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The Truss view of “British Workers” could be an electoral liability – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    Pulpstar said:

    @CorrectHorseBattery

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85848489#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Remember at Boatshed our mantra is "Life's better on a boat" ;)

    Hmm, they claim a mortgage is avaiulable - does that make sense?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Janan Ganesh in the FT has Woken up



    "It is there, too, in the growing denial that something has gone very wrong with identity politics. When a liberal says, “There is no culture war,” what I hear is: “Please let there be no culture war. Otherwise, I shall have to fall out with my friends, stand up to my children, upset my employees. Or worse, go along with them and feel a coward.” Even if it is true that 2020 will turn out to be peak woke, it is because people — writers, comedians — took a stand. A conflict was recognised, and engaged. Those who looked away at the time don’t get to turn up now and pronounce the whole thing overblown. The poet Robert Frost once defined a liberal as someone who wouldn’t take their own side in a quarrel. It is increasingly a feat to recognise the quarrel.

    "Another liberal parry is to say that cancel culture is a distraction from the economic crisis. And perhaps it is. But then one novelist’s torment was a distraction in the not notably quiet year of 1989. There will always be a reason to dodge a subject. In the end, “salience” aside, what do you think about it?"


    https://www.ft.com/content/8700151d-eaff-44bd-a6ec-aea1895db361

    He is deluded in his forlorn hope that we might have passed Peak Woke. This psychological defence mechanism - a form of denial, because pain - was identified in the Spectator a year ago



    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-if-wokeness-really-is-the-new-christianity-

    This article by the lawyer involved in the Forstater case is very well worth reading on its implications, why identity issues have become so toxic and also on how competing views can be sensibly managed. Long but essential reading.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/morality-plays-lessons-forstater-peter-daly
    Is it a job requirement for lawyers, that when penning philosophical essays, they have to write 80,000 words minimum?

    That started well but by the 17th chapter my eyes glazed over. A good writer would have reduced it by 90%
  • Endillion said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    What will sks do?
    Not much it seems, perhaps he should build some houses and sort out student debt.

    Still better than this lot that have had 13 years to do something and done fuck all for me.
    I don't really know what "sort out student debt" means in this context - presumably it is not the Corbyn approach of pretending to have a policy to forgive all outstanding loans, even those used to pay maintenance rather than fees.

    If it's a reference to reducing the sky high interest rates expected on loans from this year, anything Starmer does will most likely be regressive - as only the top earning graduates have any chance of paying the debt down to zero before it expires. For the vast majority of students, it makes no practical difference whether the rate their debt accumulates at is 4% or 4,000%.
    No practical difference but a psychological, economic and perhaps psephological effect if graduates feel weighed down by debt they cannot pay off, even if in practice they will not have to.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Endillion said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    What will sks do?
    Not much it seems, perhaps he should build some houses and sort out student debt.

    Still better than this lot that have had 13 years to do something and done fuck all for me.
    I don't really know what "sort out student debt" means in this context - presumably it is not the Corbyn approach of pretending to have a policy to forgive all outstanding loans, even those used to pay maintenance rather than fees.

    If it's a reference to reducing the sky high interest rates expected on loans from this year, anything Starmer does will most likely be regressive - as only the top earning graduates have any chance of paying the debt down to zero before it expires. For the vast majority of students, it makes no practical difference whether the rate their debt accumulates at is 4% or 4,000%.
    Tuition should be free. Cut the number of degrees in half and make the remainder free - job done.

    Why do pensioners get a 10% rise whilst young people get debt and their money taken away? Fairness is off the agenda as long as we subsidise the client vote
    I don't think any party is remotely likely to propose halving the number of degrees out there, but in relevant terms, Starmer's Labour - actually, any imaginable or unimaginable Labour leader - is less likely to do this than any imaginable or unimaginable Conservative.

    And you know the answers to the second paragraph. It's because a) young people don't vote, and b) their degrees cost money and there's no other obvious way of paying for them.

    We are definitely overdue a moderate rebalancing of the economy to ensure intergenerational fairness. Tuition debt is a terrible place to start, though (housing market is a much better idea, but an almost impossible one to meaningfully affect in the short-to-medium term).
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742

    Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Of course, the easiest way to draw a line under this would be for Truss do an interview with a proper journalist, so she can explain what she meant and answer some questions to clarify it.

    But for whatever reason, she can't be bothered to do that.

    Which is quite ironic, really.

    Which "proper journalist" is capable of doing a proper interview, though?
    Stephen Sackur.
    Ah, yes, that's the bloke I was trying to remember. Any chance of the BBC requesting it, or do they want the Neil gotcha?
    Neil works for Channel 4 now, so I don't know who the BBC would use. But the main thing is that Truss is ahead, she's got nothing to gain by doing a tricky interview, so why should she? Standard playbook, unfortunately.
    Perhaps the respect of people who are not members of the Tory party?

    Oh, I see.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 442
    eek said:

    On topic, Liz is right.

    If you’re a Brit who can’t work the same hours as a foreigner who can hardly speak English then you’re a lazy parasite who should get on your bike.

    Working extra hours doesn't solve productivity - it hides the lack of actual productivity by masking it...

    Give me Denmark where the everyone arrived by 9am and were out of the door well before 5 with all work done.
    One of the advantages of working from home is that it kills the myth of presenteeism, which often leads to people filling up their time with non-productive busywork.

    I can get done in 6 hours at home what takes me 8 (or more) in the office. I have been reminded of this with 2 days in the office out of the past 5 and now I'm behind. Not that some work can't be productive at the office too, but all too often I don't see a premium being placed on good use of time.
  • kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    All politicians are pricks for wanting to protect pensioners, even you acknowledged that yesterday saying Fuck Starmer over it and credit to you for that.

    Truss at least is wanting to cut NI that you have to pay and pensioners don't. That at least makes her better than Sunak who wants to raise NI for you while protecting pensioners.

    Can you agree with that?
    She's better than a mountain of shit yes, well done her. She's still a prick who voted through all of this crap.

    Where is she on student loans? House prices? She won't touch any of it.

    Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES
    "Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES" - Citation very much needed!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio rise happened under Labour because they weren't building houses!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio has stabilised but not reversed under the Tories because they're building enough to keep price ratios stable (unlike Labour) but not enough to reverse them.

    If we revert back to Labour's policy then we'll see the price earnings ratio continue its upwards trend.
    That's not why the house price increase happened under Labour. Low interest rates, increased financialisation of assets, and the boom in buy to let is why the house price increase happened under Labour (and population growth).

    Net housebuilding itself barely differed - averaging 176,000 in the 2000s and 182,000 in the 2010s.
  • HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    I'm finding some great car parking spots for Horse.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
  • kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    Why won't Truss do anything for people like me?

    She is, this is what she's doing for you.

    But she's promising things to other people too.


    Truss at least seems to understand that people who work should be able to benefit from it and keep more of their own money, rather than simply ratchetting taxes from those who work to give to the client vote who don't. For that she deserves a chance at least, the alternative does not.
    And yet she wants to keep rewarding the client vote as well. Now I have no particular objection to others doing well but only if it is sustainable. The Triple Lock is not sustainable.
    I commented on this last night

    Sunak cancelled the triple lock this year awarding an increase to pensioners of 3.1% as indeed was the rise in UC

    Starmer playing political games hit the roof and as a result the triple lock will be reinstated in 2023 but if you want to look for someone to blame, maybe look at Starmer's political games this spring

    'Grown up's would have greed to end it in April this year as Sunak proposed
    Indeed, it is churlish to blame the party that has been in power for over a decade. The majority of the blame as always lies with Starmer, the rest shared between Corbyn, Clegg and Brown.
    The point is labour supporters cannot moan about the triple lock as Starmer is 100% in favour of it
    I on the other hand despite being a beneficiary can moan its a disgrace that people like yourself think its right for those in work to take further real terms cuts whilst fully expecting to get 12% yourself.

    All leaders including Corbyn have supported the Triple Lock its completely wrong.
    I have no problem with the abolition of the triple lock and supported Sunak when he awarded a 3.1% rise this year

    As for next year it seems that all parties support the triple lock so I just do not see who is going to propose it's abolition
    Oh do keep up. The triple lock rewarding greedy pensioners is so 2021. This year, the fuel and cost of living crises have reminded the government there are an awful lot of pensioners subsisting on a state pension of less than £10,000 a year.
    My wife's pension is just £4,800 pa

    It is a nonsense that all pensioners are well off
    If as a society we want a triple lock on the poorest 10 or 20% incomes for a while to help them catch up, I would be all for it. Whereas we cut the real incomes of the poorest workers in order to boost the incomes of poor, rich and average pensioners. Why? Because they vote selfishly.
    It doesn't matter who they vote for if all parties will continue with the triple lock

    To give Sunak his due he did cancel it this year and it should have been permanent
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
    Not quite true - where national pay scales exist - the Northern renter / house owner will be receiving the same wage as a Home Counties renter / home owner. London allowance's change that a bit but not by that much.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,665

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    All politicians are pricks for wanting to protect pensioners, even you acknowledged that yesterday saying Fuck Starmer over it and credit to you for that.

    Truss at least is wanting to cut NI that you have to pay and pensioners don't. That at least makes her better than Sunak who wants to raise NI for you while protecting pensioners.

    Can you agree with that?
    She's better than a mountain of shit yes, well done her. She's still a prick who voted through all of this crap.

    Where is she on student loans? House prices? She won't touch any of it.

    Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES
    "Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES" - Citation very much needed!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio rise happened under Labour because they weren't building houses!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio has stabilised but not reversed under the Tories because they're building enough to keep price ratios stable (unlike Labour) but not enough to reverse them.

    If we revert back to Labour's policy then we'll see the price earnings ratio continue its upwards trend.
    I am saying Labour need to BUILD MORE HOUSES
    They do need to.

    If they come out with a plan to actually do so, then I'll be all ears.

    Unfortunately though twice the Tories have tried to abolish or suspend the Triple Lock that Labour introduced and both times Labour have cried murder about it. I would love to see Labour lead the way on proposing more homes and no Triple Lock, but it hasn't happened yet.
    Triple lock... that Labour introduced? The triple lock was introduced by the Lib Dems while they were in government, to make up for the insulting pension increases that Labour made under Gordon Brown. The Conservatives opposed it at the time, then fought their general election campaign supporting it, recognising that it was a winner...
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    As long as London retains its status as a world city housing will always be very expensive in London. Locals are competing with people who aren't working in the local labour market and can outbid them, and this cascades from prime central London property all the way down the scale.

    I don't see there's a good way to fix that, absent giving up on home ownership as a policy goal and building more social housing for locals.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    Interestingly UK workers now work on average less hours than not only the OECD but EU average. So maybe Truss has a point

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours
  • ClippP said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    All politicians are pricks for wanting to protect pensioners, even you acknowledged that yesterday saying Fuck Starmer over it and credit to you for that.

    Truss at least is wanting to cut NI that you have to pay and pensioners don't. That at least makes her better than Sunak who wants to raise NI for you while protecting pensioners.

    Can you agree with that?
    She's better than a mountain of shit yes, well done her. She's still a prick who voted through all of this crap.

    Where is she on student loans? House prices? She won't touch any of it.

    Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES
    "Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES" - Citation very much needed!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio rise happened under Labour because they weren't building houses!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio has stabilised but not reversed under the Tories because they're building enough to keep price ratios stable (unlike Labour) but not enough to reverse them.

    If we revert back to Labour's policy then we'll see the price earnings ratio continue its upwards trend.
    I am saying Labour need to BUILD MORE HOUSES
    They do need to.

    If they come out with a plan to actually do so, then I'll be all ears.

    Unfortunately though twice the Tories have tried to abolish or suspend the Triple Lock that Labour introduced and both times Labour have cried murder about it. I would love to see Labour lead the way on proposing more homes and no Triple Lock, but it hasn't happened yet.
    Triple lock... that Labour introduced? The triple lock was introduced by the Lib Dems while they were in government, to make up for the insulting pension increases that Labour made under Gordon Brown. The Conservatives opposed it at the time, then fought their general election campaign supporting it, recognising that it was a winner...
    The triple lock was introduced in George Osborne's first budget. Bloody Gordon Brown!
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    Absinth, antisemitism and spy fever?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    @CorrectHorseBattery

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85848489#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Remember at Boatshed our mantra is "Life's better on a boat" ;)

    Hmm, they claim a mortgage is avaiulable - does that make sense?
    The boat itself is cheap but the 11k pa mooring fees are probably equivalent rent to a room in a house share in the same area which is perhaps kind of equivalent.
  • eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
    Not quite true - where national pay scales exist - the Northern renter / house owner will be receiving the same wage as a Home Counties renter / home owner. London allowance's change that a bit but not by that much.
    National pay scales are not the norm though, which is why they crowd out the dynamic economy in the North while being too low in the South.

    The Median salary in the North is half of the salary being discussed.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    edited August 2022

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    @CorrectHorseBattery

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85848489#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Remember at Boatshed our mantra is "Life's better on a boat" ;)

    Hmm, they claim a mortgage is avaiulable - does that make sense?
    The boat itself is cheap but the 11k pa mooring fees are probably equivalent rent to a room in a house share in the same area which is perhaps kind of equivalent.
    And presumably could go up. Like a leasehold, in a way.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    People on single-income average wages have not been able to buy family houses in central London, for at least half a century now.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442

    As long as London retains its status as a world city housing will always be very expensive in London. Locals are competing with people who aren't working in the local labour market and can outbid them, and this cascades from prime central London property all the way down the scale.

    I don't see there's a good way to fix that, absent giving up on home ownership as a policy goal and building more social housing for locals.

    Toronto does a 20% foreign non resident buyers tax. Same here please.

    https://home.kpmg/ca/en/home/insights/2022/04/ontario-expands-foreign-home-buyers-tax.html#:~:text=Ontario has expanded its non,as of March 30, 2022.
  • ClippP said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    All politicians are pricks for wanting to protect pensioners, even you acknowledged that yesterday saying Fuck Starmer over it and credit to you for that.

    Truss at least is wanting to cut NI that you have to pay and pensioners don't. That at least makes her better than Sunak who wants to raise NI for you while protecting pensioners.

    Can you agree with that?
    She's better than a mountain of shit yes, well done her. She's still a prick who voted through all of this crap.

    Where is she on student loans? House prices? She won't touch any of it.

    Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES
    "Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES" - Citation very much needed!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio rise happened under Labour because they weren't building houses!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio has stabilised but not reversed under the Tories because they're building enough to keep price ratios stable (unlike Labour) but not enough to reverse them.

    If we revert back to Labour's policy then we'll see the price earnings ratio continue its upwards trend.
    I am saying Labour need to BUILD MORE HOUSES
    They do need to.

    If they come out with a plan to actually do so, then I'll be all ears.

    Unfortunately though twice the Tories have tried to abolish or suspend the Triple Lock that Labour introduced and both times Labour have cried murder about it. I would love to see Labour lead the way on proposing more homes and no Triple Lock, but it hasn't happened yet.
    Triple lock... that Labour introduced? The triple lock was introduced by the Lib Dems while they were in government, to make up for the insulting pension increases that Labour made under Gordon Brown. The Conservatives opposed it at the time, then fought their general election campaign supporting it, recognising that it was a winner...
    So you're saying its the Lib Dems fault then?

    Gordon Brown kept introducing sweeties for the grey vote, I thought that the Triple Lock was one of them.

    My mistake. Shame on the Lib Dems instead.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    ClippP said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    She'll protect pensioners and make people work suffer by cutting more of our services and letting house prices go up, let our student fees explode upwards too.

    The current Tories are pricks
    All politicians are pricks for wanting to protect pensioners, even you acknowledged that yesterday saying Fuck Starmer over it and credit to you for that.

    Truss at least is wanting to cut NI that you have to pay and pensioners don't. That at least makes her better than Sunak who wants to raise NI for you while protecting pensioners.

    Can you agree with that?
    She's better than a mountain of shit yes, well done her. She's still a prick who voted through all of this crap.

    Where is she on student loans? House prices? She won't touch any of it.

    Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES
    "Labour BUILD MORE HOUSES" - Citation very much needed!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio rise happened under Labour because they weren't building houses!!!

    The house price to earnings ratio has stabilised but not reversed under the Tories because they're building enough to keep price ratios stable (unlike Labour) but not enough to reverse them.

    If we revert back to Labour's policy then we'll see the price earnings ratio continue its upwards trend.
    I am saying Labour need to BUILD MORE HOUSES
    They do need to.

    If they come out with a plan to actually do so, then I'll be all ears.

    Unfortunately though twice the Tories have tried to abolish or suspend the Triple Lock that Labour introduced and both times Labour have cried murder about it. I would love to see Labour lead the way on proposing more homes and no Triple Lock, but it hasn't happened yet.
    Triple lock... that Labour introduced? The triple lock was introduced by the Lib Dems while they were in government, to make up for the insulting pension increases that Labour made under Gordon Brown. The Conservatives opposed it at the time, then fought their general election campaign supporting it, recognising that it was a winner...
    The triple lock was introduced in George Osborne's first budget. Bloody Gordon Brown!
    One of many ways in which the Heir to Blair was more left wing than the man himself.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
    Actually, I'm being unfair. There are much worse places in the UK than Gravesend. It's just the name that gives it that grim quality

    Like a lot of the towns on the Thames estuary its gritty, salty and rough at the edges, but it has a lot of history, some interesting and beautiful old pubs, churches, wharves. I'd rather live there than some soulless new build estate just outside Redditch or Basingstoke

    Also has a benign climate by British standards
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Strong/Stable
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    edited August 2022

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
    House prices in London are over 3 times house prices in the North on average. Average wages in London are not 3 times wages in the North however
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
    Actually, I'm being unfair. There are much worse places in the UK than Gravesend. It's just the name that gives it that grim quality

    Like a lot of the towns on the Thames estuary its gritty, salty and rough at the edges, but it has a lot of history, some interesting and beautiful old pubs, churches, wharves. I'd rather live there than some soulless new build estate just outside Redditch or Basingstoke

    Also has a benign climate by British standards
    Thanks. Thinking about a visit to the area - Dickensian convicts, the Faversham explosion, Oare gunpowder works etc.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Stable, surely ?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    edited August 2022
    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    People on single-income average wages have not been able to buy family houses in central London, for at least half a century now.
    The flat I am renting has increased 10x in price since 1996. Average London wage maybe up 2x or a bit less?

    The owners will have made more in capital appreciation from that flat than most UK workers earn in a lifetime, plus rent. And they get their state pension triple locked.....
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    edited August 2022

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    We may have lost Wandsworth and Westminster and Redbridge but we have gained Stoke, West Bromwich, Burnley and Bishop Auckland and Grimsby!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Taz said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Stable, surely ?
    Out the budget if he needs to stay in central.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Janan Ganesh in the FT has Woken up



    "It is there, too, in the growing denial that something has gone very wrong with identity politics. When a liberal says, “There is no culture war,” what I hear is: “Please let there be no culture war. Otherwise, I shall have to fall out with my friends, stand up to my children, upset my employees. Or worse, go along with them and feel a coward.” Even if it is true that 2020 will turn out to be peak woke, it is because people — writers, comedians — took a stand. A conflict was recognised, and engaged. Those who looked away at the time don’t get to turn up now and pronounce the whole thing overblown. The poet Robert Frost once defined a liberal as someone who wouldn’t take their own side in a quarrel. It is increasingly a feat to recognise the quarrel.

    "Another liberal parry is to say that cancel culture is a distraction from the economic crisis. And perhaps it is. But then one novelist’s torment was a distraction in the not notably quiet year of 1989. There will always be a reason to dodge a subject. In the end, “salience” aside, what do you think about it?"


    https://www.ft.com/content/8700151d-eaff-44bd-a6ec-aea1895db361

    He is deluded in his forlorn hope that we might have passed Peak Woke. This psychological defence mechanism - a form of denial, because pain - was identified in the Spectator a year ago



    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-if-wokeness-really-is-the-new-christianity-

    This article by the lawyer involved in the Forstater case is very well worth reading on its implications, why identity issues have become so toxic and also on how competing views can be sensibly managed. Long but essential reading.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/morality-plays-lessons-forstater-peter-daly
    Is it a job requirement for lawyers, that when penning philosophical essays, they have to write 80,000 words minimum?

    That started well but by the 17th chapter my eyes glazed over. A good writer would have reduced it by 90%
    What a wimp you are. I regularly read legal judgments that are much longer, and for good reason.

    An analysis of a complicated legal judgment cannot be reduced to a few simplistic slogans. That is part of the problem which has given rise to many of the issues and far too much commentary on them.

    It is considerably better written and more interesting and thoughtful than the sorts of trashy novels that litter most bookshops.

    But if you want the short analysis my header yesterday is a good start and only 795 words. 😀
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Taz said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Stable, surely ?
    Mind you lock the door.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Cyclefree said:

    One of our local pubs has just received a new energy price fix - a 250% increase.

    Energy prices, staff shortages, the cost of living generally on top of Covid will, I think, be the end for a lot of businesses.

    Nothing any party is saying seems to comprehend the scale of what will likely happen.

    Yes, plenty will close after New Year and close not just for a week or two but for a couple of months and many are unlikely to re-open too.

    Good businesses as well but they are going to be unable to pass these costs on to the consumer as the consumer will be seeing similar increases as well.

    Still Liz Truss offers hope not handouts and NI cuts for the wealthy and large corporations.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    "External Viewings Only."

    PS Plenty of grass, mind.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 926

    I get annoyed by cyclists but to be fair they do now generally stop at red lights on cycle paths in London, just not at pedestrian crossings. Most obey other road junction lights, it is probably less than 15% who routinely jump lights when they consider it safe.

    Yeah, there's always a minority of people in any mode of transport who drive badly or unsafely or just rudely (though the level of risk they pose to others varies massively depending on their vehicle!). The thing about a 'licenses for bikes' policy is it feels like it's floated to pander to the man down the pub who gets grumpy about rude cyclists. Policy ought to be designed with an eye to balancing costs and benefits and achieving useful goals without unintended side effects -- not with an eye to tomorrow's Daily Mail headline...
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    Labour loses nearly 100,000 members and makes £5 million loss in 2021

    Brilliant from SKS

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-membership-loss-accounts-deficit-b2146691.html
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,813
    Cyclefree said:

    One of our local pubs has just received a new energy price fix - a 250% increase.

    Energy prices, staff shortages, the cost of living generally on top of Covid will, I think, be the end for a lot of businesses.

    Nothing any party is saying seems to comprehend the scale of what will likely happen.

    The energy market will become so distended it falls apart but before that, yes, there will be massive ruin.
    Sticking plasters to defer apocalypse are an irrelevance.
    Long term security and short term absurd levels of intervention and support.
    You never had it so good
  • Labour loses nearly 100,000 members and makes £5 million loss in 2021

    Brilliant from SKS

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-membership-loss-accounts-deficit-b2146691.html

    Mate members are irrelevant as you well know.

    Blair won three elections in a row with like 200K members. JC lost two in a row with 500K.

    Members make the party loony, in fact I'd remove members from voting for the leader tbh
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Pulpstar said:

    I'm finding some great car parking spots for Horse.

    Van Life!
    https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/listing/13192621
  • Cyclefree said:

    One of our local pubs has just received a new energy price fix - a 250% increase.

    Energy prices, staff shortages, the cost of living generally on top of Covid will, I think, be the end for a lot of businesses.

    Nothing any party is saying seems to comprehend the scale of what will likely happen.

    The energy market will become so distended it falls apart but before that, yes, there will be massive ruin.
    Sticking plasters to defer apocalypse are an irrelevance.
    Long term security and short term absurd levels of intervention and support.
    You never had it so good
    If I were putting a big bet, I'd say a 20 point Labour lead is possible if the economy is as bad as I think it is going to be
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
    House prices in London are over 3 times house prices in the North on average. Average wages in London are not 3 times wages in the North however
    House price to earnings ratios are bad in the entire country.

    They are more bad in London, but that doesn't mean they're not bad in the Home Counties, Midlands, North West or anywhere else.

    Its like saying "be happy you only have Stage 3 cancer, you could have Stage 4".
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited August 2022
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
    Actually, I'm being unfair. There are much worse places in the UK than Gravesend. It's just the name that gives it that grim quality

    Like a lot of the towns on the Thames estuary its gritty, salty and rough at the edges, but it has a lot of history, some interesting and beautiful old pubs, churches, wharves. I'd rather live there than some soulless new build estate just outside Redditch or Basingstoke

    Also has a benign climate by British standards
    Thanks. Thinking about a visit to the area - Dickensian convicts, the Faversham explosion, Oare gunpowder works etc.
    It's well worth it. Don't expect the Italian Riviera, but do expect a lot of character, and oodles of history, and also a sense of exploration. No one goes there as a tourist, so you can feel like a pioneer

    And there is lots of visual drama, because of the mighty Thames Estuary. It gets more boring the further you get from the river

    I actually enioyed my one and only visit to the Isle of Sheppey. It is as ugly and bleak as people say, and yet.... it is poetic, and moody, and seriously eerie in the right foggy weather
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    pm215 said:

    I get annoyed by cyclists but to be fair they do now generally stop at red lights on cycle paths in London, just not at pedestrian crossings. Most obey other road junction lights, it is probably less than 15% who routinely jump lights when they consider it safe.

    Yeah, there's always a minority of people in any mode of transport who drive badly or unsafely or just rudely (though the level of risk they pose to others varies massively depending on their vehicle!). The thing about a 'licenses for bikes' policy is it feels like it's floated to pander to the man down the pub who gets grumpy about rude cyclists. Policy ought to be designed with an eye to balancing costs and benefits and achieving useful goals without unintended side effects -- not with an eye to tomorrow's Daily Mail headline...
    I think even the grumpy man down the pub wants to be able to say "we should put number plates on cyclists" but they don't expect any government to be stupid enough to actually do it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    "External Viewings Only."

    PS Plenty of grass, mind.
    Yes, the lack of interior photos is a concern
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,813
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    No internal photos. Must be too attractive to show
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Judging by the ones so far, the problem is that the dream happened to be a nightmare.....
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,813
    edited August 2022

    Cyclefree said:

    One of our local pubs has just received a new energy price fix - a 250% increase.

    Energy prices, staff shortages, the cost of living generally on top of Covid will, I think, be the end for a lot of businesses.

    Nothing any party is saying seems to comprehend the scale of what will likely happen.

    The energy market will become so distended it falls apart but before that, yes, there will be massive ruin.
    Sticking plasters to defer apocalypse are an irrelevance.
    Long term security and short term absurd levels of intervention and support.
    You never had it so good
    If I were putting a big bet, I'd say a 20 point Labour lead is possible if the economy is as bad as I think it is going to be
    They could hit a 20 point lead in a poll, yes
    Not at an election
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,113
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
    Actually, I'm being unfair. There are much worse places in the UK than Gravesend. It's just the name that gives it that grim quality

    Like a lot of the towns on the Thames estuary its gritty, salty and rough at the edges, but it has a lot of history, some interesting and beautiful old pubs, churches, wharves. I'd rather live there than some soulless new build estate just outside Redditch or Basingstoke

    Also has a benign climate by British standards
    Thanks. Thinking about a visit to the area - Dickensian convicts, the Faversham explosion, Oare gunpowder works etc.
    It's well worth it. Don't expect the Italian Riviera, but do expect a lot of character, and oodles of history, and also a sense of exploration. No one goes there as a tourist, so you can feel like a pioneer

    And there is lots of visual drama, because of the mighty Thames Estuary. It gets more boring the further you get from the river

    I actually enioyed my one and only visit to the Isle of Sheppey. It is as ugly and bleak as people say, and yet.... it is poetic, and moody, and seriously eerie in the right foggy weather
    My Camden friend and I love that sort of exploration - last time was the remnants of the Woolwich naval dockyards to the west of the Arsenal, here and there in industrial estates and council housing.

    Been to Sheppey too! Fossil-hunting in the slumped and slippery London Clay.

    Little snippet of Faversham history - what happens if you leave a tip of TNT contaminated sacks against an explosives store in dry weather.
    https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/sites/default/files/archcant/1985 100 The Great Explosion at Faversham 2 April 1916 Percival.pdf
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    No internal photos. Must be too attractive to show
    Yes, my guess is they're worried that, if they show the oak panelled interior, with its designer steel-and-granite kitchen, they will get too many inquiries and be overwhelmed. Best keep it simple
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FPT

    In London cyclists just ignore red lights, why don't we do something about that?

    It's very annoying. I don't know why London cyclists think they're different to cyclists everywhere else who do obey red lights. When I'm walking in London I deliberately try to cross the street in a way that gets in the way of cyclists trying to do it.

    But I don't think cyclists everywhere else should be forced to have numberplates, insurance, etc, just because of the bad behaviour of London cyclists.
    I cycled for the best part of 40 years in London. My husband was nearly killed by a car which left the scene of the accident and was left with serious head and face injuries. My son cycles to work. All of us have had accidents caused by thoughtless drivers. I could fill PAGES with examples of bad behaviour by cars, vans, lorries and, yes, pedestrians.

    If the number plates could be 2 metres wide with spikes at each end at just the height that they would scratch a car coming too close or someone opening a car door or stepping out in the road without looking, then I'd be all in favour.
    Number plates is absurd and the usual drivel you get from motorists with an anti cyclist agenda. The story in the Mail today is just silly season guff

    Insurance makes sense for a cyclist. I have liability insurance through my membership of Cycling UK.

    If a cyclist thinks they do not need insurance then they are being unwise

    https://lennonssolicitors.co.uk/article/brushett-v-hazeldean-the-perils-of-cycling-without-insurance/
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 926

    The boat itself is cheap but the 11k pa mooring fees are probably equivalent rent to a room in a house share in the same area which is perhaps kind of equivalent.

    Also, unlike houses, boats are depreciating assets, even if you maintain them well...
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    The Labour Party lost more than £5 million last year.

    Can you imagine them trying to run one of the biggest economies in the world?

    SKS LOL
  • Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Complaints about moral bankruptcy from the one man left on this site to still support the raging antisemite Jeremy Corbyn even after the report EHRC report came out is somewhat bemusing.

    If Jeremy Corbyn is what you think of as "moral" then I'd go for morally bankrupt all day every day and twice on Thursdays.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,813

    Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Presumably if they do go bankrupt everyone decamps to the co-operative party? Well, aside from anyone starting a socialist party
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442

    Cyclefree said:

    One of our local pubs has just received a new energy price fix - a 250% increase.

    Energy prices, staff shortages, the cost of living generally on top of Covid will, I think, be the end for a lot of businesses.

    Nothing any party is saying seems to comprehend the scale of what will likely happen.

    The energy market will become so distended it falls apart but before that, yes, there will be massive ruin.
    Sticking plasters to defer apocalypse are an irrelevance.
    Long term security and short term absurd levels of intervention and support.
    You never had it so good
    If I were putting a big bet, I'd say a 20 point Labour lead is possible if the economy is as bad as I think it is going to be
    Anything is possible, but there is not much evidence that people automatically turn to Labour if a Tory government has an economic crisis. Blairs breakthrough was after the recovery in the 90s had started, and the Tories managed to win in the early eighties with very high unemployment.

    I still expect a hung parliament.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    Why won't Truss do anything for people like me?

    She is, this is what she's doing for you.

    But she's promising things to other people too.


    Truss at least seems to understand that people who work should be able to benefit from it and keep more of their own money, rather than simply ratchetting taxes from those who work to give to the client vote who don't. For that she deserves a chance at least, the alternative does not.
    And yet she wants to keep rewarding the client vote as well. Now I have no particular objection to others doing well but only if it is sustainable. The Triple Lock is not sustainable.
    I commented on this last night

    Sunak cancelled the triple lock this year awarding an increase to pensioners of 3.1% as indeed was the rise in UC

    Starmer playing political games hit the roof and as a result the triple lock will be reinstated in 2023 but if you want to look for someone to blame, maybe look at Starmer's political games this spring

    'Grown up's would have greed to end it in April this year as Sunak proposed
    Indeed, it is churlish to blame the party that has been in power for over a decade. The majority of the blame as always lies with Starmer, the rest shared between Corbyn, Clegg and Brown.
    The point is labour supporters cannot moan about the triple lock as Starmer is 100% in favour of it
    I on the other hand despite being a beneficiary can moan its a disgrace that people like yourself think its right for those in work to take further real terms cuts whilst fully expecting to get 12% yourself.

    All leaders including Corbyn have supported the Triple Lock its completely wrong.
    I have no problem with the abolition of the triple lock and supported Sunak when he awarded a 3.1% rise this year

    As for next year it seems that all parties support the triple lock so I just do not see who is going to propose it's abolition
    Oh do keep up. The triple lock rewarding greedy pensioners is so 2021. This year, the fuel and cost of living crises have reminded the government there are an awful lot of pensioners subsisting on a state pension of less than £10,000 a year.
    My wife's pension is just £4,800 pa

    It is a nonsense that all pensioners are well off
    If as a society we want a triple lock on the poorest 10 or 20% incomes for a while to help them catch up, I would be all for it. Whereas we cut the real incomes of the poorest workers in order to boost the incomes of poor, rich and average pensioners. Why? Because they vote selfishly.
    Because they vote. Sooner than hope people are going to buck the long term trend of acting in their own interest you'd be better off running a (not overtly party political) campaign to get the young to vote in theirs. SKS would be doing this if he were less useless. It would be an embarrassing flop mind with a couple of third rank dad rock bands front and centre.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    No internal photos. Must be too attractive to show
    The clues are

    External Viewings Only.

    Agents Do Not Hold Keys.

    and these are other sold prices https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/ne37/wellington-walk.html

    Also it's not in Jarrow - it's in Washington - imagine Basingstoke with all the joy removed...
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    "External Viewings Only."

    PS Plenty of grass, mind.
    Yes, the lack of interior photos is a concern
    It's Washington not Jarra, but Jarra has places as nice as that.

    I see it is not far from Concord, a place whose reputation precedes it as well.

    Grim, very grim, round there.
  • eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    If you earn over £50k and live north of Watford you can certainly afford a house, even on your own
    Just move two hours away from all the good jobs and my friends, cheers mate.

    This is why you lost London. It used to vote Tory!
    It’s true though that you have options. If you value the London lifestyle more then just enjoy it.
    Saying that you can afford a home if you have a London salary and live in the North is not a solution though.

    London workers pay London prices for homes. Northern renters get Northern salaries. So the house price to earnings ratio is what matters more than saying "look your salary gets a good home elsewhere". Sure, and someone on a minimum wage salary in the UK could afford a home in Romania I'm sure, but if they bought that home, they'd no longer be getting their salary, so that defeats the point.
    Not quite true - where national pay scales exist - the Northern renter / house owner will be receiving the same wage as a Home Counties renter / home owner. London allowance's change that a bit but not by that much.
    National pay scales are not the norm though, which is why they crowd out the dynamic economy in the North while being too low in the South.

    The Median salary in the North is half of the salary being discussed.
    The ONS has data by council area for Median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees for all local authorities by place of work.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1031/fig9/data/datadownload.csv

    This is the information for the year to April 2020, as April 2021 will be impacted by Covid.

    So for example St Albans GWE is £590 (£30.7k per annum), whilst Doncaster is £527 (£27.5k).

    As a significant number of people in St Albans commute (or did pre Covid) to London to work at a higher wage, the numbers for people residents are likely to be higher.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    "External Viewings Only."

    PS Plenty of grass, mind.
    Yes, the lack of interior photos is a concern
    They’re still waiting on the biohazard team clearing out the place.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    Why won't Truss do anything for people like me?

    She is, this is what she's doing for you.

    But she's promising things to other people too.


    Truss at least seems to understand that people who work should be able to benefit from it and keep more of their own money, rather than simply ratchetting taxes from those who work to give to the client vote who don't. For that she deserves a chance at least, the alternative does not.
    And yet she wants to keep rewarding the client vote as well. Now I have no particular objection to others doing well but only if it is sustainable. The Triple Lock is not sustainable.
    I commented on this last night

    Sunak cancelled the triple lock this year awarding an increase to pensioners of 3.1% as indeed was the rise in UC

    Starmer playing political games hit the roof and as a result the triple lock will be reinstated in 2023 but if you want to look for someone to blame, maybe look at Starmer's political games this spring

    'Grown up's would have greed to end it in April this year as Sunak proposed
    Indeed, it is churlish to blame the party that has been in power for over a decade. The majority of the blame as always lies with Starmer, the rest shared between Corbyn, Clegg and Brown.
    The point is labour supporters cannot moan about the triple lock as Starmer is 100% in favour of it
    I on the other hand despite being a beneficiary can moan its a disgrace that people like yourself think its right for those in work to take further real terms cuts whilst fully expecting to get 12% yourself.

    All leaders including Corbyn have supported the Triple Lock its completely wrong.
    I have no problem with the abolition of the triple lock and supported Sunak when he awarded a 3.1% rise this year

    As for next year it seems that all parties support the triple lock so I just do not see who is going to propose it's abolition
    Oh do keep up. The triple lock rewarding greedy pensioners is so 2021. This year, the fuel and cost of living crises have reminded the government there are an awful lot of pensioners subsisting on a state pension of less than £10,000 a year.
    My wife's pension is just £4,800 pa

    It is a nonsense that all pensioners are well off
    If as a society we want a triple lock on the poorest 10 or 20% incomes for a while to help them catch up, I would be all for it. Whereas we cut the real incomes of the poorest workers in order to boost the incomes of poor, rich and average pensioners. Why? Because they vote selfishly.
    Because they vote. Sooner than hope people are going to buck the long term trend of acting in their own interest you'd be better off running a (not overtly party political) campaign to get the young to vote in theirs. SKS would be doing this if he were less useless. It would be an embarrassing flop mind with a couple of third rank dad rock bands front and centre.
    Yet listen to the moans if anyone suggests extending voting to include a weekend day to help increase the proportion of workers who bother to vote.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704

    Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Complaints about moral bankruptcy from the one man left on this site to still support the raging antisemite Jeremy Corbyn even after the report EHRC report came out is somewhat bemusing.

    If Jeremy Corbyn is what you think of as "moral" then I'd go for morally bankrupt all day every day and twice on Thursdays.
    EHRC report clears Corbyn

    Forde Report clears Corbyn and says AS used as a factional tool by CHB types!

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    The Labour Party lost more than £5 million last year.

    Can you imagine them trying to run one of the biggest economies in the world?

    SKS LOL

    They still have the data breach claim issue to be resolved as well.

    Unite are threatening to turn off the taps as well.

    Oops.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,148

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    Why won't Truss do anything for people like me?

    She is, this is what she's doing for you.

    But she's promising things to other people too.


    Truss at least seems to understand that people who work should be able to benefit from it and keep more of their own money, rather than simply ratchetting taxes from those who work to give to the client vote who don't. For that she deserves a chance at least, the alternative does not.
    And yet she wants to keep rewarding the client vote as well. Now I have no particular objection to others doing well but only if it is sustainable. The Triple Lock is not sustainable.
    I commented on this last night

    Sunak cancelled the triple lock this year awarding an increase to pensioners of 3.1% as indeed was the rise in UC

    Starmer playing political games hit the roof and as a result the triple lock will be reinstated in 2023 but if you want to look for someone to blame, maybe look at Starmer's political games this spring

    'Grown up's would have greed to end it in April this year as Sunak proposed
    Indeed, it is churlish to blame the party that has been in power for over a decade. The majority of the blame as always lies with Starmer, the rest shared between Corbyn, Clegg and Brown.
    The point is labour supporters cannot moan about the triple lock as Starmer is 100% in favour of it
    Supporting a party doesn’t mean you agree 100% with every position the party has. Of course Labour supporters can moan about the triple lock (while acknowledging they’re leader’s position).

    Indeed, Labour supporters moan about their leader all the time!
  • Belfast hustings are due to start in five minutes! (Yeah, I thought it was tonight.) Downstreaming URLs include:-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBlh9oFelIk (Telegraph)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-9U2EBN41c (Sky)
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 926
    PJH said:

    One of the advantages of working from home is that it kills the myth of presenteeism, which often leads to people filling up their time with non-productive busywork.

    On the other hand if done badly you can end up with what a recent Erza Klein podcast termed "LARPing your job", where you spend all your time on email and in instant messaging and Zoom meetings so it "looks like" you're working, at the expense of actually doing the real work... WFH isn't a magic fix for bad management and lack of trust and jobs with poor job security, which I think are the underlying causes of presenteeism.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Janan Ganesh in the FT has Woken up



    "It is there, too, in the growing denial that something has gone very wrong with identity politics. When a liberal says, “There is no culture war,” what I hear is: “Please let there be no culture war. Otherwise, I shall have to fall out with my friends, stand up to my children, upset my employees. Or worse, go along with them and feel a coward.” Even if it is true that 2020 will turn out to be peak woke, it is because people — writers, comedians — took a stand. A conflict was recognised, and engaged. Those who looked away at the time don’t get to turn up now and pronounce the whole thing overblown. The poet Robert Frost once defined a liberal as someone who wouldn’t take their own side in a quarrel. It is increasingly a feat to recognise the quarrel.

    "Another liberal parry is to say that cancel culture is a distraction from the economic crisis. And perhaps it is. But then one novelist’s torment was a distraction in the not notably quiet year of 1989. There will always be a reason to dodge a subject. In the end, “salience” aside, what do you think about it?"


    https://www.ft.com/content/8700151d-eaff-44bd-a6ec-aea1895db361

    He is deluded in his forlorn hope that we might have passed Peak Woke. This psychological defence mechanism - a form of denial, because pain - was identified in the Spectator a year ago



    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-if-wokeness-really-is-the-new-christianity-

    This article by the lawyer involved in the Forstater case is very well worth reading on its implications, why identity issues have become so toxic and also on how competing views can be sensibly managed. Long but essential reading.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/morality-plays-lessons-forstater-peter-daly
    Is it a job requirement for lawyers, that when penning philosophical essays, they have to write 80,000 words minimum?

    That started well but by the 17th chapter my eyes glazed over. A good writer would have reduced it by 90%
    What a wimp you are. I regularly read legal judgments that are much longer, and for good reason.

    An analysis of a complicated legal judgment cannot be reduced to a few simplistic slogans. That is part of the problem which has given rise to many of the issues and far too much commentary on them.

    It is considerably better written and more interesting and thoughtful than the sorts of trashy novels that litter most bookshops.

    But if you want the short analysis my header yesterday is a good start and only 795 words. 😀
    No, the writing is poor

    I can actually give you an example

    In paragraph ten he says

    "The extension of this is that anyone who doesn’t share the moral code is as. a matter of ineluctable logic, inevitably morally wrong. Such organisations avail themselves of, as Sonia Sodha terms it, “the luxury of childishly dividing the world into goodies and baddies”."

    (A really clumsy collision between "inevitable" and "ineluctable" there. This is an amateur striving to write fancy prose)

    About 2000 words later he says:

    "In an article for the Observer in 2021, Sonia Sodha identified that the “naivety [of those who pursue a moral binary] gives them the luxury of childishly dividing the world into goodies and baddies”."

    Clearly forgetting that he has already used this exact quote. Embarrassingly bad. Shoddy writing. 2/10

    If your writing is that poor, I have next to no interest in your opinion, Shape up, Mr Daily!
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,813
    eek said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    No internal photos. Must be too attractive to show
    The clues are

    External Viewings Only.

    Agents Do Not Hold Keys.

    and these are other sold prices https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/ne37/wellington-walk.html

    Also it's not in Jarrow - it's in Washington - imagine Basingstoke with all the joy removed...
    Droolworthy.
    Flat is only actively on fire 75% of the time
  • Betfair next prime minister
    1.09 Liz Truss 92%
    11.5 Rishi Sunak 9%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.09 Liz Truss 92%
    11.5 Rishi Sunak 9%

    Pre-hustings

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.08 Liz Truss 93%
    13 Rishi Sunak 8%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.08 Liz Truss 93%
    12 Rishi Sunak 8%
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    @CorrectHorseBattery

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85848489#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Remember at Boatshed our mantra is "Life's better on a boat" ;)

    Hmm, they claim a mortgage is avaiulable - does that make sense?
    You can get a loan secured against the boat - but it won’t be anywhere close to the base rate, and not a decent loan/value, which will anyway be based on their own valuation. Also see the £1k/month mooring fees for keeping it in London.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    That's why Truss wants to cut the taxes of people like you. She's on your side. :smile:
    Lovely. And, just in case predictions of growth generation or yet more efficiency savings do not bear out, what will get cut?

    I'm not opposed to reductions, but there seems a lot of promises to meet.
    Why won't Truss do anything for people like me?

    She is, this is what she's doing for you.

    But she's promising things to other people too.


    Truss at least seems to understand that people who work should be able to benefit from it and keep more of their own money, rather than simply ratchetting taxes from those who work to give to the client vote who don't. For that she deserves a chance at least, the alternative does not.
    And yet she wants to keep rewarding the client vote as well. Now I have no particular objection to others doing well but only if it is sustainable. The Triple Lock is not sustainable.
    I commented on this last night

    Sunak cancelled the triple lock this year awarding an increase to pensioners of 3.1% as indeed was the rise in UC

    Starmer playing political games hit the roof and as a result the triple lock will be reinstated in 2023 but if you want to look for someone to blame, maybe look at Starmer's political games this spring

    'Grown up's would have greed to end it in April this year as Sunak proposed
    Indeed, it is churlish to blame the party that has been in power for over a decade. The majority of the blame as always lies with Starmer, the rest shared between Corbyn, Clegg and Brown.
    The point is labour supporters cannot moan about the triple lock as Starmer is 100% in favour of it
    I on the other hand despite being a beneficiary can moan its a disgrace that people like yourself think its right for those in work to take further real terms cuts whilst fully expecting to get 12% yourself.

    All leaders including Corbyn have supported the Triple Lock its completely wrong.
    I have no problem with the abolition of the triple lock and supported Sunak when he awarded a 3.1% rise this year

    As for next year it seems that all parties support the triple lock so I just do not see who is going to propose it's abolition
    Oh do keep up. The triple lock rewarding greedy pensioners is so 2021. This year, the fuel and cost of living crises have reminded the government there are an awful lot of pensioners subsisting on a state pension of less than £10,000 a year.
    My wife's pension is just £4,800 pa

    It is a nonsense that all pensioners are well off
    If as a society we want a triple lock on the poorest 10 or 20% incomes for a while to help them catch up, I would be all for it. Whereas we cut the real incomes of the poorest workers in order to boost the incomes of poor, rich and average pensioners. Why? Because they vote selfishly.
    Because they vote. Sooner than hope people are going to buck the long term trend of acting in their own interest you'd be better off running a (not overtly party political) campaign to get the young to vote in theirs. SKS would be doing this if he were less useless. It would be an embarrassing flop mind with a couple of third rank dad rock bands front and centre.
    Yet listen to the moans if anyone suggests extending voting to include a weekend day to help increase the proportion of workers who bother to vote.
    Hadn't heard that, sounds a good wheeze
  • eek said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    No internal photos. Must be too attractive to show
    The clues are

    External Viewings Only.

    Agents Do Not Hold Keys.

    and these are other sold prices https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/ne37/wellington-walk.html

    Also it's not in Jarrow - it's in Washington - imagine Basingstoke with all the joy removed...
    Surely you mean "Amazingstoke"
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FPT

    In London cyclists just ignore red lights, why don't we do something about that?

    It's very annoying. I don't know why London cyclists think they're different to cyclists everywhere else who do obey red lights. When I'm walking in London I deliberately try to cross the street in a way that gets in the way of cyclists trying to do it.

    But I don't think cyclists everywhere else should be forced to have numberplates, insurance, etc, just because of the bad behaviour of London cyclists.
    I cycled for the best part of 40 years in London. My husband was nearly killed by a car which left the scene of the accident and was left with serious head and face injuries. My son cycles to work. All of us have had accidents caused by thoughtless drivers. I could fill PAGES with examples of bad behaviour by cars, vans, lorries and, yes, pedestrians.

    If the number plates could be 2 metres wide with spikes at each end at just the height that they would scratch a car coming too close or someone opening a car door or stepping out in the road without looking, then I'd be all in favour.
    Number plates is absurd and the usual drivel you get from motorists with an anti cyclist agenda. The story in the Mail today is just silly season guff

    Insurance makes sense for a cyclist. I have liability insurance through my membership of Cycling UK.

    If a cyclist thinks they do not need insurance then they are being unwise

    https://lennonssolicitors.co.uk/article/brushett-v-hazeldean-the-perils-of-cycling-without-insurance/
    Would it not make more sense to have something like the MIB that pays out if you are hit by an uninsured driver?
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    edited August 2022
    Let's be fair: it was only British workers living outside London that Liz Truss called lazy swine.

    Did she have a "horse" pulling her up during her earlier career? Surely she must have done. I wonder who it was.

    "What all you northern b*stards need is a) alarm clocks to wake you up in the morning, and b) a hardworking type from the financial or software sector in London standing over you with a whip to make sure you don't skive off." Great election pitch.
  • Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Complaints about moral bankruptcy from the one man left on this site to still support the raging antisemite Jeremy Corbyn even after the report EHRC report came out is somewhat bemusing.

    If Jeremy Corbyn is what you think of as "moral" then I'd go for morally bankrupt all day every day and twice on Thursdays.
    EHRC report clears Corbyn

    Forde Report clears Corbyn and says AS used as a factional tool by CHB types!

    Again if your moral compass thinks the EHRC report cleared Corbyn then I'll stick with morally bankrupt as far superior, especially on Thursdays.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Janan Ganesh in the FT has Woken up



    "It is there, too, in the growing denial that something has gone very wrong with identity politics. When a liberal says, “There is no culture war,” what I hear is: “Please let there be no culture war. Otherwise, I shall have to fall out with my friends, stand up to my children, upset my employees. Or worse, go along with them and feel a coward.” Even if it is true that 2020 will turn out to be peak woke, it is because people — writers, comedians — took a stand. A conflict was recognised, and engaged. Those who looked away at the time don’t get to turn up now and pronounce the whole thing overblown. The poet Robert Frost once defined a liberal as someone who wouldn’t take their own side in a quarrel. It is increasingly a feat to recognise the quarrel.

    "Another liberal parry is to say that cancel culture is a distraction from the economic crisis. And perhaps it is. But then one novelist’s torment was a distraction in the not notably quiet year of 1989. There will always be a reason to dodge a subject. In the end, “salience” aside, what do you think about it?"


    https://www.ft.com/content/8700151d-eaff-44bd-a6ec-aea1895db361

    He is deluded in his forlorn hope that we might have passed Peak Woke. This psychological defence mechanism - a form of denial, because pain - was identified in the Spectator a year ago



    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-if-wokeness-really-is-the-new-christianity-

    This article by the lawyer involved in the Forstater case is very well worth reading on its implications, why identity issues have become so toxic and also on how competing views can be sensibly managed. Long but essential reading.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/morality-plays-lessons-forstater-peter-daly
    Is it a job requirement for lawyers, that when penning philosophical essays, they have to write 80,000 words minimum?

    That started well but by the 17th chapter my eyes glazed over. A good writer would have reduced it by 90%
    What a wimp you are. I regularly read legal judgments that are much longer, and for good reason.

    An analysis of a complicated legal judgment cannot be reduced to a few simplistic slogans. That is part of the problem which has given rise to many of the issues and far too much commentary on them.

    It is considerably better written and more interesting and thoughtful than the sorts of trashy novels that litter most bookshops.

    But if you want the short analysis my header yesterday is a good start and only 795 words. 😀
    No, the writing is poor

    I can actually give you an example

    In paragraph ten he says

    "The extension of this is that anyone who doesn’t share the moral code is as. a matter of ineluctable logic, inevitably morally wrong. Such organisations avail themselves of, as Sonia Sodha terms it, “the luxury of childishly dividing the world into goodies and baddies”."

    (A really clumsy collision between "inevitable" and "ineluctable" there. This is an amateur striving to write fancy prose)

    About 2000 words later he says:

    "In an article for the Observer in 2021, Sonia Sodha identified that the “naivety [of those who pursue a moral binary] gives them the luxury of childishly dividing the world into goodies and baddies”."

    Clearly forgetting that he has already used this exact quote. Embarrassingly bad. Shoddy writing. 2/10

    If your writing is that poor, I have next to no interest in your opinion, Shape up, Mr Daily!
    Yes, indeed. Repetition. Clearly, applying the criteria of a radio panel show, you are entirely justified in dismissing the whole thing.
  • Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Complaints about moral bankruptcy from the one man left on this site to still support the raging antisemite Jeremy Corbyn even after the report EHRC report came out is somewhat bemusing.

    If Jeremy Corbyn is what you think of as "moral" then I'd go for morally bankrupt all day every day and twice on Thursdays.
    EHRC report clears Corbyn

    Forde Report clears Corbyn and says AS used as a factional tool by CHB types!

    Again if your moral compass thinks the EHRC report cleared Corbyn then I'll stick with morally bankrupt as far superior, especially on Thursdays.
    The EHRC report did not say Corbyn hates Jews; it said Labour did not have a proper complaints procedure and was winging it, badly.
  • Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FPT

    In London cyclists just ignore red lights, why don't we do something about that?

    It's very annoying. I don't know why London cyclists think they're different to cyclists everywhere else who do obey red lights. When I'm walking in London I deliberately try to cross the street in a way that gets in the way of cyclists trying to do it.

    But I don't think cyclists everywhere else should be forced to have numberplates, insurance, etc, just because of the bad behaviour of London cyclists.
    I cycled for the best part of 40 years in London. My husband was nearly killed by a car which left the scene of the accident and was left with serious head and face injuries. My son cycles to work. All of us have had accidents caused by thoughtless drivers. I could fill PAGES with examples of bad behaviour by cars, vans, lorries and, yes, pedestrians.

    If the number plates could be 2 metres wide with spikes at each end at just the height that they would scratch a car coming too close or someone opening a car door or stepping out in the road without looking, then I'd be all in favour.
    Number plates is absurd and the usual drivel you get from motorists with an anti cyclist agenda. The story in the Mail today is just silly season guff

    Insurance makes sense for a cyclist. I have liability insurance through my membership of Cycling UK.

    If a cyclist thinks they do not need insurance then they are being unwise

    https://lennonssolicitors.co.uk/article/brushett-v-hazeldean-the-perils-of-cycling-without-insurance/
    Would it not make more sense to have something like the MIB that pays out if you are hit by an uninsured driver?
    What about if, as a cyclist, you hit someone?
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    edited August 2022
    Do the Tories have many members in Northern Ireland? I presume you can't simultaneously be a member of the Conservatives and the DUP? Will they address the issue that the majority of people in Northern Ireland accept the protocol?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    But then he’d have to live in Jarrow…
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    FPT

    In London cyclists just ignore red lights, why don't we do something about that?

    It's very annoying. I don't know why London cyclists think they're different to cyclists everywhere else who do obey red lights. When I'm walking in London I deliberately try to cross the street in a way that gets in the way of cyclists trying to do it.

    But I don't think cyclists everywhere else should be forced to have numberplates, insurance, etc, just because of the bad behaviour of London cyclists.
    I cycled for the best part of 40 years in London. My husband was nearly killed by a car which left the scene of the accident and was left with serious head and face injuries. My son cycles to work. All of us have had accidents caused by thoughtless drivers. I could fill PAGES with examples of bad behaviour by cars, vans, lorries and, yes, pedestrians.

    If the number plates could be 2 metres wide with spikes at each end at just the height that they would scratch a car coming too close or someone opening a car door or stepping out in the road without looking, then I'd be all in favour.
    Number plates is absurd and the usual drivel you get from motorists with an anti cyclist agenda. The story in the Mail today is just silly season guff

    Insurance makes sense for a cyclist. I have liability insurance through my membership of Cycling UK.

    If a cyclist thinks they do not need insurance then they are being unwise

    https://lennonssolicitors.co.uk/article/brushett-v-hazeldean-the-perils-of-cycling-without-insurance/
    Would it not make more sense to have something like the MIB that pays out if you are hit by an uninsured driver?
    Yes but how would it be funded as MIB is currently funded by insurers who underwrite motor insurance ?

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:
    That is quite insane


    It's one room. In Taplow. £130k!
    We will find Horse his dream home.
    Got it. He's just gotta go a couple of miles north, to Jarrow

    Three beds, spacious, pleasant neighborhood, £5,000


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125093444#/?channel=RES_BUY
    But then he’d have to live in Jarrow…
    There are some decent parts of Jarrow, but that flat is in Washington not far from Concord.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,154
    edited August 2022

    Do the Tories have many members in Northern Ireland? I resume you can't simultaneously be a member of the Conservatives and the DUP? Will they address the issue that the majority of people in Northern Ireland accept the protocol?

    Why should they? Why is that an "issue" to be addressed?

    Northern Ireland isn't ruled by majoritarianism, its ruled by power sharing, that was the principle of the Good Friday Agreement.

    The Protocol doesn't have cross-community support, therefore it is a problem and an obstacle to peace that needs to be dealt with, just as Sinn Fein were able as a second-placed party in the second-placed community to get their concerns dealt with in the past post-GFA..

    Its a shame to see how many people are willing to throw the Good Friday Agreement under the bus to save the Protocol, talk about arse over tit. Conclusive proof, if any where needed, that the Protocol had sod all to do with protecting the Good Friday Agreement from the beginning.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    What is the point in working harder, the Tories take my money and spend it on pensioners who do fuck all

    Not true. CB, you are being grossly unfair. They work very hard when the postal ballot comes round, writing the X against the name of the local brain-damaged chimpanzee with a blue rosette Araldited to his fur.
    I apologise.

    I am having my student loan wacked up, an inability to buy a house, all my money being taken so a load of lazy, arsing pricks can vote every five years for more of the same.
    Hmm I thought you were on a decent whack ?
    Yes and I still can't afford a house, how's that for property owning democracy eh Margaret?

    If somebody earning - I will not say how much - above £50K a year can't afford a house then the Tories have no chance. I should be a Tory voter, I am now more Labour than ever
    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80223438#/?channel=RES_BUY

    a commuter's dream as it is located within walking distance to Gravesend railway station that offers the fast train to London, via Ebbsfleet International, in just over 20 minutes.

    Any good for you ?
    It is a commuters dream apparently!
    Bedroom is "12'7 x 9'7 maximum" - but look at that shape on the plan!
    It's quite "cosy", but remember, as soon as you walk out of the door, you've got all of Gravesend at your disposal. Like Paris in the 1890s
    What's Gravesend like? Never been there, and it sounds sort of interesting to explore - I've already got Tilbury and Coalhouse Forts on my list, and there is a ferry to Tilbury.
    Actually, I'm being unfair. There are much worse places in the UK than Gravesend. It's just the name that gives it that grim quality

    Like a lot of the towns on the Thames estuary its gritty, salty and rough at the edges, but it has a lot of history, some interesting and beautiful old pubs, churches, wharves. I'd rather live there than some soulless new build estate just outside Redditch or Basingstoke

    Also has a benign climate by British standards
    Thanks. Thinking about a visit to the area - Dickensian convicts, the Faversham explosion, Oare gunpowder works etc.
    It's well worth it. Don't expect the Italian Riviera, but do expect a lot of character, and oodles of history, and also a sense of exploration. No one goes there as a tourist, so you can feel like a pioneer

    And there is lots of visual drama, because of the mighty Thames Estuary. It gets more boring the further you get from the river

    I actually enioyed my one and only visit to the Isle of Sheppey. It is as ugly and bleak as people say, and yet.... it is poetic, and moody, and seriously eerie in the right foggy weather
    My Camden friend and I love that sort of exploration - last time was the remnants of the Woolwich naval dockyards to the west of the Arsenal, here and there in industrial estates and council housing.

    Been to Sheppey too! Fossil-hunting in the slumped and slippery London Clay.

    Little snippet of Faversham history - what happens if you leave a tip of TNT contaminated sacks against an explosives store in dry weather.
    https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/sites/default/files/archcant/1985 100 The Great Explosion at Faversham 2 April 1916 Percival.pdf
    Excellent. Yes, I too like that exploration, there is so much history east of London, much of it neglected


    Have you heard of this place, or been?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadman's_Island_(Kent)

    "In 2016 the remains of more than 200 humans were found on the island. It is believed that the remains are those of men and boys who died of disease on board prison hulks, floating prisons that were moored in the area around 200 years ago.[3] Originally buried in wooden coffins under six feet (1.8 m) of mud, coastal erosion and rising sea levels has washed away the mud to expose the remains at times of low tide.[2] "

    A journalist friend of mine went, not so long ago, and confirmed that Yes, you can see human bones scattered about

    Brrrr!


    Another fascinating bit of London archaeology is following the Civil War fortifications, which takes you through some of the most compelling parts of the capital

    https://www.walkspast.com/p/walk-16a-english-civil-war-wapping-to.html
  • Membership will be a good 100k over inflated as well as in arrears are counted as Members for 6 months

    SKS Bankrupting Labour as well as being intellectually and morally bankrupt personally


    Great stuff

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/20667711.uk-labour-party-haemorrhaging-funds-members-accounts-reveal/

    Complaints about moral bankruptcy from the one man left on this site to still support the raging antisemite Jeremy Corbyn even after the report EHRC report came out is somewhat bemusing.

    If Jeremy Corbyn is what you think of as "moral" then I'd go for morally bankrupt all day every day and twice on Thursdays.
    EHRC report clears Corbyn

    Forde Report clears Corbyn and says AS used as a factional tool by CHB types!

    BJO you know we're friends and I enjoy your banter and convo. But can we please stick to the facts.

    The EHRC report did not clear Corbyn, it wasn't about Corbyn! It said the Labour Party failed to deal with reports of anti-Semitism in a timely manner. Corbyn said the issue had been overstated; the EHRC report said the opposite.

    The Forde Report said BOTH SIDES were incompetent and disorganised and factionally organised against one another.

    That is the objective readout.
This discussion has been closed.