Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
Don't forget Brown is a war criminal who should be in the dock at the Hague alongside Blair.
As for Cameron, in his farewell speech to the Commons he focused on the introduction of gay marriage as a major achievement of his seven years in office. He only looks good compared with the four incompetents who succeeded him. And insofar as he was on the right side of the argument about EU membership.
Anyone who suggests either Blair or Brown is a war criminal is outing themselves as ridiculous.
And yes, Cameron deserves massive praise for introduction of equal marriage rights. 👍
Approaching Edgbaston and the weather is awful. Raining quite heavily atm.
Its a good job England have been so aggressive in this Test, with the declaration and the batting.
Hopefully we get enough play to get the seven wickets. I believe the forecast is for it to dry up by lunchtime, hopefully that's not too little, too late.
This definitely would have been a washout in the days before they improved the drainage systems at cricket grounds.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
The crisis was baked in as a result of the financial mismanagement of the previous decade. There isn't a counterfactual where Lehman Brothers was bailed out and everyone lived happily ever after.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Reading the transcript the teacher sounds very Deidre Spart.
I suppose some people are just designed to say things in such a way, and with such an attitude, that instantly makes people adopt the opposite position.
Emma Thompson is one such better known example of this.
My father described one work colleague thus - "He's wrong. Always wrong. In fact, he is so wrong that when he is right, he is wrong."
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
My daughter has managed to get 4 rare tickets to sail on PS Waverly from Llandudno this lunchtime
It has long been an ambition to experience this wonderful ship actually on board, and her excursions are sold out as soon as they are announced
Sometimes it is good to step away from politics and enjoy life as much as one can
About PS Waverley
Named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Paddle Steamer Waverley was built on the Clyde. Waverley’s keel was laid on December 27, 1945 but due to material shortages after the war, she was not ready for launch until October 2, 1946. It wasn’t until the following year on January 20, 1947 that she was towed to Greenock for the installation of her boiler and engines. Finally she made her maiden voyage on June 16, 1947 and started what was to become a very long career.
Waverley was originally intended to sail only between Craigendoran & Arrochar in West Scotland. She now sails right round Britain offering regular trips on the Clyde, the Thames, South Coast of England and the Bristol Channel with calls at Liverpool & Llandudno.
Waverley is the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer. In 1975, at the end of her working life, she was famously gifted for £1 to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. Waverley Steam Navigation Co. Ltd, a charity registered in Scotland, was set up to operate the ship. Waverley then began a second career as one of the country’s best-loved tourist attractions. Since she has been in operational preservation she has been awarded four stars by Visit Scotland, an engineering heritage award, and has carried over 6 million passengers from over 60 ports around the UK.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
I haven't seen or heard that story before, but it instantly smells like bovine manure.
Reminds me of the nutjob who was recently claiming to have been sacked as a teacher for "misgendering" a pupil, then went to speak to Piers Morgan to say that all sinners should get the death penalty ...
The teacher went off on one at a pupil who said there were only two genders.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
"reviewing our processes and working with the relevant individuals to ensure such events do not take place in the future."
But....ensure that WHAT events do not take place in future? Questioning of a multi-gender universe, or not being allowed to question a multi-gender universe.
There is almost never any "win" with gender stuff.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
Don't forget Brown is a war criminal who should be in the dock at the Hague alongside Blair.
As for Cameron, in his farewell speech to the Commons he focused on the introduction of gay marriage as a major achievement of his seven years in office. He only looks good compared with the four incompetents who succeeded him. And insofar as he was on the right side of the argument about EU membership.
Anyone who suggests either Blair or Brown is a war criminal is outing themselves as ridiculous.
And yes, Cameron deserves massive praise for introduction of equal marriage rights. 👍
He said it was the achievement he was most proud of. And I'll resist the obvious comment of 'from a short list' because it was an achievement and he's right to feel that way.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
So...anybody who identifies as non-binary or trans is recorded as mentally ill?
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
I don't who these people are (probably unsavoury), but the video is worth listening to. I assume it's legit, but with AI, who knows. If it is legit, fair play to the kids for standing their ground.
The thing is, gender dysphoria is real and is to be respected, but when you go into bat for nonsense such as identifying as a cat, it completely undermines the real issue.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
It sounds good in theory, but is horrid in practice.
The shareholders of the big banks did indeed see their investments wiped out. Wiping out the creditors would have seen a repeat of 1929-33.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
I wonder how many people get their Climate views from the Sun? Hopefully not too many.
What is the impact of newspaper reporting in the real world? The entire plot of "Succession" was about the fading influence of legacy media compared to social media Oh, and rich people acting like children. And Roman sexually harassing a colleague. And, and, and. OK, lots of other things, but that as well.
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
I haven't seen or heard that story before, but it instantly smells like bovine manure.
Reminds me of the nutjob who was recently claiming to have been sacked as a teacher for "misgendering" a pupil, then went to speak to Piers Morgan to say that all sinners should get the death penalty ...
Yep, it'll be nonsense. Good radar. Did you get it where I got mine - Currys?
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
The crisis was baked in as a result of the financial mismanagement of the previous decade. There isn't a counterfactual where Lehman Brothers was bailed out and everyone lived happily ever after.
Only up to a point, and not a very useful one. If you felt so inclined you could trace a lot of it back to the 1980s big bang but really that is ancient history. And yes, you could have that counterfactual. Plenty of other banks were effectively bailed out. It might be a valid criticism that too much bail-out money was used by banks on either side of the Atlantic to resume problematic trading rather than traditional banking activities like loans to industry.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
It sounds good in theory, but is horrid in practice.
The shareholders of the big banks did indeed see their investments wiped out. Wiping out the creditors would have seen a repeat of 1929-33.
There were secured deposit limits for a reason. Anyone with funds upto ~£75k on deposit (or whatever the limit was at the time) wouldn't have seen their investments wiped out, but anyone over that or who for any reason was unsecured absolutely should have been. As should other creditors outside that system too.
Saying that anyone is 'too big to fail' is a recipe for malfeasance.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
I wonder how many people get their Climate views from the Sun? Hopefully not too many.
What is the impact of newspaper reporting in the real world? The entire plot of "Succession" was about the fading influence of legacy media compared to social media Oh, and rich people acting like children. And Roman sexually harassing a colleague. And, and, and. OK, lots of other things, but that as well.
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
It's a good question. Does the Sun win hearts and change minds? I suppose it must do to some extent. If you read it day in day out you'll be influenced.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
"reviewing our processes and working with the relevant individuals to ensure such events do not take place in the future."
But....ensure that WHAT events do not take place in future? Questioning of a multi-gender universe, or not being allowed to question a multi-gender universe.
There is almost never any "win" with gender stuff.
Somebody mentioned "The Light of Other Days" the other day, where a time-viewer is repurposed to act as an universal real-time surveillance mechanism and even the smallest moment can be instantaneously broadcast to the world. We seem to have run straight into this and don't seem to care overmuch.
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
And they might well have averted the Global Financial Crisis.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Should the local paediatricians board up their offices - just in case?
Rather depressing that I at least instantly see the point of your comment (not sure if it is a joke).
Wasn't there a mob about 20 years ago going after paedos named by The Sun or something and then they attacked a paediatrician's house? Might have been in the Pompey area.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
The bigger decision was AIG. They figured they had to bail them out otherwise the system would fall over. Lehman was a lower risk to let go. I think they got it right.
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
I think your bias is showing. It was Thatcher who provoked Ian Paisley's "never, never, never" speech and she endured accusations of treachery in the European Parliament.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
It's become a bit of a shorthand for "Shortly, a mob of idiots will appear offering violence in the name of 'Protect the children'. They will, of course, harm children by their actions."
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
And they might well have averted the Global Financial Crisis.
You can not avert crises.
The crisis had to happen due to imbalances within the market that came to the boil and eventually had to go pop.
Had America done a Brown and bailed out failed businesses, they'd have added fuel to the fire by further inflating the bubble, further encouraged risk-taking, and making the inevitable crisis even worse when it happened rather than better.
The article refers back to a 2022 opinion piece in the Spectator by one "Sean Thomas" who used to post here as @SeanT and then disappeared, never to be seen again. It is entitled "Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?".
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Should the local paediatricians board up their offices - just in case?
Rather depressing that I at least instantly see the point of your comment (not sure if it is a joke).
Wasn't there a mob about 20 years ago going after paedos named by The Sun or something and then they attacked a paediatrician's house? Might have been in the Pompey area.
Just so. Though that was in Gwent, on checking. The Pompey stuff was outright misidentification of non-paediatrician families.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
I wonder how many people get their Climate views from the Sun? Hopefully not too many.
What is the impact of newspaper reporting in the real world? The entire plot of "Succession" was about the fading influence of legacy media compared to social media Oh, and rich people acting like children. And Roman sexually harassing a colleague. And, and, and. OK, lots of other things, but that as well.
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
It's a good question. Does the Sun win hearts and change minds? I suppose it must do to some extent. If you read it day in day out you'll be influenced.
What would have been the downside of him voting for the report?
Of course it was a mistake. Weak, weak, weak.
More helpful advice from PB Labour supporters; I can't think why Tory politicians don't use this amazing PB resource more.
Sunak did the only thing he could do to keep the party relatively united. Had he whipped to vote in favour, he'd have had mass abstentions and looked like he'd totally lost control of the PCP. As it is, the numbers voting against are small (though not the '2 or 3' we were assured Boris's supporters numbered), most of the MPs did the same as Sunak, and a sizeable minority were able to signal their virtue by voting for.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
I wonder how many people get their Climate views from the Sun? Hopefully not too many.
What is the impact of newspaper reporting in the real world? The entire plot of "Succession" was about the fading influence of legacy media compared to social media Oh, and rich people acting like children. And Roman sexually harassing a colleague. And, and, and. OK, lots of other things, but that as well.
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
It's a good question. Does the Sun win hearts and change minds? I suppose it must do to some extent. If you read it day in day out you'll be influenced.
Lets take things one step at a time.
If you read The Sun every day then do you have a heart? Or a mind?
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Security was the most important issue back then. The IRA was not interested in seeking peace at that point. There was not a deal that could have been done in the eighties that would have satisified a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists.
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
And they might well have averted the Global Financial Crisis.
You can not avert crises.
The crisis had to happen due to imbalances within the market that came to the boil and eventually had to go pop.
Had America done a Brown and bailed out failed businesses, they'd have added fuel to the fire by further inflating the bubble, further encouraged risk-taking, and making the inevitable crisis even worse when it happened rather than better.
America did rescue its financial sector but after (and actually in a couple of cases, before) the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the Global Financial Crisis. You may recall it was Gordon Brown who played an important part in coordinating rescue, and thus "saved the world".
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
I wonder how many people get their Climate views from the Sun? Hopefully not too many.
What is the impact of newspaper reporting in the real world? The entire plot of "Succession" was about the fading influence of legacy media compared to social media Oh, and rich people acting like children. And Roman sexually harassing a colleague. And, and, and. OK, lots of other things, but that as well.
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
It's a good question. Does the Sun win hearts and change minds? I suppose it must do to some extent. If you read it day in day out you'll be influenced.
Thank you, good point.
So the good question has brought forth a good point. What a lovely exchange. Let's leave it right there.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Security was the most important issue back then. The IRA was not interested in seeking peace at that point. There was not a deal that could have been done in the eighties that would have satisified a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists.
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
The Peace Process is a moveable feast, remember. No one expected that the Shinners and the DUP would be running things, for example. The assumption was that, having created the process (largely) the UUP and SDLP would unite to run NI for about as long as the Japanese LDP managed.
The article refers back to a 2022 opinion piece in the Spectator by one "Sean Thomas" who used to post here as @SeanT and then disappeared, never to be seen again. It is entitled "Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?".
A section of the US far left gets off on denouncing every aspect of this country and its imperial history, but it comes over as displacement activity. What they're actually describing are the less pleasant features of the US and its own imperial history.
On topic, no it was not a mistake. Nor would voting in favour have been a mistake either. It was irrelevant either way. All but six Tory MPs either voted in favour of the report, or abstained to let the report be accepted.
Some people have been acting crazy here acting like anyone who abstained was like Trumpists storming the Capitol on 6 January. In our adversarial Parliamentary system if people from one party abstain while the opposition is voting then that's effectively siding with the opposition by stepping out of their way and letting them win by default.
The number that matters is how many voted against and that was a pathetic, meagre 7.
7 oddballs within a Government is nothing and is perfectly manageable in any party except one as small as the Lib Dems.
I don't think it is on par with that, but I do think it is a sign of weakness. When there was such an overwhelming vote against Johnson in the end, not attending the vote sends a message all of it's own. If they wanted to defend him they should have been there and made that argument, if they wanted to condemn him the same, and if they truly thought abstention was the right position they should have defended that. Just not attending is cowardly. And it is even more so for the PM, who has little political capital as it is. This won't appease the public, they either don't care or have a firm view, this won't appease the house, because he didn't really explain himself, and it almost certainly didn't appease his backbenchers, who are split on the issue and probably could have done with some leadership.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that Sunak was right. I can see how it looks cowardly, and it was my initial gut reaction, but I think this was actually more of a slight against Johnsonism. Think of it this way: a free vote and holders of the Great Offices don't even bother to turn up and lead the charge, and it's still a crushing defeat for Johnson. It's an attempt to say "he's gone, finished, irrelevant, and we don't even have to wheel in the big guns."
It's not a siege against a holdout fortress, it's just going around the smoky battlefield bayoneting the dying of the defeated army.
Well that's the theory. Whether it works in practice, we'll see. But I think I see where Sunak's coming from.
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Security was the most important issue back then. The IRA was not interested in seeking peace at that point. There was not a deal that could have been done in the eighties that would have satisified a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists.
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
The Peace Process is a moveable feast, remember. No one expected that the Shinners and the DUP would be running things, for example. The assumption was that, having created the process (largely) the UUP and SDLP would unite to run NI for about as long as the Japanese LDP managed.
Yes, it was meant to marginalise the extremes, rather than strengthening them.
My daughter has managed to get 4 rare tickets to sail on PS Waverly from Llandudno this lunchtime
It has long been an ambition to experience this wonderful ship actually on board, and her excursions are sold out as soon as they are announced
Sometimes it is good to step away from politics and enjoy life as much as one can
About PS Waverley
Named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Paddle Steamer Waverley was built on the Clyde. Waverley’s keel was laid on December 27, 1945 but due to material shortages after the war, she was not ready for launch until October 2, 1946. It wasn’t until the following year on January 20, 1947 that she was towed to Greenock for the installation of her boiler and engines. Finally she made her maiden voyage on June 16, 1947 and started what was to become a very long career.
Waverley was originally intended to sail only between Craigendoran & Arrochar in West Scotland. She now sails right round Britain offering regular trips on the Clyde, the Thames, South Coast of England and the Bristol Channel with calls at Liverpool & Llandudno.
Waverley is the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer. In 1975, at the end of her working life, she was famously gifted for £1 to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. Waverley Steam Navigation Co. Ltd, a charity registered in Scotland, was set up to operate the ship. Waverley then began a second career as one of the country’s best-loved tourist attractions. Since she has been in operational preservation she has been awarded four stars by Visit Scotland, an engineering heritage award, and has carried over 6 million passengers from over 60 ports around the UK.
When my children were younger we used to take the Waverly and latterly the Balmoral to Minehead from Penarth or Porthcawl.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
We will never be able to afford Net Zero, until that is everyone wakes up to the costs of not doing it.
At some point we will have to do net zero, given the finite nature of fossil fuels. Better to do it earlier rather than later and not transform the world into a global hothouse though.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
So...anybody who identifies as non-binary or trans is recorded as mentally ill?
The issue surely is whether there are other underlying issues ie is the identification a symptom of other conditions or the end product? That is why it is necessary to have a whole person approach to any child presenting themselves as dysphoric in order to understand what are the reasons behind it and how might the child be best treated. Unfortunately child mental health services are poor and not joined up. That was one of the problems with the Tavistock gender clinic and it is one of the recommendations of the Interim Cass Review. Focusing on only one aspect of a child's distress is foolish and likely to be unhelpful. Affirming a self-diagnosis without inquiring into what is really going on is also foolish and poor medicine/ therapy.
Girls at puberty are very prone to all sorts of pressures and distress: see eating disorders for instance. It would be wise to try and understand properly what is happening and do what is best for the individual rather than seek to impose some sort of one size fits all policy.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
On the one hand, the great financial centres, the City and Wall Street, on the other hand, Iceland, a country of less than half a million people. You also miss that it was the Federal Reserve's decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers (and, if you must, our Labour government's refusal to let Barclays take it over) that tipped the world into crisis.
Yes, Wall Street and Iceland both rightly let failed businesses fail.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
And they might well have averted the Global Financial Crisis.
You can not avert crises.
The crisis had to happen due to imbalances within the market that came to the boil and eventually had to go pop.
Had America done a Brown and bailed out failed businesses, they'd have added fuel to the fire by further inflating the bubble, further encouraged risk-taking, and making the inevitable crisis even worse when it happened rather than better.
America did do a bailout. AIG, Tarp etc. It was a massive bailout. They judged it necessary to prevent systemic collapse. Your hair-trigger Brownaphobia is not for the first time leading you astray.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
It's a running theme. See also: covid and climate change.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, except that a patient's illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
On which subject, the story yesterday about the school in Sussex where the teacher was sacked for refusing to accede to the child's demand to be identified as a cat - surely there is more to the story than this? As my wife said, it's almost impossible to sack a teacher: this seems a very strange reason to lose a job.
Should the local paediatricians board up their offices - just in case?
Rather depressing that I at least instantly see the point of your comment (not sure if it is a joke).
Wasn't there a mob about 20 years ago going after paedos named by The Sun or something and then they attacked a paediatrician's house? Might have been in the Pompey area.
Yes and no. The paediatrician was in Newport. The mob was in Portsmouth. The two were conflated.
The article refers back to a 2022 opinion piece in the Spectator by one "Sean Thomas" who used to post here as @SeanT and then disappeared, never to be seen again. It is entitled "Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?".
A section of the US far left gets off on denouncing every aspect of this country and its imperial history, but it comes over as displacement activity. What they're actually describing are the less pleasant features of the US and its own imperial history.
The NYT specialises in a certain kind of article, where the quotes from a person in the street are in American idiom...
It seems to have started when the Coalition government came in. Gordon Brown was big friends with some East Coast American Democrats, and they portrayed the country turning against him as The End Of Civilisation.
My American relatives, when they visit (nearly religious NYT readers, get all their news there), find the difference between what they have read and what they see, rather startling.
The article refers back to a 2022 opinion piece in the Spectator by one "Sean Thomas" who used to post here as @SeanT and then disappeared, never to be seen again. It is entitled "Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?".
A section of the US far left gets off on denouncing every aspect of this country and its imperial history, but it comes over as displacement activity. What they're actually describing are the less pleasant features of the US and its own imperial history.
The NYT specialises in a certain kind of article, where the quotes from a person in the street are in American idiom...
It seems to have started when the Coalition government came in. Gordon Brown was big friends with some East Coast American Democrats, and they portrayed the country turning against him as The End Of Civilisation.
My American relatives, when they visit (nearly religious NYT readers, get all their news there), find the difference between what they have read and what they see, rather startling.
"Physician, heal thyself" is what comes to mind when I read such articles.
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Security was the most important issue back then. The IRA was not interested in seeking peace at that point. There was not a deal that could have been done in the eighties that would have satisified a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists.
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
The Peace Process is a moveable feast, remember. No one expected that the Shinners and the DUP would be running things, for example. The assumption was that, having created the process (largely) the UUP and SDLP would unite to run NI for about as long as the Japanese LDP managed.
Yes, it was meant to marginalise the extremes, rather than strengthening them.
A part of the problem was that the Blair "restarting" of the Peace Process, which had stalled under Major, was about giving the extremists whatever they wanted to make them happy.
This led to the realisation that the way to get stuff in NI, is to be extreme.
Recently, someone people became really upset that the DUP were blocking politics in NI. The entire experience of the last quarter of a century has been that being intransigent and threatening some proxy violence is how you win in NI.
Having carefully bred, watered, fed and rewarded face eating leopards for decades, people are surprised when other face eating leopards appear...
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
On topic, no it was not a mistake. Nor would voting in favour have been a mistake either. It was irrelevant either way. All but six Tory MPs either voted in favour of the report, or abstained to let the report be accepted.
Some people have been acting crazy here acting like anyone who abstained was like Trumpists storming the Capitol on 6 January. In our adversarial Parliamentary system if people from one party abstain while the opposition is voting then that's effectively siding with the opposition by stepping out of their way and letting them win by default.
The number that matters is how many voted against and that was a pathetic, meagre 7.
7 oddballs within a Government is nothing and is perfectly manageable in any party except one as small as the Lib Dems.
I don't think it is on par with that, but I do think it is a sign of weakness. When there was such an overwhelming vote against Johnson in the end, not attending the vote sends a message all of it's own. If they wanted to defend him they should have been there and made that argument, if they wanted to condemn him the same, and if they truly thought abstention was the right position they should have defended that. Just not attending is cowardly. And it is even more so for the PM, who has little political capital as it is. This won't appease the public, they either don't care or have a firm view, this won't appease the house, because he didn't really explain himself, and it almost certainly didn't appease his backbenchers, who are split on the issue and probably could have done with some leadership.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that Sunak was right. I can see how it looks cowardly, and it was my initial gut reaction, but I think this was actually more of a slight against Johnsonism. Think of it this way: a free vote and holders of the Great Offices don't even bother to turn up and lead the charge, and it's still a crushing defeat for Johnson. It's an attempt to say "he's gone, finished, irrelevant, and we don't even have to wheel in the big guns."
It's not a siege against a holdout fortress, it's just going around the smoky battlefield bayoneting the dying of the defeated army.
Well that's the theory. Whether it works in practice, we'll see. But I think I see where Sunak's coming from.
I still think it’s better to turn Johnson into an irrelevance if possible and I posted the below on Friday but I don’t think it was a popular view.
LOL Interesting development. Could the Privileges Committee be made subject to court challenge - a Judicial Review - on its procedural irregularities? Parliament is above the law thanks to the 1689 Bill of Rights; but surely common law rights still apply?
Sounds very Freemen of the Land kind of stuff. They seem to love declaring the supremacy of the 'Common Law'.
While I hope this is nonsense, we may need to wait and see. In the Miller prorogation case it was widely assumed and lower courts decided that the matter was not justiciable. (This included a court consisting of the LCJ, the MR and President of QBD).
It is unlikely but not impossible that a court could intervene on a committee of the HoC and its actions. Though common sense suggests it won't be interested. But, for the moment, if the SC says a matter is justiciable (ie courts can take an interest) then it is.
It is even thinkable that the courts in extremis will decide that an Act of Parliament is justiciable in itself. It's a nuclear option against tyranny never to be used, but not legally impossible, since the SC can overrule itself.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
So...anybody who identifies as non-binary or trans is recorded as mentally ill?
The issue surely is whether there are other underlying issues ie is the identification a symptom of other conditions or the end product? That is why it is necessary to have a whole person approach to any child presenting themselves as dysphoric in order to understand what are the reasons behind it and how might the child be best treated. Unfortunately child mental health services are poor and not joined up. That was one of the problems with the Tavistock gender clinic and it is one of the recommendations of the Interim Cass Review. Focusing on only one aspect of a child's distress is foolish and likely to be unhelpful. Affirming a self-diagnosis without inquiring into what is really going on is also foolish and poor medicine/ therapy.
Girls at puberty are very prone to all sorts of pressures and distress: see eating disorders for instance. It would be wise to try and understand properly what is happening and do what is best for the individual rather than seek to impose some sort of one size fits all policy.
Personal anecdote alert.
A friends daughter announced she was trans. Teenager.
So he spent a fortune finding the best head shrinker who specialised in the field. Who said that he reckoned not, but could be wrong. But that she had other issues to work through.
So my friend invested in shrinks of the open minded variety. And told her, basically, that its was her choice and he would support her.
Early lunch at Edgbaston 12.30. So no play until around 1.15. Weather appears to be getting better there.
Still plenty of time for a result!
Yes, that's pretty much it for the rain. Just a mopping up job now.
The main weather question is whether the cloud cover will remain or whether the sun will come out. Looks mostly cloudy for the afternoon which will help England.
Be very surprised if there isn't a result one way or the other.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
We will never be able to afford Net Zero, until that is everyone wakes up to the costs of not doing it.
We might do better saving for those costs than burning the economy...because like it or not, change is coming.
Some mitigations are cheap and/or better. We should definitely do those.
In climate science they talk about mitigation, "reducing the amount of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions," and adaptation, "adapting to the global warming not avoided."
Where are you guys picking up on this different use of mitigation?
Most of the evidence is that mitigation is much, much cheaper than adaptation. And especially now when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels anyway, so all you're doing by increasing mitigation efforts is pulling forward investment that would be made eventually anyway. Hardly burning the economy.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
We will never be able to afford Net Zero, until that is everyone wakes up to the costs of not doing it.
At some point we will have to do net zero, given the finite nature of fossil fuels. Better to do it earlier rather than later and not transform the world into a global hothouse though.
As you imply, we really cannot wait until oil gas and coal run out.
Throughout my whole life people have been trying to claim that in 20 years fossil fuels will be too expensive to extract. We are still 20 years away, and I won't be surprised if we are still 20 years away in 2050.
Most people won't care, they'll be more interested in why their mortgage is going to shoot up. Which Sunak will also cop the blame for.
I said exactly this in the prior thread. People care about what is impacting their life on a daily basis far more than this Westminster trivia and Newsnight is pretty irrelevant too. How many people watch it these days ?
You'd be surprised how mullti layered people's comprehension is. Human's really aren't these simplistic one dimensional creatures of Dacre and Littlejohn's dreams.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
Abolishing boom and bust came from sidestepping European recessions of 2000 and 2001 using counter-cyclical spending. Hubris, yes, but again largely irrelevant to the GFC.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
So...anybody who identifies as non-binary or trans is recorded as mentally ill?
The issue surely is whether there are other underlying issues ie is the identification a symptom of other conditions or the end product? That is why it is necessary to have a whole person approach to any child presenting themselves as dysphoric in order to understand what are the reasons behind it and how might the child be best treated. Unfortunately child mental health services are poor and not joined up. That was one of the problems with the Tavistock gender clinic and it is one of the recommendations of the Interim Cass Review. Focusing on only one aspect of a child's distress is foolish and likely to be unhelpful. Affirming a self-diagnosis without inquiring into what is really going on is also foolish and poor medicine/ therapy.
Girls at puberty are very prone to all sorts of pressures and distress: see eating disorders for instance. It would be wise to try and understand properly what is happening and do what is best for the individual rather than seek to impose some sort of one size fits all policy.
No I understood the point (and the references) but I'm thinking that the whole approach may be flawed. If teenage trans self-identification is a fad and fancy of people finding puberty traumatic, then the best approach may not be to lock them in a mental hospital and subject them to a barrage of tests to find out what's really wrong, it may simply be to ignore them and let them grow out of it by themselves. It would certainly be more cost effective and - as you note - would not end up with mental hospitals being increasingly filled with non-binary teens.
Somebody once said that the reason why the GP system survives is that it gives people somebody sympathetic to talk to, and anything serious is diverted to proper doctors. A similar system seems to be evolving here.
[Edit: I seem to have conflated two posts, one by @Westie , one by @Cyclefree . Apologies, although I think my point still holds]
Blair Major Thatcher Brown May Cameron Sunak . . . . . Johnson Truss
I mark Thatcher down because she squandered North Sea oil revenues, kept unemployment high for longer than necessary, failed to progress NI peace, tried to block the progress of social liberalism.
Spot on.
She actually started the modern NI peace process.
It was a twin track effort - reaching out to the Irish government, killing off the hardline terrorists on both sides. The later was accomplished by using double agents - who rose to positions of power in the various organisations. And worked to kill off the hardliners who didn't want peace.
Thatcher did accidentally start the peace process with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Her purpose was to shore up her extremely hard line on Northern Ireland and undermine Sinn Féins political pitch to Northern Irish Catholics at the expense of the SDLP. Thatcher tried to row back the agreement when it became clear it was a vehicle to include the IRA, ie actually a peace process but it was too late. Her successor was the one to really engage in that process.
A big issue was extradition of suspected terrorists, where the Irish government did not follow through on promises made in 1985.
Thatcher saw the agreement in security terms and never as a political engagement. She later saw it as a mistake. I don't think we can credibly cite Thatcher as an architect of peace in Northern Ireland, like Major or Blair.
Security was the most important issue back then. The IRA was not interested in seeking peace at that point. There was not a deal that could have been done in the eighties that would have satisified a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists.
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
The Peace Process is a moveable feast, remember. No one expected that the Shinners and the DUP would be running things, for example. The assumption was that, having created the process (largely) the UUP and SDLP would unite to run NI for about as long as the Japanese LDP managed.
Yes, it was meant to marginalise the extremes, rather than strengthening them.
A part of the problem was that the Blair "restarting" of the Peace Process, which had stalled under Major, was about giving the extremists whatever they wanted to make them happy.
This led to the realisation that the way to get stuff in NI, is to be extreme.
Recently, someone people became really upset that the DUP were blocking politics in NI. The entire experience of the last quarter of a century has been that being intransigent and threatening some proxy violence is how you win in NI.
Having carefully bred, watered, fed and rewarded face eating leopards for decades, people are surprised when other face eating leopards appear...
“But, I thought they’d only eat other peoples’ faces.”
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
Don't forget the love of using PFI. Another great gift to the country from Brown.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
We will never be able to afford Net Zero, until that is everyone wakes up to the costs of not doing it.
We might do better saving for those costs than burning the economy...because like it or not, change is coming.
Some mitigations are cheap and/or better. We should definitely do those.
In climate science they talk about mitigation, "reducing the amount of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions," and adaptation, "adapting to the global warming not avoided."
Where are you guys picking up on this different use of mitigation?
Most of the evidence is that mitigation is much, much cheaper than adaptation. And especially now when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels anyway, so all you're doing by increasing mitigation efforts is pulling forward investment that would be made eventually anyway. Hardly burning the economy.
That's exactly what I meant by mitigation - reducing emissions. Sorry, I wasn't very clear.
We should reduce emissions where doing so is relatively cheap and has other benefits but we shouldn't burn the economy down.
If we don't believe the whole world is going to reduce emissions enough (and I certainly don't) then we are going to have to be able to adapt. Some adaptations are going to be very expensive.
As an example, the Thames Barrier hasn't got long before it will need to be replaced, assuming we want to defend London.
We should do Net Zero when we can afford it says the Sun. They don't say when that will be.
And so the world will continue to burn.
We will never be able to afford Net Zero, until that is everyone wakes up to the costs of not doing it.
We might do better saving for those costs than burning the economy...because like it or not, change is coming.
Some mitigations are cheap and/or better. We should definitely do those.
In climate science they talk about mitigation, "reducing the amount of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions," and adaptation, "adapting to the global warming not avoided."
Where are you guys picking up on this different use of mitigation?
Most of the evidence is that mitigation is much, much cheaper than adaptation. And especially now when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels anyway, so all you're doing by increasing mitigation efforts is pulling forward investment that would be made eventually anyway. Hardly burning the economy.
The problem is that some people have a rather extreme colonialist attitude that the UK and the West in general can impose its will on the whole world to engage in mitigation, when some like Russia or OPEC nations are not remotely interested and are not free democracies with free speech to engage with either.
The UK can seek to cut oil consumption, that is something in our hands. And if we do, then global consumption of oil will fall (as nobody is going to increase their consumption to counter our reduction) and our investment in alternative technologies can encourage others to do the same.
What the UK can not and should not seek is to unilaterally cut oil extraction, as that is not in our hands. If we cut our production of oil, eg in the North Sea, and switch to importing even more oil instead all that does is make it even more profitable for OPEC and even less likely they'll want to ever act on this matter.
The Titanic submarine loss dominates the headlines, effectively burying the news of Rishi's abstention from a vote that will barely command a footnote in history.
It is very sad that a billionaire and four friends are missing whilst out on a misadventure, but I fail to see why it would be top story on all networks.
Five scallywags missing after a night out in a town on a significant river wouldn't elicit such coverage.
Yes and no. I think if they had driven a car into a river there would be coverage. I get your point (do we care more for wealthy people) but I think there is also the 'unusual' factor involved here too. Also its missing, not confirmed what's happened, so there is mystery too.
What the new organisations are hoping for is a "race against time" to rescue a sunken sub.
Carbon fibre is an interesting choice for a pressure vessel.
"He described being initially hesitant about going aboard the sub at all because some of the components appeared "off the shelf, sort of improvised". "You steer this sub with an Xbox game controller, some of the ballast is abandoned construction pipes." Pogue said he had been reassured by Titan's inventor and OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush, that the carbon-fibre main capsule had been co-designed with Nasa and the University of Washington and was "rock solid".
Like it or not, this is going to be leading the news all week, or until there’s a resolution to the story one way or the other.
It’s similar to the container ship blocking the Suez Canal from a couple of years ago, or the Chilean miners trapped down the shaft - a dream story for 24-hour rolling news.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
Abolishing boom and bust came from sidestepping European recessions of 2000 and 2001 using counter-cyclical spending. Hubris, yes, but again largely irrelevant to the GFC.
However, the house price boom, and associated dodgy lending, ought to have been a red light.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
You have shifted the argument. Nico679 said "I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. " which was the case earlier in the thread.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
It seems to me that Brown placed himself in a position whereby he presented himself as more or less unfailing in ability. It is also true that the finance and banking sector was (and is) regulated under government fiat (lots of quangos, Treasury, BoE etc).
Joe Public reasonably thinks that if an industry is essential, government regulated and failures will be paid for by Joe Public the tax payer, then government, in the form of Gordon Brown the genius, has an over riding duty to prevent the tax payer bail out bit (day to day retail banking and finance, like Northern Rock and Nat West) from going bust in the first place by regulating the risks it takes with Joe Public's money.
What has been put in place now should have been in place then.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
Don't forget the love of using PFI. Another great gift to the country from Brown.
Yes, Brown should be excoriated for PFI. Attempting to blame him for the Global Financial Crisis is ignorant partisan drivel.
Thatcher Blair Major Cameron May Brown Sunak Johnson Truss
You are very kind to Cameron, who I think is the PM whose stock has fallen the most since leaving office.
My list would be
Blair (despite Iraq) Thatcher Major Brown May Sunak Cameron Johnson Truss
Fun game.
My list would be.
Thatcher Cameron Major Johnson Blair Sunak May Truss Brown
And yes, I wanted Johnson out before he left and would not want him back, but I'd say the same to everyone I ranked below him too.
Truss above Brown for what reason? Colour of rosette?
No, not colour of rosette, I put Blair ahead of Sunak, May and Truss.
Truss ahead of Brown as she was removed before she did too much damage. She was bad, I called for her to resign before she did, but she was quickly ousted before much worse happened.
Her Premiership was like stepping on a piece of Lego. Short and painful but quickly over.
The legacy of Gordon Brown was far more toxic and far more long-lasting. It needed a decade of austerity to clean up his mess.
But the toxic legacy of Gordon Brown was more due to his time as Chancellor than that of his time as PM.
It is judging of them as PM not overall.
Indeed, it is hard to separate the two, which is why I rated Blair down in only 5th spot, he's down-rated due to Brown's legacy as Chancellor. Had it not been for Brown as Chancellor I'd have Blair up higher.
But Brown made matters even worse as PM. He completely botched the financial crisis by bailing out the failed banks, rather than allowing them to go bust and protecting guaranteed creditors instead like Iceland did.
That added much more debt than was necessary to an already bad problem and completely warped the market by suggesting that firms were too big to fail and making moral hazard a major problem.
Don't forget Brown is a war criminal who should be in the dock at the Hague alongside Blair.
As for Cameron, in his farewell speech to the Commons he focused on the introduction of gay marriage as a major achievement of his seven years in office. He only looks good compared with the four incompetents who succeeded him. And insofar as he was on the right side of the argument about EU membership.
Anyone who suggests either Blair or Brown is a war criminal is outing themselves as ridiculous.
And yes, Cameron deserves massive praise for introduction of equal marriage rights. 👍
He said it was the achievement he was most proud of. And I'll resist the obvious comment of 'from a short list' because it was an achievement and he's right to feel that way.
Particularly against the majority of his MPs; nowadays the PM is running scared of a minority of his.
LOL Interesting development. Could the Privileges Committee be made subject to court challenge - a Judicial Review - on its procedural irregularities? Parliament is above the law thanks to the 1689 Bill of Rights; but surely common law rights still apply?
Sounds very Freemen of the Land kind of stuff. They seem to love declaring the supremacy of the 'Common Law'.
While I hope this is nonsense, we may need to wait and see. In the Miller prorogation case it was widely assumed and lower courts decided that the matter was not justiciable. (This included a court consisting of the LCJ, the MR and President of QBD).
It is unlikely but not impossible that a court could intervene on a committee of the HoC and its actions. Though common sense suggests it won't be interested. But, for the moment, if the SC says a matter is justiciable (ie courts can take an interest) then it is.
It is even thinkable that the courts in extremis will decide that an Act of Parliament is justiciable in itself. It's a nuclear option against tyranny never to be used, but not legally impossible, since the SC can overrule itself.
The prorogation case, of course, was about the powers of the Government, not of Parliament. I can't see a case against the Privileges Committee going anywhere because the Privileges Committee decides nothing. The House decides, and the House voted last night. The courts aren't going to overturn a vote in the Commons, especially not one whose only actual effect is to take Johnson's pass away.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Yes, his leading of the rescue and mitigation effort was first class. He was the right person at the right time. Where he can be fairly criticized imo is in the years before, falling for the City's self-image and propaganda that it could be trusted to assess and manage risk. Or maybe he didn't fall for it, maybe he chose to not think about it on account of the booming tax revenues, but either way it was remiss. It was the prevailing UK/US business culture of the time, therefore hard to go against the grain of, and the Tories would have been even more laissez faire, these things are true but don't get him off the hook. He was a powerful CoE, took the plaudits when all looked well, hence must take some blame for it going pear.
Brown was correct in stepping in to save Northern Rock . A failure to do this would have seen a domino effect of people rushing to pull savings from other banks.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
Brown gets criticised because he changed UK banking regulation with the creation of the FSA (a huge but almost entirely useless organisation) which let so many UK banks get into a mess in the first place. You make the rules, shit hits the fan as a result, you are in part to blame. Simple.
At an even more basic level he came into office promising not to stoke another housing boom and smugly boasted of abolishing boom and bust even as annual house price inflation approached 30%.
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
Abolishing boom and bust came from sidestepping European recessions of 2000 and 2001 using counter-cyclical spending. Hubris, yes, but again largely irrelevant to the GFC.
However, the house price boom, and associated dodgy lending, ought to have been a red light.
A red light for what? Britain's house price boom might have been a real problem but is irrelevant to the GFC.
Off-topic, but on a topic that's frequently discussed here: I had lunch yesterday with a nurse who works at a residential mental hospital in England for children and adolescents aged 12-18. The institution contains a school. It does not specialise in caring for patients who have been diagnosed with any specific illness, other than that the illness must be mental and they must be diagnosed as needing residential care for it. About half of its ~40 patients are girls.
She tells me that ALL of the girls apart from one who suffers from psychosis are identifying either as "they" for non-binary, or as "he".
Is that a chicken and egg situation?
No. I asked the same question and going by what my friend says there is an answer to it. The hospital doesn't specialise in treating patients with problems related to gender identity. It's just that being recorded as having such problems, which are entered on the record whenever a patient self-identifies as non-binary or trans, has been the path of least resistance for almost all of the ~20 girls who live in the hospital's catchment area and who are being housed there for any of a wide range of mental issues that require residential care.
So...anybody who identifies as non-binary or trans is recorded as mentally ill?
The issue surely is whether there are other underlying issues ie is the identification a symptom of other conditions or the end product? That is why it is necessary to have a whole person approach to any child presenting themselves as dysphoric in order to understand what are the reasons behind it and how might the child be best treated. Unfortunately child mental health services are poor and not joined up. That was one of the problems with the Tavistock gender clinic and it is one of the recommendations of the Interim Cass Review. Focusing on only one aspect of a child's distress is foolish and likely to be unhelpful. Affirming a self-diagnosis without inquiring into what is really going on is also foolish and poor medicine/ therapy.
Girls at puberty are very prone to all sorts of pressures and distress: see eating disorders for instance. It would be wise to try and understand properly what is happening and do what is best for the individual rather than seek to impose some sort of one size fits all policy.
Personal anecdote alert.
A friends daughter announced she was trans. Teenager.
So he spent a fortune finding the best head shrinker who specialised in the field. Who said that he reckoned not, but could be wrong. But that she had other issues to work through.
So my friend invested in shrinks of the open minded variety. And told her, basically, that its was her choice and he would support her.
In then end, she decided that she wasn't trans.
Did the phrase "lock them in a mental hospital" eventuate at any point during the conversation?
Comments
And yes, Cameron deserves massive praise for introduction of equal marriage rights. 👍
And so the world will continue to burn.
https://www.youtube.com/@UKCovid-19Inquiry
- School holds "life lessons"
- Teacher talked about cisgender and transgender
- Pupil objected
- Teacher objected to pupil objecting
- Comedy ensued
- Girl recorded it and uploaded to Tiktok
- Tiktok went viral
- Papers went "oooh, a trans thing on Tiktok" and cleared pages 1,2,3,4,5,11,13 and the opinion pages.
- Twitter found out and PEOPLE ARE UPSET
Nobody has (yet?) been fired, although in our calm and noncensorious times that may change in the next five minutes.It has long been an ambition to experience this wonderful ship actually on board, and her excursions are sold out as soon as they are announced
Sometimes it is good to step away from politics and enjoy life as much as one can
About PS Waverley
Named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Paddle Steamer Waverley was built on the Clyde. Waverley’s keel was laid on December 27, 1945 but due to material shortages after the war, she was not ready for launch until October 2, 1946. It wasn’t until the following year on January 20, 1947 that she was towed to Greenock for the installation of her boiler and engines. Finally she made her maiden voyage on June 16, 1947 and started what was to become a very long career.
Waverley was originally intended to sail only between Craigendoran & Arrochar in West Scotland. She now sails right round Britain offering regular trips on the Clyde, the Thames, South Coast of England and the Bristol Channel with calls at Liverpool & Llandudno.
Waverley is the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer. In 1975, at the end of her working life, she was famously gifted for £1 to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. Waverley Steam Navigation Co. Ltd, a charity registered in Scotland, was set up to operate the ship. Waverley then began a second career as one of the country’s best-loved tourist attractions. Since she has been in operational preservation she has been awarded four stars by Visit Scotland, an engineering heritage award, and has carried over 6 million passengers from over 60 ports around the UK.
The Federal Reserve did the right thing in letting Lehman Brothers fail. They were a failed business, they deserve to go out of business, that's how the market works. RBS had failed too, they should have gone out of business, while securing protected (and only protected) deposits, instead Brown made the mistake of bailing them out.
If the Federal Reserve had bailed out Lehman Brothers then they'd have repeated the same mistake as Gordon Brown made.
"reviewing our processes and working with the relevant individuals to ensure such events do not take place in the future."
But....ensure that WHAT events do not take place in future? Questioning of a multi-gender universe, or not being allowed to question a multi-gender universe.
There is almost never any "win" with gender stuff.
https://twitter.com/TPointUK/status/1670145753669410816
I don't who these people are (probably unsavoury), but the video is worth listening to. I assume it's legit, but with AI, who knows. If it is legit, fair play to the kids for standing their ground.
The thing is, gender dysphoria is real and is to be respected, but when you go into bat for nonsense such as identifying as a cat, it completely undermines the real issue.
The shareholders of the big banks did indeed see their investments wiped out. Wiping out the creditors would have seen a repeat of 1929-33.
(And I am guilty for having commented on Sussex Cat-gate.)
Um. Er...
I'm sure I had a point when I started writing this post, but goodness knows where that went...
Saying that anyone is 'too big to fail' is a recipe for malfeasance.
https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1671078559597617153
https://www.politico.eu/article/finland-conservative-government-far-right-petteri-orpo/
It's become a bit of a shorthand for "Shortly, a mob of idiots will appear offering violence in the name of 'Protect the children'. They will, of course, harm children by their actions."
The crisis had to happen due to imbalances within the market that came to the boil and eventually had to go pop.
Had America done a Brown and bailed out failed businesses, they'd have added fuel to the fire by further inflating the bubble, further encouraged risk-taking, and making the inevitable crisis even worse when it happened rather than better.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230202105417/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-the-new-york-times-so-obsessed-with-loathing-britain/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/aug/30/childprotection.society
Edit: but see this also
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/a-tale-told-too-much-the-paediatrician-vigilantes/
Sunak did the only thing he could do to keep the party relatively united. Had he whipped to vote in favour, he'd have had mass abstentions and looked like he'd totally lost control of the PCP. As it is, the numbers voting against are small (though not the '2 or 3' we were assured Boris's supporters numbered), most of the MPs did the same as Sunak, and a sizeable minority were able to signal their virtue by voting for.
If you read The Sun every day then do you have a heart? Or a mind?
As Thatcher saw it, she had made a concession, without getting a matching concession in return.
Then you have the public losing faith in the banking system , banks losing their liquidity and general chaos .
I find it astonishing that Brown continues to get criticized for doing what was necessary to stop economic armaggedon. .
I can see how it looks cowardly, and it was my initial gut reaction, but I think this was actually more of a slight against Johnsonism. Think of it this way: a free vote and holders of the Great Offices don't even bother to turn up and lead the charge, and it's still a crushing defeat for Johnson. It's an attempt to say "he's gone, finished, irrelevant, and we don't even have to wheel in the big guns."
It's not a siege against a holdout fortress, it's just going around the smoky battlefield bayoneting the dying of the defeated army.
Well that's the theory. Whether it works in practice, we'll see. But I think I see where Sunak's coming from.
The Waverly is the more complete experience.
Girls at puberty are very prone to all sorts of pressures and distress: see eating disorders for instance. It would be wise to try and understand properly what is happening and do what is best for the individual rather than seek to impose some sort of one size fits all policy.
Some mitigations are cheap and/or better. We should definitely do those.
Someone better tell them Dorries has decided not to quit after all.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/a-tale-told-too-much-the-paediatrician-vigilantes/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/aug/30/childprotection.society
It seems to have started when the Coalition government came in. Gordon Brown was big friends with some East Coast American Democrats, and they portrayed the country turning against him as The End Of Civilisation.
My American relatives, when they visit (nearly religious NYT readers, get all their news there), find the difference between what they have read and what they see, rather startling.
Although come to think of it that might have been a headline about a twenty-something Gail Porter rather than a heatwave.
Still plenty of time for a result!
This led to the realisation that the way to get stuff in NI, is to be extreme.
Recently, someone people became really upset that the DUP were blocking politics in NI. The entire experience of the last quarter of a century has been that being intransigent and threatening some proxy violence is how you win in NI.
Having carefully bred, watered, fed and rewarded face eating leopards for decades, people are surprised when other face eating leopards appear...
Setting monetary policy purely around targetting CPI was obviously creating unsustainable asset bubbles and malinvestment.
The SC of course decided otherwise.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2019-0192-judgment.pdf
It is unlikely but not impossible that a court could intervene on a committee of the HoC and its actions. Though common sense suggests it won't be interested. But, for the moment, if the SC says a matter is justiciable (ie courts can take an interest) then it is.
It is even thinkable that the courts in extremis will decide that an Act of Parliament is justiciable in itself. It's a nuclear option against tyranny never to be used, but not legally impossible, since the SC can overrule itself.
A friends daughter announced she was trans. Teenager.
So he spent a fortune finding the best head shrinker who specialised in the field. Who said that he reckoned not, but could be wrong. But that she had other issues to work through.
So my friend invested in shrinks of the open minded variety. And told her, basically, that its was her choice and he would support her.
In then end, she decided that she wasn't trans.
The main weather question is whether the cloud cover will remain or whether the sun will come out. Looks mostly cloudy for the afternoon which will help England.
Be very surprised if there isn't a result one way or the other.
Where are you guys picking up on this different use of mitigation?
Most of the evidence is that mitigation is much, much cheaper than adaptation. And especially now when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels anyway, so all you're doing by increasing mitigation efforts is pulling forward investment that would be made eventually anyway. Hardly burning the economy.
Throughout my whole life people have been trying to claim that in 20 years fossil fuels will be too expensive to extract. We are still 20 years away, and I won't be surprised if we are still 20 years away in 2050.
Somebody once said that the reason why the GP system survives is that it gives people somebody sympathetic to talk to, and anything serious is diverted to proper doctors. A similar system seems to be evolving here.
[Edit: I seem to have conflated two posts, one by @Westie , one by @Cyclefree . Apologies, although I think my point still holds]
We should reduce emissions where doing so is relatively cheap and has other benefits but we shouldn't burn the economy down.
If we don't believe the whole world is going to reduce emissions enough (and I certainly don't) then we are going to have to be able to adapt. Some adaptations are going to be very expensive.
As an example, the Thames Barrier hasn't got long before it will need to be replaced, assuming we want to defend London.
The UK can seek to cut oil consumption, that is something in our hands. And if we do, then global consumption of oil will fall (as nobody is going to increase their consumption to counter our reduction) and our investment in alternative technologies can encourage others to do the same.
What the UK can not and should not seek is to unilaterally cut oil extraction, as that is not in our hands. If we cut our production of oil, eg in the North Sea, and switch to importing even more oil instead all that does is make it even more profitable for OPEC and even less likely they'll want to ever act on this matter.
It’s similar to the container ship blocking the Suez Canal from a couple of years ago, or the Chilean miners trapped down the shaft - a dream story for 24-hour rolling news.
Joe Public reasonably thinks that if an industry is essential, government regulated and failures will be paid for by Joe Public the tax payer, then government, in the form of Gordon Brown the genius, has an over riding duty to prevent the tax payer bail out bit (day to day retail banking and finance, like Northern Rock and Nat West) from going bust in the first place by regulating the risks it takes with Joe Public's money.
What has been put in place now should have been in place then.