Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

The LAB lead is getting narrower – politicalbetting.com

1246

Comments

  • Eabhal said:

    A shame you can't find the link. I did find this, which suggests 17% for a car driver: https://www.rospa.com/media/documents/road-safety/inappropriate-speed-factsheet.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjTxIy4kfCAAxVVmFwKHRR0BbAQFnoECAwQBg&usg=AOvVaw0g-rzhsSWZbUm5zIm8x6pg
    Interestingly I checked the source (4) on that data, which was a study in the 00s which covered pedestrians too, and then checked that study and it sourced its data from a study in 1976.

    What is it with taking data from the 1970s and refreshing it to pretend its modern data?
  • 20% in real terms is in no way 'massive'.

    Yes it would be great to see house prices stop rising but your exaggerations do nothing to further the debate.
    Said with the ease of someone who isn't struggling to pay those prices, or get a deposit for a home at those prices.

    That's £43,725 extra in modern currency to the average house price compared to what it would have been. Yes that is pretty massive, especially when he claimed they are the same in real terms.

    I'm pretty certain a 20% fall would be classed as a massive fall. A 10% fall could legitimately be classed as prices being decimated.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,437
    Barnesian said:

    I'm highly partisan and I also agree that the best outcome for the country is Labour with no overall majority for the reasons you give. That would be a terrific outcome.

    Unfortunately a non-partisan analysis (to the extent that is possible) indicates a Labour overall majority and most punters agree as can be seen on Betfair. I don't think the majority will be as great as my earlier wind-up post indicated! But I would take 100/1 on the Labour majority being greater than 100.

    I can't wait for the seats markets to open.
    For what values of N, where N is a natural number less than 612, would you take N/1 on there being a Labour majority > N?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,994

    Interestingly I checked the source (4) on that data, which was a study in the 00s which covered pedestrians too, and then checked that study and it sourced its data from a study in 1976.

    What is it with taking data from the 1970s and refreshing it to pretend its modern data?
    I just think you confused car drivers with pedestrians, that's all.

    Your own link suggests that lower speeds reduce road collision injuries and fatalities. Which is a good thing, right?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098

    No they're not.

    According to Nationwide the UK average house price at end of Q2 2003 was £125,382
    According to Nationwide the UK average house price at end of Q2 2023 was £261,995

    According to the Bank of England £125,382 in 2003 pounds = £218,269.72 in Jun 2023 prices.

    So over 20 years what would in real terms have cost £218,270 now costs £261,995, which is a bit over a 20% increase in real terms.

    And that's disregarding the fact that the surge in house prices was already underway in Q2 2003 and a fall in prices (and rise in CPI) over the past year has seen a narrowing of these figures, there's still been a massive rise despite that.
    Why are you using CPI - it's a measure that specifically excludes owner occupier housing costs. I think CPIH is more appropriate if you want a measure of inflation that attempts to capture some element of house prices.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 23,276
    edited August 2023
    kinabalu said:

    In a 'cost of living' context the most appropriate amount to include is your ongoing regular overhead for the roof over your head. What you're forking out in rent. If you are renting that is the rent. If you own it's the equivalent, being your mortgage interest servicing cost plus the opportunity cost of your equity, ie the income foregone on having that money tied up in a house rather than on deposit. You need a formula that does something like this, using current prices and yields. You can do it your way if you like - it's not 'wrong' as such - but I'd have to record my dissenting view.
    But one of the the main cost of living barriers to people getting on the property ladder is securing a deposit. Deposits are based on actual house prices, not mortgage rates.

    And of course house price changes aren't self-reinforcing like measuring mortgage payments when rates go up or down is.

    House prices being over £40k higher today on average in real terms over what they were in 2003 means that people need over £4k more saved up on top of what they'd have to have saved up anyway, in order to secure a 10% deposit.

    In places like London where house prices are double the national average, then that £43k average increase in real terms doubled equates to about £9k extra for a deposit someone has to save, on top of what they'd have to have saved up anyway.

    So yes, inflation in house prices matters, as a cost of living issue, for the actual cost.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893
    Saw this

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/21/the-natural-affinity-between-evil-and-bureaucracy/


    Evil has a ‘natural affinity with the bureaucratic mind’, wrote Eagleton. ‘Flaws, loose ends and rough approximations are what evil cannot endure’, he wrote. ‘Goodness, by contrast, is in love with the dappled, unfinished nature of things.’ This, I believe, is what we saw in Chester: an association, however unwitting, however regretted, between the bureaucratic mind and the evil mind, with goodness silenced.
  • Said with the ease of someone who isn't struggling to pay those prices, or get a deposit for a home at those prices.

    That's £43,725 extra in modern currency to the average house price compared to what it would have been. Yes that is pretty massive, especially when he claimed they are the same in real terms.

    I'm pretty certain a 20% fall would be classed as a massive fall. A 10% fall could legitimately be classed as prices being decimated.
    Because the effects of negative equity on both the individual and the country is massively more disruptive than rises. You only have to look to the 90s to see that.

  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,009
    viewcode said:

    FPT

    Hmmm. Assuming "X" as a noncommittal option, that would make me...

    SWXXHX

    This is not as helpful as I thought... :(
    SAPYHR
  • Pulpstar said:

    Why are you using CPI - it's a measure that specifically excludes owner occupier housing costs. I think CPIH is more appropriate if you want a measure of inflation that attempts to capture some element of house prices.
    You said "in real terms", so I used the Bank of England's own "in real terms" calculator.

    But if you use CPIH it doesn't change the result. Indeed since CPIH is so dodgy, it doesn't even include house prices in the calculation, the calculation ends up even worse.

    CPIH index in June 2003 76.7
    CPIH index in June 2023 129.0

    Nationwide price of £125,382 in 2003, uprated to 2023 via CPIH = £210,880
    Actual Nationwide price in June 2023 is £261,995

    So CPIH underestimates the change in House Prices by over £50k.

    So you want to stand by claim its same in real terms?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,437
    malcolmg said:

    SAPYHR
    Has a new sexuality just dropped?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,473

    Has a new sexuality just dropped?
    In a Bristol accent "Not another one!"
  • Because the effects of negative equity on both the individual and the country is massively more disruptive than rises. You only have to look to the 90s to see that.

    Categorically and objectively wrong.

    In the 90s home ownership rates went up, not down.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098
    edited August 2023

    You said "in real terms", so I used the Bank of England's own "in real terms" calculator.

    But if you use CPIH it doesn't change the result. Indeed since CPIH is so dodgy, it doesn't even include house prices in the calculation, the calculation ends up even worse.

    CPIH index in June 2003 76.7
    CPIH index in June 2023 129.0

    Nationwide price of £125,382 in 2003, uprated to 2023 via CPIH = £210,880
    Actual Nationwide price in June 2023 is £261,995

    So CPIH underestimates the change in House Prices by over £50k.

    So you want to stand by claim its same in real terms?
    The calculator uses Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data from the Office for National Statistics from 1988 onward. Monthly calculations of the current year are based on the latest CPI level, whereas previous years use their calendar year averages. CPI estimates before 1988 are modelled based on data collected for the Retail Price Index (RPI).

    The calculator uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as this is the measure used by the Government to set the Bank of England’s target for inflation. An alternative credible measure, which is the ONS’s lead measure of inflation, is the Consumer Price Index including Owner Occupiers’ Housing Costs (CPIH).

    Please note: the estimates in the calculator from 1949 onwards have been updated with revised CPI estimates from the ONS published in May 2022.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617

    Categorically and objectively wrong.

    In the 90s home ownership rates went up, not down.
    Hides a mixture, surely. Ok for some who got cheaper houses, awful for many who were stuck in negative eq.
  • Pulpstar said:

    The calculator uses Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data from the Office for National Statistics from 1988 onwardOpens in a new window. Monthly calculations of the current year are based on the latest CPI level, whereas previous years use their calendar year averages. CPI estimates before 1988Opens in a new window are modelled based on data collected for the Retail Price Index (RPI).

    The calculator uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as this is the measure used by the Government to set the Bank of England’s target for inflation. An alternative credible measure, which is the ONS’s lead measure of inflation, is the Consumer Price Index including Owner Occupiers’ Housing Costs (CPIH).

    Please note: the estimates in the calculator from 1949 onwards have been updated with revised CPI estimates from the ONS published in May 2022.
    Yes, and I redid the calculation using CPIH. CPIH failed your test of them being the same in real terms too.

    Nationwide price of £125,382 in 2003, uprated to 2023 via CPIH = £210,880
    Actual Nationwide price in June 2023 is £261,995

    So CPIH underestimates the change in House Prices by over £50k.

    Or do you think £261,995 = £210,880?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,667

    Saw this

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/21/the-natural-affinity-between-evil-and-bureaucracy/


    Evil has a ‘natural affinity with the bureaucratic mind’, wrote Eagleton. ‘Flaws, loose ends and rough approximations are what evil cannot endure’, he wrote. ‘Goodness, by contrast, is in love with the dappled, unfinished nature of things.’ This, I believe, is what we saw in Chester: an association, however unwitting, however regretted, between the bureaucratic mind and the evil mind, with goodness silenced.

    Not convinced, though I get the idea (rigid application of a policy with unexpected bad consequences is bad). To give a counter-example, I prefer the relative precision of the ECHR to a general assurance that the authorities will respect my rights in a sensible manner, and I prefer a speed limit sign to a general rule that my driving should be reasonable. It's better to know where you are with these things than rely on someone's goodwill.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,734
    malcolmg said:

    SAPYHR
    A real gem
  • .
    Carnyx said:

    Hides a mixture, surely. Ok for some who got cheaper houses, awful for many who were stuck in negative eq.
    Indeed, but overall you can look at the average and overall more people had their own home by the end of the 90s than the start of it. So overall, the 90s were better.

    Whereas recent decades have seen the opposite and people trapped renting is no worse than people trapped in negative equity. The overall objective measure is how many people can afford their own home, and it was more people over the 90s.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,009

    At higher interest rates you would have lower house prices but also fewer jobs and much higher interest payments so I'm not sure young housebuyers would be thanking you. Also a stronger GBP and so less competitive export sector. I don't think it would be wise to tie interest rates to a volatile asset price, personally, I think it would make for a much more volatile economy.
    Someone needs to stick him in an envelope and post him far away. Economics from Dummies every time from Bart.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098
    edited August 2023

    Yes, and I redid the calculation using CPIH. CPIH failed your test of them being the same in real terms too.

    Nationwide price of £125,382 in 2003, uprated to 2023 via CPIH = £210,880
    Actual Nationwide price in June 2023 is £261,995

    So CPIH underestimates the change in House Prices by over £50k.

    Or do you think £261,995 = £210,880?
    Nationwide uses RPI, which I agree isn't as good as CPI-H. I found houses had gone up a couple of thousand in real terms since July 2004.

    Jul-2004 £154,299 77.7
    Jul-2023 £260,828 129
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 23,276
    edited August 2023
    Pulpstar said:

    Nationwide uses RPI, which I agree isn't as good as CPI-H. I found houses had gone up a couple of thousand in real terms since July 2004.
    I used the actual Nationwide average prices, so not RPI.

    Why are you picking July 2004 as a start date? That is not 2 decades ago, and is well into the price rises of the 00s.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893

    Not convinced, though I get the idea (rigid application of a policy with unexpected bad consequences is bad). To give a counter-example, I prefer the relative precision of the ECHR to a general assurance that the authorities will respect my rights in a sensible manner, and I prefer a speed limit sign to a general rule that my driving should be reasonable. It's better to know where you are with these things than rely on someone's goodwill.
    The love of uniforms, parades, dogma (political and religious) are well known signs of this tendency.

    The ECHR is a system of laws, complete with courts trying to interpret them. Rather than an inflexible dictat.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098
    edited August 2023

    I used the actual Nationwide average prices, so not RPI.

    Why are you picking July 2004 as a start date? That is not 2 decades ago, and is well into the price rises of the 00s.
    .🫣

    It's as arbitrary as choosing July 2003. House prices rose £26,048 from July 2003 to 2004. They're up £3,600 in real terms since then.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,473

    Not convinced, though I get the idea (rigid application of a policy with unexpected bad consequences is bad). To give a counter-example, I prefer the relative precision of the ECHR to a general assurance that the authorities will respect my rights in a sensible manner, and I prefer a speed limit sign to a general rule that my driving should be reasonable. It's better to know where you are with these things than rely on someone's goodwill.
    The issues around the ECHR are not based on precision though. We see endless cases where parts of the media will whip up a frenzy about a case that seems absurd, and blames in on the ECHR. We then have the counter which is that the case is more complicated than that and so on it goes. Human rights are not precise.

    On radio 5 this morning there was a debate about the Letby case and her not appearing at the sentencing. One caller suggested a certain amount of solitary confinement should be added as a result, at which the legal representative (not sure of what) suggested that this could be against her human rights. When pressed for the legislation about this she couldn't point to anything, and changed the subject.

    I think you can draw up a set of basic human rights, but the ECHR will inevitably see drift. What about the right to family life? What about the right to have sexual relations for prisoners? And on and on.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,163

    So why include car prices, rather than car finance prices?

    Why include the price of goods and services, rather than credit card finance rates?

    Finance shouldn't be part of the basket, the price of the goods and services should be, which should include houses and cars. Then if the bank raises or lowers rates, then that doesn't self-reinforce the data like including mortgage payments going up or down does, it only changes the data if prices actually start going further up or down - which is precisely what inflation is supposed to measure, the cost of prices not the cost of finance.

    And if you accept it should be included, which it should, then why should it be down-weighted? Just weight it appropriately, don't fiddle the data.
    The main difference between houses and other items is that houses are not bought outright whereas almost everything else is (though increasingly not cars, where there's a strong case to mainly use lease hiring costs on the same basis).

    We're probably talking about the same thing re weighting. I was meaning that the weighting for housing needs to account for rents, mortgage repayments and sales, in their respective weights on spending / income.

    In terms of self-reinforcing effects, that depends on what you see the purpose of the stats as being - which is, of course, why we have several series, for different purposes. In terms of reporting cost-of-living changes or price growth, that should be on the broadest basis. Figures for policy-setting purposes will need to be different.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,550

    But one of the the main cost of living barriers to people getting on the property ladder is securing a deposit. Deposits are based on actual house prices, not mortgage rates.

    And of course house price changes aren't self-reinforcing like measuring mortgage payments when rates go up or down is.

    House prices being over £40k higher today on average in real terms over what they were in 2003 means that people need over £4k more saved up on top of what they'd have to have saved up anyway, in order to secure a 10% deposit.

    In places like London where house prices are double the national average, then that £43k average increase in real terms doubled equates to about £9k extra for a deposit someone has to save, on top of what they'd have to have saved up anyway.

    So yes, inflation in house prices matters, as a cost of living issue, for the actual cost.
    My method captures it nicely. As houses increase in value so does equity and hence the housing cost - via the term in the formula that calculates the opportunity cost of having this amount tied up in a house rather than on deposit. Add on mortgage interest to get the rental equivalent of owning. Then bring in the average actual rents for actual rentals and voila, Bob's your Uncle, the best 'housing element of inflation' you could possibly imagine.
  • Pulpstar said:

    .🫣

    It's as arbitrary as choosing July 2003. House prices rose £26,048 from July 2003 to 2004. They're up £3,600 in real terms since then.
    The claim was two decades ago, two decades ago is July 2003. That's not arbitrary, its a matter of fact.

    Yes house prices got out of control in the 00s. From 2000 to 2008 house price to earnings ratios rapidly rose, well above historic norms, and they've stayed high since. I don't think anyone, certainly not myself, disputes that most of the harm happened in the 00s. Hence how this conversation started, had inflation been measured honestly, including house prices, then inflation would have been measured as much higher in the 00s, but by pretending that house prices aren't a cost they got out of control and have stayed high since which is why people can't afford homes as well as they could when prices were much better like in the 90s.

    And house prices themselves should be considered the cost, not mortgage rates, since it is house prices that are the barrier to people getting on the ladder, that's where the deposit needs to come in, as a percentage of that price. If people have a deposit, then affording a mortgage is often cheaper than affording rent, but getting the deposit is not easy if prices are ever-escalating.
  • kinabalu said:

    My method captures it nicely. As houses increase in value so does equity and hence the housing cost - via the term in the formula that calculates the opportunity cost of having this amount tied up in a house rather than on deposit. Add on mortgage interest to get the rental equivalent of owning. Then bring in the average actual rents for actual rentals and voila, Bob's your Uncle, the best 'housing element of inflation' you could possibly imagine.
    How is the cost of getting a deposit for a house measured in your method? Mortgage cost has f all to do with that.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129
    Cyclefree said:

    I do know this. Of course I do.

    It's just that there is a small part of me that hopes that one day things will be different.

    "It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
    Will you let me go for Christ's sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?

    Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.

    Just to counter Clockwise...
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,607

    Not convinced, though I get the idea (rigid application of a policy with unexpected bad consequences is bad). To give a counter-example, I prefer the relative precision of the ECHR to a general assurance that the authorities will respect my rights in a sensible manner, and I prefer a speed limit sign to a general rule that my driving should be reasonable. It's better to know where you are with these things than rely on someone's goodwill.
    The point of the article is that bureaucracies become concerned about their own self-preservation and forget what and above all the people they are there for. See, for instance, my comment upthread about the CCRC and the Malkinson case.

    This is a better quote from it:

    "Events at the Countess of Chester speak to a new layer of bureaucratic authority that has no guiding ethic beyond maintaining its own machinery of influence. To a professional managerial elite well-versed in stiff boardroom jargon but bereft of the human instinct to recognise wrong from right. To a new feudal-like section of the establishment that ticks all the boxes, dots every ‘i’, crosses every ‘t’ and holds every correct opinion, but which lacks the heart or plain old curiosity to wonder why a terrible thing seems to be happening. To a managerial stratum so detached from the everyday – from both the cries of experts and the concerns of ‘ordinary’ people – that even the possibility of mass murder within its own ranks cannot rouse it from its myopic concern with self-preservation."
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,550

    How is the cost of getting a deposit for a house measured in your method? Mortgage cost has f all to do with that.
    Because it's a function of house prices and that's covered. Just as with your (not wrong but not as good) method.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,139

    Said with the ease of someone who isn't struggling to pay those prices, or get a deposit for a home at those prices.

    That's £43,725 extra in modern currency to the average house price compared to what it would have been. Yes that is pretty massive, especially when he claimed they are the same in real terms.

    I'm pretty certain a 20% fall would be classed as a massive fall. A 10% fall could legitimately be classed as prices being decimated.
    There were affordability problems for housing 20 years ago, so even if the real-terms price increase has been relatively modest since then that doesn't help anyone.

    The big increase in prices was before 2003.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,163

    Saw this

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/21/the-natural-affinity-between-evil-and-bureaucracy/


    Evil has a ‘natural affinity with the bureaucratic mind’, wrote Eagleton. ‘Flaws, loose ends and rough approximations are what evil cannot endure’, he wrote. ‘Goodness, by contrast, is in love with the dappled, unfinished nature of things.’ This, I believe, is what we saw in Chester: an association, however unwitting, however regretted, between the bureaucratic mind and the evil mind, with goodness silenced.

    Because Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were well-known for their memos.

    Bureaucracy is value-neutral. Indeed, it's efficiency-neutral - you can have effective bureaucracies and hopeless ones.

    But on the main point, while an efficient bureaucracy will make evil intent more effective - see the Nazis and the NKVD for obvious example - an efficient bureaucracy will also make a benevolent state more effective too, with justice administered, services delivered responsively and a leadership in touch with the people.

    Presumably the original quote re 'the bureaucratic mind' is one that simply processes; where the process is an end in itself; where it is stripped of humanity and judgement and where people and their refusal to conform with systems and policies (or even predictions) get in the way of 'delivering outcomes'. Certainly, evil can make great use of such mindsets but I disagree with the inference that that's the essence of bureaucracy.
  • The main difference between houses and other items is that houses are not bought outright whereas almost everything else is (though increasingly not cars, where there's a strong case to mainly use lease hiring costs on the same basis).

    We're probably talking about the same thing re weighting. I was meaning that the weighting for housing needs to account for rents, mortgage repayments and sales, in their respective weights on spending / income.

    In terms of self-reinforcing effects, that depends on what you see the purpose of the stats as being - which is, of course, why we have several series, for different purposes. In terms of reporting cost-of-living changes or price growth, that should be on the broadest basis. Figures for policy-setting purposes will need to be different.
    Except that to buy a property means you need to pay a proportion of the actual house price outright. If you're asked to put down a 10% deposit on a £120k house, or a £240k house, or a £300k house, or a £600k house, then that 10% deposit is based on the house price - not the interest rate.

    Which is precisely why house prices matter. If you're already on the ladder then you don't need to worry about this, sure, but if you're not and house prices are rising by 10% annually then if you're trying to save for 10% of £260k today, then 10% of £286k this time next year, then that can for too many people be like running on a hamster wheel with no way to actually move forwards.

    Staying on the property ladder once you're on it is much easier than getting on it in the first place, which is why squeals about negative equity don't match the objective facts on home ownership rates which went up not down in the 90s.
  • Categorically and objectively wrong.

    In the 90s home ownership rates went up, not down.
    I was referring to the negative equity crisis at the start of the 90s.

    Which was one of the reasons house ownership then went up as we recovered from that throughout the 90s.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893
    Cyclefree said:

    The point of the article is that bureaucracies become concerned about their own self-preservation and forget what and above all the people they are there for. See, for instance, my comment upthread about the CCRC and the Malkinson case.

    This is a better quote from it:

    "Events at the Countess of Chester speak to a new layer of bureaucratic authority that has no guiding ethic beyond maintaining its own machinery of influence. To a professional managerial elite well-versed in stiff boardroom jargon but bereft of the human instinct to recognise wrong from right. To a new feudal-like section of the establishment that ticks all the boxes, dots every ‘i’, crosses every ‘t’ and holds every correct opinion, but which lacks the heart or plain old curiosity to wonder why a terrible thing seems to be happening. To a managerial stratum so detached from the everyday – from both the cries of experts and the concerns of ‘ordinary’ people – that even the possibility of mass murder within its own ranks cannot rouse it from its myopic concern with self-preservation."
    I am reminded of the Baby P case where the person in charge of childcare protested that her paperwork was top notch, so how could she be said to have failed?

  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,516

    Because Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were well-known for their memos.

    Bureaucracy is value-neutral. Indeed, it's efficiency-neutral - you can have effective bureaucracies and hopeless ones.

    But on the main point, while an efficient bureaucracy will make evil intent more effective - see the Nazis and the NKVD for obvious example - an efficient bureaucracy will also make a benevolent state more effective too, with justice administered, services delivered responsively and a leadership in touch with the people.

    Presumably the original quote re 'the bureaucratic mind' is one that simply processes; where the process is an end in itself; where it is stripped of humanity and judgement and where people and their refusal to conform with systems and policies (or even predictions) get in the way of 'delivering outcomes'. Certainly, evil can make great use of such mindsets but I disagree with the inference that that's the essence of bureaucracy.
    I don't think I agree with this. I don't know about the NKVD, but the Nazi's bureaucracy was famously inefficient, with many rival organisations with overlapping responsibilities. However, this was a secret of its effectiveness, because rival agencies sought to outdo each other.
  • I was referring to the negative equity crisis at the start of the 90s.

    Which was one of the reasons house ownership then went up as we recovered from that throughout the 90s.
    So objectively, in your eyes, how much did home ownership rates fall between the start of the negative equity "crisis" and the end of the 1990s?

    image

    Your "crisis" led to a record high in home ownership rates, not a fall. The fall in home ownership rates happened when prices went up, not down.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,139

    There were affordability problems for housing 20 years ago, so even if the real-terms price increase has been relatively modest since then that doesn't help anyone.

    The big increase in prices was before 2003.
    UK average house price Q2 1996 = £53,032
    UK average house price Q2 2003 £125,382
    Inflation only increase would have taken 1996 price to £58,198
    So the actual price was +115% in real terms over just seven years.

    That's where the affordability problems came from since then. And in twenty years of knowing it was a problem it has still got worse! Even if at a much slower rate.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983
    edited August 2023

    Insane or not, massive regional variation is not exactly helpful when trying to devise a national measure of inflation. Part 94 in the series All Economic Statistics are Rubbish.
    See also the sequel "...But Some Of Them Are Useful" (2023), ISBN 1-789-123-1234,
  • Because Genghis Khan and Tamerlane were well-known for their memos.

    Bureaucracy is value-neutral. Indeed, it's efficiency-neutral - you can have effective bureaucracies and hopeless ones.

    But on the main point, while an efficient bureaucracy will make evil intent more effective - see the Nazis and the NKVD for obvious example - an efficient bureaucracy will also make a benevolent state more effective too, with justice administered, services delivered responsively and a leadership in touch with the people.

    Presumably the original quote re 'the bureaucratic mind' is one that simply processes; where the process is an end in itself; where it is stripped of humanity and judgement and where people and their refusal to conform with systems and policies (or even predictions) get in the way of 'delivering outcomes'. Certainly, evil can make great use of such mindsets but I disagree with the inference that that's the essence of bureaucracy.
    Though spiked saying that anyone telling them what to do is inherently evil isn't that surprising.

    There is a kind of evil that is facilitated by bureaucracy, and in some ways it's worse than evil driven by passion or need. It's why the film Conspiracy was so chilling.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983

    'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
    That article does not exists and I'm really glad you didn't post a link to it
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983
    kinabalu said:

    'Debate' is quite an optimistic term for it.
    "Biscuit game". Don't google it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,550
    viewcode said:

    "Biscuit game". Don't google it.
    To my discredit I don't need to.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983
    I just found out what Isam's twitter is! All I need now is RodCrosby's and MrEd's and I can form a band... :)
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,656

    Though spiked saying that anyone telling them what to do is inherently evil isn't that surprising.

    There is a kind of evil that is facilitated by bureaucracy, and in some ways it's worse than evil driven by passion or need. It's why the film Conspiracy was so chilling.
    Very much the functionalist side of the functionalist v intentionalist debate in Holocaust Studies
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893

    Though spiked saying that anyone telling them what to do is inherently evil isn't that surprising.

    There is a kind of evil that is facilitated by bureaucracy, and in some ways it's worse than evil driven by passion or need. It's why the film Conspiracy was so chilling.
    The Aberfan disaster aftermath was fascinating in the way that those running the NCB behaved exactly as the old mine owners would have done.

    Despite being explicitly drawn from the miners unions and their political representatives and being supposed to act in the interests of the miners and their families.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,163

    I don't think I agree with this. I don't know about the NKVD, but the Nazi's bureaucracy was famously inefficient, with many rival organisations with overlapping responsibilities. However, this was a secret of its effectiveness, because rival agencies sought to outdo each other.
    Well, we can argue about the interaction of efficiency vs effectiveness, or of the efficiencies of individual agencies vs the system overall (or indeed about whether that was a political vs bureaucracy question) but in terms of knowing what was what and where, and - once the politics was decided - what to do and when, and then doing it, I'd argue the Nazi state functioned tragically efficiently.
  • viewcode said:

    That article does not exists and I'm really glad you didn't post a link to it
    Do we think Labour would have increased its majority if that election had happened?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129

    Though spiked saying that anyone telling them what to do is inherently evil isn't that surprising.

    There is a kind of evil that is facilitated by bureaucracy, and in some ways it's worse than evil driven by passion or need. It's why the film Conspiracy was so chilling.
    Wasn't it at the Eichmann trial that Hannah Arendt coined the phrase 'the banality of evil?'
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,028

    For what values of N, where N is a natural number less than 612, would you take N/1 on there being a Labour majority > N?
    Great question!

    I think I would take a bet of N/1 of a Labour majority of >N for values of N between 2 and 200. But I'm not offering.
    malcolmg said:

    SAPYHR
    I'm SAPYHR too. That surprises me brother. Don't know why.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983
    edited August 2023

    Saw this

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/21/the-natural-affinity-between-evil-and-bureaucracy/


    Evil has a ‘natural affinity with the bureaucratic mind’, wrote Eagleton. ‘Flaws, loose ends and rough approximations are what evil cannot endure’, he wrote. ‘Goodness, by contrast, is in love with the dappled, unfinished nature of things.’ This, I believe, is what we saw in Chester: an association, however unwitting, however regretted, between the bureaucratic mind and the evil mind, with goodness silenced.

    I suspect I will be saying this again and again, but this is your perennial reminder that the alert was raised successfully, not by managers, but by an epidemiological unit based in Oxford. This one[1]. It is people such as they, and not fucking [redacteds] trust fund [redacteds] like "Spiked" who will solve this problem, and they get paid a shit-ton less. Bureaucratic mind my fucking arse.

    [1] https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983

    Do we think Labour would have increased its majority if that election had happened?
    I genuinely don't know. I suspect not. My all-time head canon is that John McDonnell would have won in 2017, but the problem with alternate universes is that you can't pop over to check.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    Pulpstar said:

    Smart move by Trump, Elon and Tucker.
    The fun bit was in Tucker’s contract with Fox, which says he’s not allowed to work for any other network, that Youtube and Rumble accounts also belong to the network - but that his Twitter account is his own.

    Fox never thought that Twitter would become a place for long-form video, and Carlson and Musk are taking advantage.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893

    Well, we can argue about the interaction of efficiency vs effectiveness, or of the efficiencies of individual agencies vs the system overall (or indeed about whether that was a political vs bureaucracy question) but in terms of knowing what was what and where, and - once the politics was decided - what to do and when, and then doing it, I'd argue the Nazi state functioned tragically efficiently.
    The pile of competing bureaucracies in the Nazi and Soviet states certainly seemed to operate on the basis of bureaucracy for its own sake.

    The Nazis explicitly modelled their system on Social Darwinism and Working Towards The Leader. The accounts of the infighting in the Soviet space program is also worth looking at.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 9,225
    Barnesian said:

    Great question!

    I think I would take a bet of N/1 of a Labour majority of >N for values of N between 2 and 200. But I'm not offering. I'm SAPYHR too. That surprises me brother. Don't know why.
    SWEYHR, but I dislike some of the forced choices! Well, mainly the first one as I could just as easily have gone for M. So I guess I'm pretty close to TimS.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893
    viewcode said:

    I suspect I will be saying this again and again, but this is your perennial reminder that the alert was raised successfully, not by managers, but by an epidemiological unit based in Oxford. This one[1]. It is people such as they, and not fucking [redacteds] trust fund [redacteds] like "Spiked" who will solve this problem, and they get paid a shit-ton less. Bureaucratic mind my fucking arse.

    [1] https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk
    The bureaucratic mindset was indeed evident - they wanted to preserve themselves, then their organisation. The staff came next - sort of, as long as they went along with the company line. The patients seemed to be somewhere between last and nowhere.

    The people who uncovered the problem were interested primarily in facts rather than organisational preservation.
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,163

    The pile of competing bureaucracies in the Nazi and Soviet states certainly seemed to operate on the basis of bureaucracy for its own sake.

    The Nazis explicitly modelled their system on Social Darwinism and Working Towards The Leader. The accounts of the infighting in the Soviet space program is also worth looking at.
    Here's a thought. Maybe an effective bureaucracy can't be an efficient one, in that it *needs* internal competition and the fear of failure in order to work? You can't have a person or unit or division acting as institutional blockers because you go round them and they find themselves redundant. But internal competition inevitably means duplication and overheads.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,028
    edited August 2023
    ..
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,626

    UK average house price Q2 1996 = £53,032
    UK average house price Q2 2003 £125,382
    Inflation only increase would have taken 1996 price to £58,198
    So the actual price was +115% in real terms over just seven years.

    That's where the affordability problems came from since then. And in twenty years of knowing it was a problem it has still got worse! Even if at a much slower rate.
    We moved up from a 2-bed to a 4-bed in 1999. Paid £125k. Sold the house 3 years later (due to relocation) for £220k. If we hadn't made the step up when we did, we would have been stuffed.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600
    Barnesian said:

    These are the 33 seats that Electoral Calculus is suggesting could be LibDem gains, plus existing LibDem seats makes 40+.
    Many in the West Country.

    Of those existing LD target seats then I make more in the Home Counties than the entire North of England and Midlands and Wales combined.

    Plus as you say some of the traditionally LD seats in the South West the LDs lost in 2015
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    Sandpit said:

    The fun bit was in Tucker’s contract with Fox, which says he’s not allowed to work for any other network, that Youtube and Rumble accounts also belong to the network - but that his Twitter account is his own.

    Fox never thought that Twitter would become a place for long-form video, and Carlson and Musk are taking advantage.
    Looking at his viewing figures, I doubt Fox cares.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600

    Spot on as usual, Hyufd.

    How safe are you feeling in your Epping redoubt?
    We now live in rural Ongar
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,683

    UK average house price Q2 1996 = £53,032
    UK average house price Q2 2003 £125,382
    Inflation only increase would have taken 1996 price to £58,198
    So the actual price was +115% in real terms over just seven years.

    That's where the affordability problems came from since then. And in twenty years of knowing it was a problem it has still got worse! Even if at a much slower rate.
    People seem to be looking at real term house prices rise however in isolation.

    Real term house prices have gone up over the last 2 decades

    at the same time

    Real term wages have gone down. For example even though my wages have risen by 16.6 percent since brexit I am still 36% what they would have been in real terms since 2002 when adjusted for inflation.

    So if in real terms house prices have risen 20% but my wages have fallen behind by 30% its where we get the increase in wage multiples
  • david_herdsondavid_herdson Posts: 18,163
    HYUFD said:

    The typical LD general election target seat is now largely upper middle class, wealthy, highly educated, with well above average house price but which also voted Remain, found most often in the Home Counties. Also similar seats elsewhere like Cheltenham or Hazel Grove.

    Basically seats which dislike Brexit but are still too posh to vote Labour. That is where they could make significant progress if targeted heavily
    Spot on. Ditto Harrogate.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    Rheinmetall is having to reverse engineer production processes for the Gepard ammunition.
    I wonder what other production lines have been run down to that extent ?

    https://twitter.com/Bjoern__M/status/1690071824875270145
    Neues Rheinmetall Konzern-Magazin mit Details zur Mun Produktion #Flugabwehrpanzer #Gepard
    Die alte Munition nachbauen, ging nicht wegen fehlendem Werkzeug. Deshalb: Reverse Engineering u. Anpassungsenwicklung auf Basis 35mm-Mun Schützenpanzer ..
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600

    Spot on. Ditto Harrogate.
    Yes in order of poshest constituencies it is now:

    1. Tory v LD marginals.
    2. Tory safe seats.
    3. Labour safe seats.
    4. Tory v Labour marginals (non redwall).
    5. SNP v Labour marginals.
    6. SNP safe seats.
    7. Redwall seats.
  • sladeslade Posts: 2,150
    HYUFD said:

    Of those existing LD target seats then I make more in the Home Counties than the entire North of England and Midlands and Wales combined.

    Plus as you say some of the traditionally LD seats in the South West the LDs lost in 2015
    HYUFD said:

    Of those existing LD target seats then I make more in the Home Counties than the entire North of England and Midlands and Wales combined.

    Plus as you say some of the traditionally LD seats in the South West the LDs lost in 2015
    The one surprise in that list of possible LD seats is Newcastle under Lyme. Does anyone have an explanation of this?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098
    Pagan2 said:

    People seem to be looking at real term house prices rise however in isolation.

    Real term house prices have gone up over the last 2 decades

    at the same time

    Real term wages have gone down. For example even though my wages have risen by 16.6 percent since brexit I am still 36% what they would have been in real terms since 2002 when adjusted for inflation.

    So if in real terms house prices have risen 20% but my wages have fallen behind by 30% its where we get the increase in wage multiples
    I've found a wage series

    AWE: Whole Economy Level (£): Seasonally Adjusted Regular Pay Excluding Arrears

    Will be checking that against CPIH and CPI to see if 'real terms wages' have gone down.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600
    slade said:

    The one surprise in that list of possible LD seats is Newcastle under Lyme. Does anyone have an explanation of this?
    Looks like an error, LDs got just 5% in Newcastle under Lyme in 2019. Even less than the 11% they got nationally
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle-under-Lyme_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129
    slade said:

    The one surprise in that list of possible LD seats is Newcastle under Lyme. Does anyone have an explanation of this?
    It is a university seat.

    But even allowing for that, I think it's a typing error. The last time the Liberal Democrats even got over 20% of the vote there was in 1992.
  • slade said:

    The one surprise in that list of possible LD seats is Newcastle under Lyme. Does anyone have an explanation of this?
    Its BS?

    image

    With all due respect to the incumbent MP, I would be surprised if he holds on versus Labour.

    This does not look like a Lib Dem gain.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    viewcode said:

    I suspect I will be saying this again and again, but this is your perennial reminder that the alert was raised successfully, not by managers, but by an epidemiological unit based in Oxford. This one[1]. It is people such as they, and not fucking [redacteds] trust fund [redacteds] like "Spiked" who will solve this problem, and they get paid a shit-ton less. Bureaucratic mind my fucking arse.

    [1] https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk
    The comment I would make on this situation is that the decision of the jury could well have gone the other way (they were deliberating for a hundred hours?) in which case the situation would now look completely different, there would be different heroes and villains in the news stories that follow.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,667

    The issues around the ECHR are not based on precision though. We see endless cases where parts of the media will whip up a frenzy about a case that seems absurd, and blames in on the ECHR. We then have the counter which is that the case is more complicated than that and so on it goes. Human rights are not precise.

    On radio 5 this morning there was a debate about the Letby case and her not appearing at the sentencing. One caller suggested a certain amount of solitary confinement should be added as a result, at which the legal representative (not sure of what) suggested that this could be against her human rights. When pressed for the legislation about this she couldn't point to anything, and changed the subject.

    I think you can draw up a set of basic human rights, but the ECHR will inevitably see drift. What about the right to family life? What about the right to have sexual relations for prisoners? And on and on.
    True - as I wrote, I realised the ECHR wasn't really a good example of precise guidance.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,028
    .
    slade said:

    The one surprise in that list of possible LD seats is Newcastle under Lyme. Does anyone have an explanation of this?
    The explanation is finger trouble by me editing the list. Sorry. It's a Labour gain. Well spotted.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,767

    Its BS?

    image

    With all due respect to the incumbent MP, I would be surprised if he holds on versus Labour.

    This does not look like a Lib Dem gain.
    Given the current MP is an exPBer I hope he does hold his seat.

    I worked in that constituency up to the end of last year and never saw a liberal democrat ever. Its a Lab\Con fight
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129

    Its BS?

    image

    With all due respect to the incumbent MP, I would be surprised if he holds on versus Labour.

    This does not look like a Lib Dem gain.
    The new boundaries include Madeley - which is pretty solidly conservative - and the seat has been trending Tory for a long while.

    It isn't a gimme by any means, but I would certainly not be surprised at a Tory hold.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,028
    .
    ydoethur said:

    It is a university seat.

    But even allowing for that, I think it's a typing error. The last time the Liberal Democrats even got over 20% of the vote there was in 1992.
    Correct. :(
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,734
    HYUFD said:

    Yes in order of poshest constituencies it is now:

    1. Tory v LD marginals.
    2. Tory safe seats.
    3. Labour safe seats.
    4. Tory v Labour marginals (non redwall).
    5. SNP v Labour marginals.
    6. SNP safe seats.
    7. Redwall seats.
    You forgot some very pleasant SNP-LD marginals.

    There is a danger the Lib Dems become seen as only a party of the South. They have a couple of Northern redoubts still, which helps them with the perception. That's where council seats will continue to be important.
  • SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 7,268
    edited August 2023
    ydoethur said:

    It is a university seat.

    But even allowing for that, I think it's a typing error. The last time the Liberal Democrats even got over 20% of the vote there was in 1992.
    My guess is that the seat should be Newton Abbot in Devon. It's the next English constituency alphabetically after Newcastle-under-Lyme which, as has been pointed out, cannot possibly be correct.

    Newton Aycliffe also cannot possibly be correct - I think there are a couple of obvious errors in that part of the list.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 38,381

    Do we think Labour would have increased its majority if that election had happened?
    No, Labour would have seen its majority fall, and Brown would have been a lame duck Prime Minister, cursed by his own side for calling an unnecessary election.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893

    Here's a thought. Maybe an effective bureaucracy can't be an efficient one, in that it *needs* internal competition and the fear of failure in order to work? You can't have a person or unit or division acting as institutional blockers because you go round them and they find themselves redundant. But internal competition inevitably means duplication and overheads.
    Well, the classic Big State Socialist analysis, is that if we get rid of all the useless competition and Just Provide Good Services, it will be better.

    It is worth noting, that in things they really cared about, the Soviets had savage, savage competition. They may not have had butter, but they had guns.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,399
    edited August 2023

    Given the current MP is an exPBer I hope he does hold his seat.

    I worked in that constituency up to the end of last year and never saw a liberal democrat ever. Its a Lab\Con fight
    You are absolutely right Alan, it is an error, but I am confused by your statement that you never saw a LD ever. How would you know? We don't all wear sandals and have beards. I don't.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129
    TimS said:

    You forgot some very pleasant SNP-LD marginals.

    There is a danger the Lib Dems become seen as only a party of the South. They have a couple of Northern redoubts still, which helps them with the perception. That's where council seats will continue to be important.
    My joy if the Liberal Democrats retake Inverness Skye and West Ross-shire will be tempered somewhat at the thought Blackford won't be there to get his thoroughly earned desserts.
  • ydoethur said:

    It is a university seat.

    But even allowing for that, I think it's a typing error. The last time the Liberal Democrats even got over 20% of the vote there was in 1992.
    Though university seats are tending more Labour than Lib Dem these days (Cambridge, Portsmouth S etc). I suspect that cities with cathedrals but not really universities (Winchester, whatever Ely is calling itself this time) are a better steer for Lib Dem target seats now.

    It would be interesting to know where the parties see themselves targetting. Presumably that ought to be becoming clearer from weight of thinly-disguised campaign literature. A heatmap of people buying larger recycling bins?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    darkage said:

    The comment I would make on this situation is that the decision of the jury could well have gone the other way (they were deliberating for a hundred hours?) in which case the situation would now look completely different, there would be different heroes and villains in the news stories that follow.
    Could it ?

    Remember they were considering a large number of separate charges - for some of which they did not in the end decide there was sufficient evidence to convict.

    It seems more likely that what took the time was the charges for which the evidence was not as clear cut. And it's pretty (very ?) unlikely they would have returned not guilty verdicts verdicts for all the charges.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129

    Though university seats are tending more Labour than Lib Dem these days (Cambridge, Portsmouth S etc). I suspect that cities with cathedrals but not really universities (Winchester, whatever Ely is calling itself this time) are a better steer for Lib Dem target seats now.

    By that logic, Gloucester is a LibDem target. As is Carlisle. Or Derby.

    You shouldn't judge everywhere by the likes of Ely, Winchester and Oxford.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    Interesting thread.

    NEW: David Shafer, one of the 19 defendants charged with Trump in GA, has posted a transcript of the Dec. 14, 2020 meeting of the false GOP electors as part of a court action.

    It shows Trump campaign attorney Ray Smith's advice to the group...

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1693978614335783308
  • ydoethur said:

    By that logic, Gloucester is a LibDem target. As is Carlisle. Or Derby.

    You shouldn't judge everywhere by the likes of Ely, Winchester and Oxford.
    That's a sly dig. I'll have you know Winchester has a pretty well-regarded university.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    I've found Leon's preferred candidate for the GOP.

    ‘I Could Use a Little More Self-Flagellation’
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/22/chris-christie-donald-trump-critic-00112106
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617

    Though university seats are tending more Labour than Lib Dem these days (Cambridge, Portsmouth S etc). I suspect that cities with cathedrals but not really universities (Winchester, whatever Ely is calling itself this time) are a better steer for Lib Dem target seats now.

    It would be interesting to know where the parties see themselves targetting. Presumably that ought to be becoming clearer from weight of thinly-disguised campaign literature. A heatmap of people buying larger recycling bins?
    A more precise metric would be pet shop sales of budgie and parrot cage linings, or reduction thereof.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,028
    .

    My guess is that the seat should be Newton Abbot in Devon. It's the next English constituency alphabetically after Newcastle-under-Lyme which, as has been pointed out, cannot possibly be correct.

    Newton Aycliffe also cannot possibly be correct - I think there are a couple of obvious errors in that part of the list.
    Here is the corrected list.
    Apologies for the mistype.

    Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross
    Cambridgeshire South
    Carshalton and Wallington
    Cheadle
    Cheltenham
    Chesham and Amersham
    Chippenham
    Cornwall North
    Devon North
    Dorset West
    Eastbourne
    Eastleigh
    Esher and Walton
    Fife North East
    Frome and East Somerset
    Glastonbury and Somerton
    Guildford
    Harrogate and Knaresborough
    Hazel Grove
    Lewes
    Melksham and Devizes
    Mid Dunbartonshire
    Newbury
    Norfolk North
    St Ives
    Sutton and Cheam
    Thornbury and Yate
    Wells and Mendip Hills
    Westmorland and Lonsdale
    Wimbledon
    Winchester
    Yeovil

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893
    Carnyx said:

    A more precise metric would be pet shop sales of budgie and parrot cage linings, or reduction thereof.
    Norwegian Blue Parrots?
  • Nigelb said:

    Interesting thread.

    NEW: David Shafer, one of the 19 defendants charged with Trump in GA, has posted a transcript of the Dec. 14, 2020 meeting of the false GOP electors as part of a court action.

    It shows Trump campaign attorney Ray Smith's advice to the group...

    https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1693978614335783308

    A conspiracy meeting to steal the Georgia election for the loser. Yet the PB Trump apologists keep insisting not only no conspiracy but that the only action was Jan 6th...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,893
    Nigelb said:

    Could it ?

    Remember they were considering a large number of separate charges - for some of which they did not in the end decide there was sufficient evidence to convict.

    It seems more likely that what took the time was the charges for which the evidence was not as clear cut. And it's pretty (very ?) unlikely they would have returned not guilty verdicts verdicts for all the charges.
    I’d also add the jury system is the antithesis of the bureaucratic mindset. Its value is precisely in its “unprofessional” and “disorganised” humanity.

    As has been recognised for millennia.
  • Sandpit said:

    The fun bit was in Tucker’s contract with Fox, which says he’s not allowed to work for any other network, that Youtube and Rumble accounts also belong to the network - but that his Twitter account is his own.

    Fox never thought that Twitter would become a place for long-form video, and Carlson and Musk are taking advantage.
    Carlson and Musk are indeed taking advantage . . . of every opportunity for demonstrating that they've got their tongues, minds and (what passes for) souls firmly wedged between Trump's ass-cheeks.

    For present fun and (they hope) future profit.
  • Tony Blair doesn't resign and leads the Labour Party into the 2010 election.

    What is the result?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,516
    viewcode said:

    I just found out what Isam's twitter is! All I need now is RodCrosby's and MrEd's and I can form a band... :)

    Or should that be a 'banned'?
This discussion has been closed.