose personal credit rating is about to be matched by that of his Government's.
  • Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure.
    I never said that,
    If I had the time and energy I would go back to EXACTLY where you said that very thing.

    But, and I hope this isn't too offensive, you're not worth the time. If I can be arsed later on I will find the exact quote.

    You have form on denying things you've said. You told us all that you would be prepared to see the Troubles return to Northern Ireland as a price worth paying for a pure Brexit. When Mike Smithson and many others expressed their outrage you tried to claim you never said it, even changing your name presumably so the stain evaporated.

    You're pretty unpleasant.
    You're a lying troll, I categorically never said it.

    Absolutely democracy is 100% worth more than pandering to terrorists. I never said I'd be happy to see the Troubles return but I absolutely did say something along the lines of if terrorists say "no Brexit or we blow up buildings" then since we have voted for Brexit then the right thing to do is proceed with Brexit and arrest the terrorists.

    In the exact same way as I say if Northern Ireland votes for reunification with the Republic of Ireland but HYUFD's proposed Antrim terrorists say "we stay in Britain or we blow up buildings" then the right thing to do is proceed with reunification of Ireland and arrest the terrorists.

    If people threaten the violence that is solely the responsibility of those threatening violence and not the responsibility of those who voted for something those who are being violent disliked. Whether that be Brexit or Irish unification.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    One doesn’t have to go back very far, to see John Barnes, Emile Heskey, Andy Cole and others being greeted by monkey chants and bananas thrown on the pitch by their own ‘supporters’. Football has come a long, long way since then.
    That of course is true, but there's also less tolerance of it than there was before and quite right too.

    So just because things were worse in the past doesn't mean we can't make it better in the future. Which is a moderate and relatively boring position to take rather than the extremist headbangers who want to suggest everything is fine (it isn't) or everything is going to hell in a handcart (it isn't).
    The interesting thing about the Jake Daniels issue is that plenty of commentators are saying "well of course there will be idiots on the terraces who will chant or shout something homophobic" as though "the terraces" are a different subset of humanity where such behaviour is allowed. But we have seen how there has been a crackdown on racist chanting so why wouldn't it be the same for homophobic chanting. No one would say that "of course there will be racist chanting...."

    It shows what a seismic and fantastic event it was for Daniels to do as he did.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    Heathener said:

    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    Sometimes it really, really, really shows that you don't live anywhere near the United Kingdom.

    You are so out of touch.
    Just a polite question but why do you think you are?
  • Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
    Indeed but more importantly we also had unions and politicians heavily involved in the setting of wages rather than the free market and millions of people unemployed but wages still rising due to politics/unions instead of the free market supply and demand.

    Thatcher's reforms are still there today. If wages are going up because of supply and demand then that is entirely affordable based on the demand and not a result of politics or union demands etc where it is unaffordable.

    Let the market find the equilibrium. If that means higher wages, then great, if it doesn't, we need to accept that too. Its trying to buck the market that doesn't work.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 6,760
    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    And remember, people, innocent until proven guilty etc etc

    Wasn't there some Tory MP in Lancashire who went through 18 months of hell on an accustaion of this sort, which turned out to be false/malicious/unfounded?
    Well, not quite. His defence was that the sex was consensual and that he was too drunk to remember sticking his hand down 2 other mens trousers.

    BBC News - MP Nigel Evans cleared of sexual assaults
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26974975
    So to be clear : the allegations were false : malicious / unfounded and he was found not guilty.

    Consensual sex is legal (mainly) even if you disapprove
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    On this mornings inflation figures we are living in extraordinary times and it will force changes in behaviour with unpredictable results and consequences

    Rishi's spring budget was an enormous own goal, but listening to him at the dispatch box yesterday the thought occurred to me that he may be playing this right in so far as it was near impossible then to foresee where we will be in the autumn and had he done the popular thing and showered money to the public and applied a windfall tax, then how would he address what is looking like a very serious position later this year

    It was clear from his comments he is not only preparing for a windfall tax but substantial help later this year which would have been more difficult if he had spent more in March and by the way his measures in March cost 22 billion

    The media are on a blitz of depressing stories of hardship, but they are not getting to the heart of the problem and that is while governments can alleviate some of the hardship on those worst affected they cannot just pour billions into people's pockets to sustain their lifestyle so most everyone will need to address whether they can adapt and adjust their way of life to the new normal

    The NIC threshold rise in July will funnel more money into lower-paid wage packets (ask your gran). Rishi is a political genius.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
    Without wage inflation the BoE (and by proxy the Government or vice versa) are expecting people to get significantly poorer.

    That isn't going to go down well at the next election.

    Inflation hit 15% (a guess but that's my current guess) and yet the Tories refused you a wage rise...
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    On this mornings inflation figures we are living in extraordinary times and it will force changes in behaviour with unpredictable results and consequences

    Rishi's spring budget was an enormous own goal, but listening to him at the dispatch box yesterday the thought occurred to me that he may be playing this right in so far as it was near impossible then to foresee where we will be in the autumn and had he done the popular thing and showered money to the public and applied a windfall tax, then how would he address what is looking like a very serious position later this year

    It was clear from his comments he is not only preparing for a windfall tax but substantial help later this year which would have been more difficult if he had spent more in March and by the way his measures in March cost 22 billion

    The media are on a blitz of depressing stories of hardship, but they are not getting to the heart of the problem and that is while governments can alleviate some of the hardship on those worst affected they cannot just pour billions into people's pockets to sustain their lifestyle so most everyone will need to address whether they can adapt and adjust their way of life to the new normal

    The NIC threshold rise in July will funnel more money into lower-paid wage packets (ask your gran). Rishi is a political genius.
    July will see everyone earning less than £34,000 pay less tax, so yes that effect in wage packets is yet to come
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,759
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
    Back then we talked about cost push and demand pull inflation. Cost push was an oil shock etc where the cost of things went up. If conditions were right this loss of purchasing power resulted in demand pull with wages going up to compensate.

    Conditions are absolutely right for the second stage right now. Almost full employment, record vacancies and, thanks to Brexit, restraints on the supply of labour.

    Which makes it even more absurd that the so called experts on the MPC didn’t see this coming. We were vulnerable to stage 2 becoming embedded. And now it is higher wages will drive higher demand resulting in more inflation.
  • JACK_WJACK_W Posts: 651
    malcolmg said:

    Lol, wishful thinking. Innocent and Tory are oxymorons.

    You're getting soft recently.

    Back in the day the first three letters of the final word would have been superfluous .. :smile:

  • DavidL said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
    Back then we talked about cost push and demand pull inflation. Cost push was an oil shock etc where the cost of things went up. If conditions were right this loss of purchasing power resulted in demand pull with wages going up to compensate.

    Conditions are absolutely right for the second stage right now. Almost full employment, record vacancies and, thanks to Brexit, restraints on the supply of labour.

    Which makes it even more absurd that the so called experts on the MPC didn’t see this coming. We were vulnerable to stage 2 becoming embedded. And now it is higher wages will drive higher demand resulting in more inflation.
    Which isn't a bad thing, so long as it is driven by supply and demand rather than unions/politics.

    If the demand pull exceeds what the market can afford the market will stop approving of the pay rises demanded, unemployment might start to rise and the conditions you name leading to the second stage would be resolved and a new equilibrium found.

    Bucking the market doesn't work. That both means demanding wage rises when they aren't affordable but it also means denying them when they are and are required.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited May 2022
    eek said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
    Without wage inflation the BoE (and by proxy the Government or vice versa) are expecting people to get significantly poorer.

    That isn't going to go down well at the next election.

    Inflation hit 15% (a guess but that's my current guess) and yet the Tories refused you a wage rise...
    On the face of it that is a reasonable assumption, but then we have a labour party who has little or no answers other than a windfall tax worth 2 billion, then to annually borrow 14 times that (28 billion) to insulate one million homes each year

    On the subject off home insulation, why on earth any government should pay for people to insulate their home at the exchequer's expense, rather than mandate all homes that when sold must comply with an energy rating of 'c' or the new owners have 6 months to install the insulation and energy savings needed for compliance
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,764
    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure.
    I never said that,
    If I had the time and energy I would go back to EXACTLY where you said that very thing.

    But, and I hope this isn't too offensive, you're not worth the time. If I can be arsed later on I will find the exact quote.

    You have form on denying things you've said. You told us all that you would be prepared to see the Troubles return to Northern Ireland as a price worth paying for a pure Brexit. When Mike Smithson and many others expressed their outrage you tried to claim you never said it, even changing your name presumably so the stain evaporated.

    You're pretty unpleasant.
    Pots and kettles come to mind.

  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876
    The next two years are set to be the toughest and, quite frankly, scariest that most people of working age in Britain will have lived through. Now is a time for the kind of leadership that this government has comprehensively demonstrated it is incapable of providing.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 4,339
    DavidL said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
    Back then we talked about cost push and demand pull inflation. Cost push was an oil shock etc where the cost of things went up. If conditions were right this loss of purchasing power resulted in demand pull with wages going up to compensate.

    Conditions are absolutely right for the second stage right now. Almost full employment, record vacancies and, thanks to Brexit, restraints on the supply of labour.

    Which makes it even more absurd that the so called experts on the MPC didn’t see this coming. We were vulnerable to stage 2 becoming embedded. And now it is higher wages will drive higher demand resulting in more inflation.
    Those with a fixed rate mortgage with see it shrink in (relative) size and cost. Probably exactly the same people who will get some sort of cost of living compensation. As ever, the pain will not be equally shared.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Plenty of people can't cook very well, myself included. But the "poor people can't cook" lie was insulting. If you actually go to a food bank and see what is being distributed it isn't ready meals and takeaways, you have to prepare a meal with it. So they can cook.

    As for the data, look beyond the headline figures to the detail. We both have huge pockets of unemployment and underemployment (both regional and demographic) and huge numbers of unfillable vacancies. The people working part time can't "work more hours" because UC won't let them or they have kids and there isn't free childcare. Nor can they "get a better job" as in the harder hit areas economic output is stagnating the shops are shutting and the jobs aren't there.

    So for the people below the layer this is the worst of both worlds. Runaway inflation driven both by commodity price rises and wage growth for the people who can demand it, and income which is growing at 10-20% the rate of prices. They literally get poorer each week that goes past. And then the sneering starts to make them feel even worse.
    Was the quote actually "poor people can't cook" as you have put it in quotation marks?

    And as for getting on your bike to find a job well at some point there have to be jobs around because not every community suffers from the problems you describe, and which I don't dismiss. We are in a (to the BoE) nightmarish wage inflation cycle. You can't just say "there aren't really the jobs out there" when the stats show that there are and, especially in service industries, the employers are acutely aware of it. And I'm unsure that all the vacancies are in the Upper Street branch of Starbucks.

    Am I suggesting moving from Flintshire to Surrey? No I don't think I am but the country has a labour shortage. It is perhaps what people voted for in 2016 (whether it comes as a result or Brexit or other factors is beside the point) and it is not unreasonable to point it out.
    To suggest that there's no jobs out there shows how disconnected RP is from reality or how much he's willing to distort reality to make his point. I was walking down Upper Street yesterday and that Italian place on the corner of Theberton Street had a bunch of what looked like 16 and 17 year old waitresses who all seemed very happy and cheery. If they can find a job it stands to reason it's not particularly difficult out there.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    I tend to think analysing VV Putin and his motivations is somewhat futile and the commentariat landscape is littered with terrible takes, but this thread from Timothy Snyder seems logical.

    https://twitter.com/timothydsnyder/status/1526705581368778753?s=21&t=F_cGrxTb8Dj8fAEksiFHxg

    That all seems very reasonable.

    Putin can call an end to tis war at any time, and probably sell it to his public. Heck, he could probably even 'sell' giving back the Donbass and the Crimea - especially if it angers the Russian public, and he can direct that anger at external actors.

    Which would not be good for us in the medium or long term, but at least would stop the war.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Your supercilious final sentence is a bit rich considering you tried arguing on here that there was no connection between supply & demand and inflation.

    When you write, for example, that inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly by commodity prices what that really translates to is that upstream inflationary pressures lead to downstream ones. Wow. That's an insight no one ever considered.

    Commodity prices are inflationary because of supply and demand. I'm not an economist but I did study Economics A level (bet you didn't!) and it's really basic stuff this. Too many people chasing too few goods. We have constrictions on supply because of a number of converging circumstances: Covid including China lockdowns, Russia's War on Ukraine, and of course Brexit. You will hate and deny the latter but it's an undeniable contributory factor to the UK's inflation pressure.
    I never said that,
    If I had the time and energy I would go back to EXACTLY where you said that very thing.

    But, and I hope this isn't too offensive, you're not worth the time. If I can be arsed later on I will find the exact quote.

    You have form on denying things you've said. You told us all that you would be prepared to see the Troubles return to Northern Ireland as a price worth paying for a pure Brexit. When Mike Smithson and many others expressed their outrage you tried to claim you never said it, even changing your name presumably so the stain evaporated.

    You're pretty unpleasant.
    You're a lying troll, I categorically never said it.

    Absolutely democracy is 100% worth more than pandering to terrorists. I never said I'd be happy to see the Troubles return but I absolutely did say something along the lines of if terrorists say "no Brexit or we blow up buildings" then since we have voted for Brexit then the right thing to do is proceed with Brexit and arrest the terrorists.

    In the exact same way as I say if Northern Ireland votes for reunification with the Republic of Ireland but HYUFD's proposed Antrim terrorists say "we stay in Britain or we blow up buildings" then the right thing to do is proceed with reunification of Ireland and arrest the terrorists.

    If people threaten the violence that is solely the responsibility of those threatening violence and not the responsibility of those who voted for something those who are being violent disliked. Whether that be Brexit or Irish unification.
    Northern Ireland was only created in the first place because of the threat of violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force in Ulster despite Sinn Fein winning the 1918 general election in Ireland overall.

    The Good Friday Agreement also only came about because of decades of mainly IRA terrorist violence in 1998 despite Nationalists only being a minority in Northern Ireland.

    Northern Irish history is built on containing violence even if it means appeasing a minority
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876

    On this mornings inflation figures we are living in extraordinary times and it will force changes in behaviour with unpredictable results and consequences

    Rishi's spring budget was an enormous own goal, but listening to him at the dispatch box yesterday the thought occurred to me that he may be playing this right in so far as it was near impossible then to foresee where we will be in the autumn and had he done the popular thing and showered money to the public and applied a windfall tax, then how would he address what is looking like a very serious position later this year

    It was clear from his comments he is not only preparing for a windfall tax but substantial help later this year which would have been more difficult if he had spent more in March and by the way his measures in March cost 22 billion

    The media are on a blitz of depressing stories of hardship, but they are not getting to the heart of the problem and that is while governments can alleviate some of the hardship on those worst affected they cannot just pour billions into people's pockets to sustain their lifestyle so most everyone will need to address whether they can adapt and adjust their way of life to the new normal

    The NIC threshold rise in July will funnel more money into lower-paid wage packets (ask your gran). Rishi is a political genius.
    July will see everyone earning less than £34,000 pay less tax, so yes that effect in wage packets is yet to come
    With 9% inflation and rising interest rates, no-one will notice they are paying less tax.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    The next two years are set to be the toughest and, quite frankly, scariest that most people of working age in Britain will have lived through. Now is a time for the kind of leadership that this government has comprehensively demonstrated it is incapable of providing.

    Where's the Labour ideas though? I'd be interested to know what Labour would do differently.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Heathener said:

    Just one final thought very quickly. Margaret Thatcher thought that inflation was THE scourge. High inflation was the hallmark of the 1970's and we have largely forgotten about what a blight it is on everyone, including the poorest.

    It is possible that of all the things which will finish off Boris Johnson, it's inflation that will.

    Not helped of course by the fact that whereas Maggie had a parsimonious 'housewife's purse' approach to understanding this scourge, Boris Johnson is a spaffing spendthrift whose personal credit rating is about to be matched by that of his Government's.

    In some ways it's refreshing that COVID is mostly absent from the discussion but this comment annoys me. Whoever was in charge in 2020 would have had to spend billions because of COVID. We have no real idea of what a Johnson government would do in normal times because we've never seen one It's possible that he is just unlucky in this and it's things out of his control that condemn him and his government to electoral defeat. So be it. But do you believe any government would be that much better when confronted by the hurricane of outside effects?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Heathener said:

    Just one final thought very quickly. Margaret Thatcher thought that inflation was THE scourge. High inflation was the hallmark of the 1970's and we have largely forgotten about what a blight it is on everyone, including the poorest.

    It is possible that of all the things which will finish off Boris Johnson, it's inflation that will.

    Not helped of course by the fact that whereas Maggie had a parsimonious 'housewife's purse' approach to understanding this scourge, Boris Johnson is a spaffing spendthrift whose personal credit rating is about to be matched by that of his Government's.

    Inflation is rising because of rising oil and electricity costs and rising fuel and food prices because of the Ukraine war.

    There is not a lot the UK government can do other than try and expand global supply for the former and push for a peaceful resolution to the latter. Until then sanctions on Russia will also bite
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    DavidL said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    Barty probably wasn't around at the time, but that's pretty well how the intractable inflation problems of the seventies started - with an oil price shock also outside of the control of then governments.
    The idea that you can have a bit of controlled inflation around 10%, and then everything just returns to normal, is more than a little unrealistic.
    Back then we talked about cost push and demand pull inflation. Cost push was an oil shock etc where the cost of things went up. If conditions were right this loss of purchasing power resulted in demand pull with wages going up to compensate.

    Conditions are absolutely right for the second stage right now. Almost full employment, record vacancies and, thanks to Brexit, restraints on the supply of labour.

    Which makes it even more absurd that the so called experts on the MPC didn’t see this coming. We were vulnerable to stage 2 becoming embedded. And now it is higher wages will drive higher demand resulting in more inflation.
    Which isn't a bad thing, so long as it is driven by supply and demand rather than unions/politics.

    If the demand pull exceeds what the market can afford the market will stop approving of the pay rises demanded, unemployment might start to rise and the conditions you name leading to the second stage would be resolved and a new equilibrium found.

    Bucking the market doesn't work. That both means demanding wage rises when they aren't affordable but it also means denying them when they are and are required.
    What we're likely to have is a wealth transfer from consumers and owners to workers.

    For nearly two decades the transfer has been going from workers to consumers and owners.

    This will be a good thing as it also means a wealth transfer from the old to the young.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603

    Heathener said:

    Sandpit said:

    Heathener said:

    tlg86 said:

    Heathener said:

    Some pretty ugly moments in football over the last few days. We've had several incidents of racist chants against black players, Nazi salutes, and even an assault on a player.

    Have these things happened before this Government? Of course. But they're deliberately now stoking things up. I would urge every one of you on here to think twice before you join them with 'phobic' hate messages, even as jokes, against demographics that don't fit your mould. Be careful whom you are clambering into bed with. It's not so very different from what Putin does to try and justify his disgusting acts in Ukraine. He too launches attacks on gays, trans people, non-pure Russians and those whom he calls Nazis. I expect he would also launch attacks on Working From Home - making out that these people are lazy layabouts.

    Fanning the flames of culture wars is the thing I will most despise this Government for in the years to come. It's far worse than Major's back to basics, which was pretty benign blue rinse rubbish. This is really toxic and it's going to get worse right up until the General Election.

    I've been away the last five days, so may missed this, but where was the racist chanting and the nazi salutes?

    Billy Sharp is white, so I'm not sure race had anything to do with what happened last night. That said, things have changed since COVID. There does seems to be more t****ish behaviour by supporters.
    Some really grim racist moments over the weekend tlg at several matches. There was another one besides the Everton fixture but I can't remember where.

    "Incidents at Premier League matches on Sunday show "hate is alive and well within football", says anti-racism charity Kick It Out."
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61465483

    The Nazi salute was allegedly made by a Burnley supporter at Spurs - he has now been arrested.

    It is the role of Government to try to build a better Britain. Instead they are fanning the flames of culture wars: spreading hate. It's vile.
    Good morning

    Racism is just wrong but the idea this is down to HMG is just nonsense
    There’s less racism, less poverty, less murder and - notwithstanding Putin - less war in the world than ever before.

    But saying that doesn’t suit the vested interests, who need these divisions to be exaggerated to suit their own political ends.

    Sometimes it really, really, really shows that you don't live anywhere near the United Kingdom.

    You are so out of touch.
    Just a polite question but why do you think you are?
    On a factual basis, the number of reported racist incidents has gone up in recent years.

    However, many anti-racism campaigners think that this is due to greater awareness of the issue and less tolerance of racist behaviour. Much as sexual assault reports have climbed in various countries, as the issue has been better handled by the authorities in those countries - IIRC Norway was an example for this?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    eek said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
    Without wage inflation the BoE (and by proxy the Government or vice versa) are expecting people to get significantly poorer.

    That isn't going to go down well at the next election.

    Inflation hit 15% (a guess but that's my current guess) and yet the Tories refused you a wage rise...
    On the face of it that is a reasonable assumption, but then we have a labour party who has little or no answers other than a windfall tax worth 2 billion, then to annually borrow 14 times that (28 billion) to insulate one million homes each year

    On the subject off home insulation, why on earth any government should pay for people to insulate their home at the exchequer's expense, rather than mandate all homes that when sold must comply with an energy rating of 'c' or the new owners have 6 months to install the insulation and energy savings needed for compliance
    First, the government is also considering a windfall tax. Second, it has already been subsidising home insulation. Third, the £28 billion figure seems to assume solid wall insulation yet roofs and cavity walls can be done for less than £1,000 a pop.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
    They have it within their power to put up interest rates. Maybe they should do that instead of pleading to workers to accept their failure to control inflation without a pay rise. It's the BoE that has failed.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited May 2022

    On this mornings inflation figures we are living in extraordinary times and it will force changes in behaviour with unpredictable results and consequences

    Rishi's spring budget was an enormous own goal, but listening to him at the dispatch box yesterday the thought occurred to me that he may be playing this right in so far as it was near impossible then to foresee where we will be in the autumn and had he done the popular thing and showered money to the public and applied a windfall tax, then how would he address what is looking like a very serious position later this year

    It was clear from his comments he is not only preparing for a windfall tax but substantial help later this year which would have been more difficult if he had spent more in March and by the way his measures in March cost 22 billion

    The media are on a blitz of depressing stories of hardship, but they are not getting to the heart of the problem and that is while governments can alleviate some of the hardship on those worst affected they cannot just pour billions into people's pockets to sustain their lifestyle so most everyone will need to address whether they can adapt and adjust their way of life to the new normal

    The NIC threshold rise in July will funnel more money into lower-paid wage packets (ask your gran). Rishi is a political genius.
    July will see everyone earning less than £34,000 pay less tax, so yes that effect in wage packets is yet to come
    With 9% inflation and rising interest rates, no-one will notice they are paying less tax.

    They will see it in their wage slip but of course this is going to be very hard and stressful for many but then I expect a July announcement from HMG to assist when heating is going to have to be turned back on

    However, peoples own behaviour will have to change as no government can insulate the populace from this reduction in living standards and there may well be a political price to pay at the ballot box but with labour much in the same bind, it is not a certainty that they will be handed the baton
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    My view is that Tiverton & Honiton will go LibDem in a big way. It could be pretty seismic and will continue a huge yellow surge in the blue wall.

    Wakefield ought to be a Labour win and they've finally settled on a good candidate but the initial rumpus over selection was not very smart by Starmer's aides and it tells me that they STILL don't get the new Conservative red wall voters.

    That bodes badly in my opinion for Labour in the General Election. I'm expecting them to do fail in the former red wall seats. Uneducated and unethical people will stay loyal to Boris. He will lose his majority but Labour's failure to engage with the Brexit mob (as I have just failed to do) will cost them.

    You continue to insult Tory voters in Red Wall seats.
    No she doesn't. There are "uneducated and unethical" people in all parts of the country - why would the red wall be different?

    What will do it for the Tories in Wakefield is simple: Brexit. Like so many other places the decade or two of apathetic slide towards indifferent local government was stopped by the promise of shiny shiny. Vote for Boris and his Oven Ready Deal and we will bring Pride and Prosperity once again to your shithole northern town in wherever.

    So they did. And this by-election in particular will be held just as the Tories are throwing the oven-ready deal in the bin because it brought massive economic and trade problems that nobody knew about (its all project fear) and needs to be scrapped.

    Northerners aren't stupid. Enough of them will return to the voting habit they used to have, and the ones reluctant to do that will stay home. Either way, the seat will stay Tory. Yes some people - the uneducated and unethical Tory voter - will stay the course with Boris. But they won't be the story.
    What will do for the Tories in Wakefield will be the cost of living crisis which is now really starting to bite.

    As for our resident baiters "uneducated and unethical" comment. There are voters of all parties that would fit that criteria. Not everyone who votes Tory is uneducated and unethical. Most do so because they believe the party will improve their lives and make it better.

    Some people have such a visceral loathing of one party they just cannot comprehend why people vote for it so need to demonise them for doing so. It is not just people like her. Many on the right do it as well, especially on social media. It is tedious, divisive and does little to help heal our broken and fragmented politics.
    Sure - and the whole point of Brexit and the oven-ready deal was to make formerly prosperous places like Wakefield mean something again. So absolutely the cost of everything shooting up is front and centre - Brexit was promised to make us more competitive, bring well paid jobs, give people purpose. And instead people are taking their kids to sit in McDonalds all evening because they can't afford electricity.

    I know Heathener was being divisive. But this GOVERNMENT is being divisive - can't we all out their mendaciousness? When you have a government saying poor people are too thick to know what to buy or how to cook and should have the brain to get more work and people STILL VOTE FOR IT I think its reasonable to brand these people uneducated and unethical. Because they are.
    The topic of debate on the radio over the past day or two has been the vacancy/unemployment data. In short people are able to get better, higher-paying jobs. That of course is fuelling endemic inflation of the type that @BartholomewRoberts applauds - and the BoE fears so much - but saying people should look to get higher paying jobs is not the sign of a crazed heartless madman. Perhaps a crazed economically-illiterate madman.

    And as for cooking well it was enough to fuel a whole debate on PB for a day so not crazy talk at all either.
    Inflation is being fuelled overwhelmingly due to commodity prices and relatively next to nothing to do with wages. Commodity prices have surged far, far, far more than other prices (like wages) so inflation < commodity price growth.

    If the situation where reversed and we had wages rising significantly and commodity prices suppressed then yes there'd also be [some] inflation but that would be a fraction of wage growth, so that'd be significant real wage growth.

    Do you see how this works yet?
    Mate don't tell me - tell the Bank of England who are worried about endemic wage inflation. It seems to be floating their boat so perhaps you could write them a pithy memo telling them not to be such silly sausages.
    The BoE have a remit to control inflation, and precisely one lever available to them.

    The problem they have, is that the inflation is almost all imported, caused by commodity prices and a supply chain crunch, and the products with the highest inflation (fuels) are subject to low price elacticity of demand. That is that demand doesn’t fall by much, as the price rises.

    As such, interest rate rises won’t do much in the short term to reduce inflation, which is why the BoE are trying to dampen demand by urging pay restraint. But there’s full employment, and an unprecedented number of people are able to find a better job right now - especially at the lower end of the market.
    = wage inflation.

    Exactly. The BoE is worried that it has become endemic in the UK. Of course there are other factors. But this is one of them. And as you say hence their nudging (to put it kindly) about wages.
    They have it within their power to put up interest rates. Maybe they should do that instead of pleading to workers to accept their failure to control inflation without a pay rise. It's the BoE that has failed.
    Raising interest rates will not help — this is not your grandfather's inflation; Covid and the special military operation are responsible. (Well, actually it might but only insofar as it might strengthen the pound which will make imports a bit cheaper.)
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    Just one final thought very quickly. Margaret Thatcher thought that inflation was THE scourge. High inflation was the hallmark of the 1970's and we have largely forgotten about what a blight it is on everyone, including the poorest.

    It is possible that of all the things which will finish off Boris Johnson, it's inflation that will.

    Not helped of course by the fact that whereas Maggie had a parsimonious 'housewife's purse' approach to understanding this scourge, Boris Johnson is a spaffing spendthrift whose personal credit rating is about to be matched by that of his Government's.

    Inflation is rising because of rising oil and electricity costs and rising fuel and food prices because of the Ukraine war.

    There is not a lot the UK government can do other than try and expand global supply for the former and push for a peaceful resolution to the latter. Until then sanctions on Russia will also bite
    It is not just Russia. This was happening before the war. Coming out of COVID was a big impact as it takes time for supply to gear up eg the delivery driver shortage, computer chips, etc. And of course the self inflicted Brexit adding to supply costs with red tape and tarrifs.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 926


    On the subject off home insulation, why on earth any government should pay for people to insulate their home at the exchequer's expense, rather than mandate all homes that when sold must comply with an energy rating of 'c' or the new owners have 6 months to install the insulation and energy savings needed for compliance

    ...because generally carrots are more popular with voters than sticks, and the latter policy would likely trigger a massive gumming up of the housing market, possibly a housing price crash and definitely a loss at the next general election? Fixing poor housing energy efficiency can be ferociously expensive, especially if you are in a pre-1970s house that doesn't have cavity walls that can be insulated.

    I do wonder whether the govt would be better to decide to not worry too much about uplifting the existing housing stock and instead mandate really high standards for new build. It's got to be a lot more expensive to do one-house-at-a-time retrofitting, compared to building a whole new estate of houses the right way to start with. Better still would have been to put the mandates in place a decade or two ago...

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,603
    eek said:

    eek said:

    You know that "levelling up"? Lost towns and cities and whole communities where there are lots of people and few jobs? I've thought of a whizzo way to fix these areas. What if the jobs came to the people? Think about it - no more tired excuses from thicko provincials about childcare and transport.

    They could work from home. Monitored via software to make sure they were working. Actually contributing instead of sponging off the state. If only someone could think of a way to make it happen...

    Ah well, everyone back to the office.

    Apart from the monitored by software bit (pointless in so many different ways) yep WFH allows me to employ staff anywhere.

    Working out how to sanely meet them once in a while is difficult though.
    It isn't easy! But Mrs RP worked for a home working business for a few years long before Covid as a QA manager, doing remote training coaching and monitoring of people who worked remotely and flexibly. So I know it works because we've done it, and now we all can see how hybrid working releases people from time wasted commuting and opens the labour pool to everyone everywhere.

    So why are the government suddenly against it? Its like the profits of their friends and patrons are worth more than strategic national interests or the wider economy. Can't be true...
    Nope it's because they are a bunch of luddites / low quality middle managers, who only believe work is being done if they physically can see people.

    Their worry is that with work being done in the background, the lack of value the middle manager adds becomes obvious so they will be the first on the block...
    There is, I think, an issue with organisations that did not have a sensible system of metrics to monitor what s actually being done.

    I work in IT software development. Currently using Agile methodology. A basic idea in Agile, is that work is broken down into small bits. The amount of time for each bit to be done is estimated by the team (as a group). So, there is irate tracking of who has done what. Remote/distributed team working was part of the idea behind Agile. So it is a naturally good fit for WFH.

    In many places (private and government) there is no such intrinsic measure of what is actually being done. Instead they have relied on mangers prodding the herd from time to time. The tales we have heard over the last few days, of people with a days work that can be done in an hour, are not that rare.

This discussion has been closed.