Anyway, off thread, big day out in Perthshire today. First to the Falls of Bruar. "Park at the House of Bruar." I assumed this would be some sort of outdoor activities lodge, but it turns out to be the Harrods of the Highlands. And I'm not one for opulent shops, but this was well worth a gawp. There was nothing really in the clothing section for my needs or budget - though part of me lamented that I would never need three piece hunting tweeds, in which I think a younger me at least would have cut quite a dash - but the food sections were, if pricey, superb. Everything an indulgent fat boy could want. I was particularly taken that the chippy there offered lobster and chips. The whole thing was a slice of life I was largely unaware existed. There is clearly a lot of money sloshing around the Highlands. Anyway, the Falls of Bruar: the Falls of Bruar walk is everything you want the Highlands in Autumn to be. You cannot feel uncheered. Utter beauty. You're done and dusted in an hour, but that hour is perfection. Then on to Pitlochry, where the shops and teashops are a wee bit more accessible, before getting on the bus to the Enchanted Forest (thanks again, @Luckyguy1983). Trippy and wonderful. Again, done and dusted in just over an hour but what a very happy and peculiar hour that is. This was my favourite bit:
Bruar is rather expensive. However the Venison salami sticks were lovely.
In the US Congress one of the most important jobs is "oversight", checking to see whether the various parts of the federal government are doing what they should be doing, efficiently. It gets little attention from our press, unless a big scandal is turned up in an investigation.
One of the best at it, in modern Congresses, is Iowa's Chuck Grassley. (He has been married to his wife since 1954, which shows a constancy we all should admire. Fun fact: At 90, he is in suprisingly good physical condition, and likes to challenge other men to push-up contests. He would beat the Big Loser easily, in spite of the difference in ages.)
For the record: I suspect that the US Congressional oversight practices would not fit in the House of Commons, but think the problem deserves your attention.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
So once again you're just against any and all development, quelle surprise!
There's no reason by 2050 we can't have net zero vehicles, and net zero concrete, that is the only way we're going to get to net zero. If you're saying that's impossible, then lets spend our money on adaptation rather than prevention.
No of course not. Please don't put words into my mouth (a habit you've gotten into, I'm afraid).
I'm just pointing out why the law is effective for achieving Net Zero. There are better uses of the concrete and money for reducing emissions, would be the argument. HS2? Wind turbines? Efficient housing? Solar panels? That's the opportunity cost of this new road.
The vast majority of the electorate voted for it, so we can't have too many complaints.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
I agree. This government clearly isn’t serious, though.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
So once again you're just against any and all development, quelle surprise!
There's no reason by 2050 we can't have net zero vehicles, and net zero concrete, that is the only way we're going to get to net zero. If you're saying that's impossible, then lets spend our money on adaptation rather than prevention.
No of course not. Please don't put words into my mouth (a habit you've gotten into, I'm afraid).
I'm just pointing out why the law is effective for achieving Net Zero. There are better uses of the concrete and money for reducing emissions, would be the argument. HS2? Wind turbines? Efficient housing? Solar panels? That's the opportunity cost of this new road.
The vast majority of the electorate voted for it, so we can't have too many complaints.
There is no opportunity cost since there is no finite supply of concrete or money - and using money on lawyers and legal fees drives up the cost of all development, it doesn't drive it down, hence why HS2 got cancelled.
We should be building turbines and houses and roads and clean industry and everything else a modern, developed, industrious nation requires.
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
If you can download books, James Holland Sicily 43 had some interesting locations and John Julius Norwich Sicily also explains some of the uniquesness of the place and its history.
Or go have a look at ‘new’ Noto - a complete baroque town, built from scratch when the previous settlement was destroyed by earthquake, and pretty much untouched by history ever since. The best ice cream shop in Italy used to be there, but the old guy who ran it has surely passed on by now, but maybe he had family to continue the tradition.
Seen it, done it
I note my stalker has been there, as well, almost exactly ten years ago!
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Niche interview from Ukraine - with the head of a charity called Behind Blue Eyes, who donate disposable cameras to children in Ukraine, to picture what they see.
I don't know how to assess this, so I won't try very much - yet I can see that for some this will be immensely valuable as a bridge to link to something more normal, and as a way to recognise, eventually 'name' the war and help it eventually become memories of the past and less dominant shadows over a future present, and mentally process traumatic experience - recording it along the way.
Welcome to the Behind Blue Eyes project, where kids who have faced war trauma learn how to achieve dreams and goals with the power of their own creativity.
As residents of Ukraine’s liberated and frontline villages, they receive disposable film cameras to capture their childhood without any guidance, supervision or intervention.
This unique body of work travels to the community of adults and raise funds to fulfill wish lists which we have collected from the authors along with the film."
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
Actually, that’s quite a good wartime speech by Netanyahu
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
Actually, that’s quite a good wartime speech by Netanyahu
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
US President Joe Biden has addressed the war between Israel and Gaza, and said "Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields".
Speaking at a press conference, Biden said there's no going back to the "status quo" that Israelis and Palestinians had before the Hamas attack.
In Biden and Zelensky the world has the leaders it currently needs, compared to some of their recent predecessors. I'm no fan of Bibi, but hopefully this is an opportunity for him to step up to the plate too while other parties are working with him, to deliver for Israel.
He voted against the last two appropriations bills for Ukraine, FWIW.
But this is why he’s been manoeuvred into the speakership.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/house-speaker-republican-mike-johnson-january-6-mastermind-trump-election-2020.html … His case, stringing together a series of implausible legal claims, brought together many Republicans who were queasy at Trump’s wild lies, and Trump’s strongest supporters. Johnson circulated his case to the party and reminded them that Trump “anxiously awaited” their support. As the New York Times explained in a deeply reported story last year, Johnson’s arguments had a singular influence. About three-quarters of Republicans supporting Trump’s election challenge, the Times noted, “relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”..
Ways Elon is making Twitter like Russia. -He's a bit of a dictator -Believes his own propaganda -Applies rules arbitrarily -It's going broke -Everyone smart is thinking how to escape
Actually, that’s quite a good wartime speech by Netanyahu
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
US President Joe Biden has addressed the war between Israel and Gaza, and said "Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields".
Speaking at a press conference, Biden said there's no going back to the "status quo" that Israelis and Palestinians had before the Hamas attack.
In Biden and Zelensky the world has the leaders it currently needs, compared to some of their recent predecessors. I'm no fan of Bibi, but hopefully this is an opportunity for him to step up to the plate too while other parties are working with him, to deliver for Israel.
Bibi is a twat. The ONE job of an Israeli PM is to secure the Israeli people, and he actually made it an emblem of his premiership
He totally failed. He must carry the can, and he will. He is dust
I am merely noting that in terms of eve-of-battle speeches, that was pretty good. Stirring reference to Isaiah etc. I severely doubt it will be enough to save his career
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
There is not a single penny of expenditure listed under fuel duty on the OBR page.
You can't have it both ways, though.
You (rightly) condemn the Sunak approach of freezing personal allowances in cash terms, so that they are worth less as inflation has its effect.
Fuel duty has been frozen in cash terms for ages, which is a real terms cut. Which is the point.
Its a real terms cut in a tax, but its not expenditure.
Taxing less isn't spending. Its simply taxing less.
The net tax remains vastly in the Treasuries favour, so it remains net receipts even if the net receipts figure has changed, there is no net expenditure.
If people are net contributors to the tax system, then that is helping the Treasury not hurting it, and the Treasury rightly knows that thanks to Net Zero fuel duty is being eliminated anyway so it makes both economic and environmental sense to transition away from it as the source of funding.
If the Treasury remains hooked on fuel duty to fund its expenditure, then it will oppose net zero, because it won't be able to afford the loss of duties. Which is why every environmentalist who is serious about net zero should be happy to see it getting phased out.
BTW I note that pro-Biden PB is trying to have it both ways
OTOH it was brilliant statesmanship when it looked like he’d stopped Israel invading Gaza, now Israel is invading Gaza “he’s played a blinder”
This is such nonsense. Neither position is true
Maybe those are different people?
I never praised Biden for stopping Israel from invading Gaza, indeed I said that Netanyahu would be making an historic mistake if he failed to do so.
Nor am I saying "he's played a blinder" currently, but in wholeheartedly supporting Israel and saying there can be no return to the status quo, and calling out Hamas for using human shields which is the reason Palestinian civilians get caught in the crossfire he is doing the right thing.
The right thing that many of his parties own supporters don't want to hear, any more than the left wants to hear it here.
Well done to anyone who says the truth, even if its not always popular.
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
Actually, that’s quite a good wartime speech by Netanyahu
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
iirc Bibi claims to have read every biog of Churchill.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
There is not a single penny of expenditure listed under fuel duty on the OBR page.
You can't have it both ways, though.
You (rightly) condemn the Sunak approach of freezing personal allowances in cash terms, so that they are worth less as inflation has its effect.
Fuel duty has been frozen in cash terms for ages, which is a real terms cut. Which is the point.
Its a real terms cut in a tax, but its not expenditure.
Taxing less isn't spending. Its simply taxing less.
The net tax remains vastly in the Treasuries favour, so it remains net receipts even if the net receipts figure has changed, there is no net expenditure.
If people are net contributors to the tax system, then that is helping the Treasury not hurting it, and the Treasury rightly knows that thanks to Net Zero fuel duty is being eliminated anyway so it makes both economic and environmental sense to transition away from it as the source of funding.
If the Treasury remains hooked on fuel duty to fund its expenditure, then it will oppose net zero, because it won't be able to afford the loss of duties. Which is why every environmentalist who is serious about net zero should be happy to see it getting phased out.
That makes no sense at all. If you are trying to phase something out, it makes sense to tax it more and more heavily. That way you increase the rate at which it is phased out (because it becomes more expensive) while flattering the rate of revenue decline. See, for example, cigarettes.
Actually, that’s quite a good wartime speech by Netanyahu
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
iirc Bibi claims to have read every biog of Churchill.
So that’s at least two corrupt pols in the modern age that are big Winnie fans.
Welcome to every government run capital project in the UK.
Because we don't continually order XYZ we lose all the knowledge we gathered the last time round (so every mistake will be repeated continually). And worse because you are starting at the beginning a lot of costs that could be split across 10-20 items need to be included in every single project.
If they've managed to sell the Government a ship worth £70mill for £175mill, then I'd say commercial shipbuilding on the Clyde is most definitely alive and well.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
"So this is how Democracy dies: to thunderous applause."
But I am here. On the chic side of Ortygia under a mildly dramatic moon
I have a related question for well travelled PB-ers. I’ve got six more nights in Sicily then I must be back in Blighty. I’ve got two more here in Siracusa but then I’m wondering… maybe move on? But where? I’ve seen Palermo and the north coast and all that
I’ve not seen the interior. Is it worth it? The valley of the temples? Corleone?!
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
There was more of a divide at that time though, in Germany and Canada and the US the left were in power and ahead in polls in the late 1990s as they were in the UK and the right as you say were ahead and in power in Australia and Spain and France (at least at presidential level).
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
There is not a single penny of expenditure listed under fuel duty on the OBR page.
You can't have it both ways, though.
You (rightly) condemn the Sunak approach of freezing personal allowances in cash terms, so that they are worth less as inflation has its effect.
Fuel duty has been frozen in cash terms for ages, which is a real terms cut. Which is the point.
Its a real terms cut in a tax, but its not expenditure.
Taxing less isn't spending. Its simply taxing less.
The net tax remains vastly in the Treasuries favour, so it remains net receipts even if the net receipts figure has changed, there is no net expenditure.
If people are net contributors to the tax system, then that is helping the Treasury not hurting it, and the Treasury rightly knows that thanks to Net Zero fuel duty is being eliminated anyway so it makes both economic and environmental sense to transition away from it as the source of funding.
If the Treasury remains hooked on fuel duty to fund its expenditure, then it will oppose net zero, because it won't be able to afford the loss of duties. Which is why every environmentalist who is serious about net zero should be happy to see it getting phased out.
That makes no sense at all. If you are trying to phase something out, it makes sense to tax it more and more heavily. That way you increase the rate at which it is phased out (because it becomes more expensive) while flattering the rate of revenue decline. See, for example, cigarettes.
Complete apples and orangutans there. Nobody needs to smoke so there is no switchover happening.
Transport is necessary for people to get about and live their lives, and the delay on switching to clean electric vehicles isn't because of a lack of consumer demand, its because of a lack of industrial and economic capacity - and a lack of enough electricity supply yet for them anyway.
The state should be working to eliminate the barriers to switching over to electric vehicles, such as vehicle and battery supply, clean electricity supply, charging infrastructure etc
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Didn't the Left win in Poland last week?
No, Civic Democracy, who look likely to form a new coalition are a centre right liberal party, they are just going to do a deal with some minor leftwing parties.
However the rightwing nationalist Law and Justice won most seats still
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
No it isn't, he would need the military to be a dictator and hold no more elections and the military didn't even back Trump staying in office in Jan 2021 when he was still President.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue in 2023-4 - according to the Government. That is on top of the perhaps £15bn they have already lost in 2023-4 by their freeze since 2010.
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
There was more of a divide at that time though, in Germany and Canada and the US the left were in power and ahead in polls in the late 1990s as they were in the UK and the right as you say were ahead and in power in Australia and Spain and France (at least at presidential level).
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
New Zealand again was on a different cycle, Ardern didn't rise to power as PM during Covid, she was already PM years before anyone had even heard of it. Italy too is a terrible comparator, them changing governments is nothing new, they haven't had any long lasting stable governments in the past 40 years besides Berlusconi.
Every country is unique, none is a carbon copy of another.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
No ideal fear (though Trump might just legitimately win, regrettably).
Last time plenty in the House will have balked. Are we really going to try to overturn an election, some may have thought. Some did, most did not.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
"So this is how Democracy dies: to thunderous applause."
A maligned series, in part earned, but thematically and in parts it is actually decent.
Can I just say thank you to @boulay and @JosiasJessop for their posts on the Hamas / Israel issue, which express much of what I feel.
My son on his return home from a job interview saw an altercation between someone objecting to a woman in a hijab tearing down posters of the kidnapped hostages. He simply couldn't understand why anyone would do this. Nor can I. It seems to me to be simple cruelty, a wish not to see the faces of people who are suffering right now, a wish to dehumanise them because to recognise their existence might cause others to wonder about what has been done to them and their families and by whom.
And there seems to be a lot of this cruelty about - painting Hitler moustaches, threatening Jewish schools and the rest. It is simply wrong and unacceptable that in 2023 Jewish schools should need extra protection, Jewish friends of mine are taking down the mezuzah on their homes to avoid attack and so on. The shock and fear and upset that has been caused to our fellow Britons here - not just by the attack - but by the response of far too many here is underplayed. It disgusts me. Jews are feeling hurt and vulnerable and seeing in their country a display of the sort of behaviour which makes them realise why their parents and grandparents learnt to keep a packed suitcase or a few gold coins handy (my oldest friend's father - a refugee from Germany - did just that to his dying day).
As for those demanding that Starmer change his party's policy, frankly, I hope he does not. He seems to me to have got it right. His one big achievement has been to turn the moral sewer that Labour had turned into under Corbyn into a party that can be voted for by decent people. There is a moral line which should not be crossed, IMO, and no decent party should want the votes of people who tear down posters of kidnapped children - either because they support or celebrate what was done or because they hate the religion or ethnicity of the victims.
I have close Jewish friends and family. I have found the last few weeks more upsetting than I could have imagined. Parts of our society are pretty nasty. So I am leaving the news and social media for a while. Romantic novels and gardening for me for the foreseeable future.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue - according to the Government.
It's a ruinous policy.
Its not a loss of revenue, its simply less revenue.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
There was more of a divide at that time though, in Germany and Canada and the US the left were in power and ahead in polls in the late 1990s as they were in the UK and the right as you say were ahead and in power in Australia and Spain and France (at least at presidential level).
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
New Zealand again was on a different cycle, Ardern didn't rise to power as PM during Covid, she was already PM years before anyone had even heard of it. Italy too is a terrible comparator, them changing governments is nothing new, they haven't had any long lasting stable governments in the past 40 years besides Berlusconi.
Every country is unique, none is a carbon copy of another.
Italy has had a clear swing to the right, away from the centre left and technocratic governments it now has a rightwing populist government with a clear overall majority for the right and PM Meloni still leads the polls.
In NZ Ardern got a landslide victory post Covid, in 2017 her party trailed the Nationals and she only got in via deals with NZ First and the Greens. Now the Nationals are back in power again
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
There was more of a divide at that time though, in Germany and Canada and the US the left were in power and ahead in polls in the late 1990s as they were in the UK and the right as you say were ahead and in power in Australia and Spain and France (at least at presidential level).
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
New Zealand again was on a different cycle, Ardern didn't rise to power as PM during Covid, she was already PM years before anyone had even heard of it. Italy too is a terrible comparator, them changing governments is nothing new, they haven't had any long lasting stable governments in the past 40 years besides Berlusconi.
Every country is unique, none is a carbon copy of another.
Italy has had a clear swing to the right, away from the centre left and technocratic governments it now has a rightwing populist government with a clear overall majority for the right and PM Meloni still leads the polls.
In NZ Ardern got a landslide victory post Covid, in 2017 her party trailed the Nationals and she only got in via deals with NZ First and the Greens
Which means absolutely nothing for the UK, any more than the rise of John Howard meant a swing to John Major should have been expected the following year.
The UK is the UK, not Italy. British voters will vote in their constituencies based upon their interests, not anyone else's.
Only reason Italian or European politics would be especially relevant is if their MEPs could pass laws to affect us, but we voted for Brexit, so only British voters and British politicians will decide our electoral future.
Can I just say thank you to @boulay and @JosiasJessop for their posts on the Hamas / Israel issue, which express much of what I feel.
My son on his return home from a job interview saw an altercation between someone objecting to a woman in a hijab tearing down posters of the kidnapped hostages. He simply couldn't understand why anyone would do this. Nor can I. It seems to me to be simple cruelty, a wish not to see the faces of people who are suffering right now, a wish to dehumanise them because to recognise their existence might cause others to wonder about what has been done to them and their families and by whom.
And there seems to be a lot of this cruelty about - painting Hitler moustaches, threatening Jewish schools and the rest. It is simply wrong and unacceptable that in 2023 Jewish schools should need extra protection, Jewish friends of mine are taking down the mezuzah on their homes to avoid attack and so on. The shock and fear and upset that has been caused to our fellow Britons here - not just by the attack - but by the response of far too many here is underplayed. It disgusts me. Jews are feeling hurt and vulnerable and seeing in their country a display of the sort of behaviour which makes them realise why their parents and grandparents learnt to keep a packed suitcase or a few gold coins handy (my oldest friend's father - a refugee from Germany - did just that to his dying day).
As for those demanding that Starmer change his party's policy, frankly, I hope he does not. He seems to me to have got it right. His one big achievement has been to turn the moral sewer that Labour had turned into under Corbyn into a party that can be voted for by decent people. There is a moral line which should not be crossed, IMO, and no decent party should want the votes of people who tear down posters of kidnapped children - either because they support or celebrate what was done or because they hate the religion or ethnicity of the victims.
I have close Jewish friends and family. I have found the last few weeks more upsetting than I could have imagined. Parts of our society are pretty nasty. So I am leaving the news and social media for a while. Romantic novels and gardening for me for the foreseeable future.
I don't usually feel disgust about this country. But seeing a figleaf being discarded about jewish people, and easy dismissal of very real fears, not just dismissal but practically mockery, has shown we still have a long way to go.
It's hard to think about and talk about specific actions that might occur in the middle east, issues that are beyond individuals or nations unfortunately. But it is not hard to avoid glorifying or dismissing cruelty, so when a lot of people do not avoid it, it feels very intentional.
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Didn't the Left win in Poland last week?
Well Donald Tusk. But we take what we can get these days.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
No it isn't, he would need the military to be a dictator and hold no more elections and the military didn't even back Trump staying in office in Jan 2021 when he was still President.
I don't believe them. If they excuse his behaviour now (the admitted behaviour, whether or not it is criminal) then they'll find a means to excuse it once he is convicted. We can be sure of that by how they choose to defend him already, by calling it all rigged and corrupt. Others are more honest, and state even if in theory Presidents (and ex Presidents) should not be above the law, you still should never charge them because it is 'political' to do so.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue - according to the Government.
It's a ruinous policy.
Its not a loss of revenue, its simply less revenue.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
Pure semantics.
It's a loss of revenue over revenue that would have been raised by maintaining existing (sensible) policy.
You're last 3 paras are pure fiction and I'm not wasting time on them; roads are funded out of Council Tax for local roads, and general taxation for strategic roads. There is no balance on such.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
No it isn't, he would need the military to be a dictator and hold no more elections and the military didn't even back Trump staying in office in Jan 2021 when he was still President.
I don't believe them. If they excuse his behaviour now (the admitted behaviour, whether or not it is criminal) then they'll find a means to excuse it once he is convicted. We can be sure of that by how they choose to defend him already, by calling it all rigged and corrupt. Others are more honest, and state even if in theory Presidents (and ex Presidents) should not be above the law, you still should never charge them because it is 'political' to do so.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
Like houses produce shit, roads produce pollution.
'In a heroic move today, Palestinian freedom fighters from besieged Gaza broke Zionist colonial barriers and entered settlements on stolen Palestinian land inside 48 Palestine.'
Don't know if this is verified but does suggest the PSC isn't quite the 'peace' movement it claims to be.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue - according to the Government.
It's a ruinous policy.
Its not a loss of revenue, its simply less revenue.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
Pure semantics.
It's a loss of revenue over revenue that would have been raised by maintaining existing (sensible) policy.
You're last 3 paras are pure fiction and I'm not wasting time on them; roads are funded out of Council Tax for local roads, and general taxation for strategic roads. There is no balance on such.
Semantics is another way to say "you're telling the truth, but I dislike the truth".
Councils don't just get their funding from Council Tax, they quite rightly get payments from the Treasury. There absolutely is a balance to be had.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
Like houses produce shit, roads produce pollution.
Bullshit, neither produce either.
People produce shit, houses don't create jack shit.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
I agree in principle, but building 10 million new homes in Greenock is going to make only a marginal impact on rent in Edinburgh. It's not a perfect UK-wide market, and housing policy needs to reflect that.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
Like houses produce shit, roads produce pollution.
Bullshit, neither produce either.
People produce shit, houses don't create jack shit.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should c
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Is Le Pen really right wing?
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
This is so obvious, and yet so misunderstood. It really doesn't matter exactly what is built, just that stuff is built.
And yet no doubt since transportation has come up we'll get our usual "London is efficient" bollocks getting spouted. Yes its efficient, efficient at ensuring a majority of its population don't have a home of their own. No shock that such a disgusting story comes out of London.
We need to encourage millions more houses, and opportunities for people outside of London.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
The problem has been that since 2008 governments have helped in the 'demand' side of the equation without sorting out the supply side.
that's because it's easier. you assist with deposits, you do shared ownership etc. Interest rates being at nothing has also boosted demand and what people think that they can afford. Interest rates going up is a good thing for affordability because house prices will go down as it's not possible to get a mortgage.
they need to fix planning, remove demand incentives and get house builders building all of the houses they have the planning for already.
As a note on Roger, I find him personally a moral compass. I see which we he points on most subjects such as metoo, polanski and the middle east and feel confident that supporting the opposite is pretty much the right thing to do
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
I agree in principle, but building 10 million new homes in Greenock is going to make only a marginal impact on rent in Edinburgh. It's not a perfect UK-wide market, and housing policy needs to reflect that.
Well if millions of homes existed in Greenock people could move from Edinburgh to Greenock. People are mobile.
Just let supply and demand work, no need for a "policy", the state needs to step out of the way not sort the problem out. If land in Edinburgh is zoned for housing, let people build whatever they want, which in places like Edinburgh or London should mean probably building up. Elsewhere where more free space exists, let people build out. Let people decide what they want, and where they want it.
And yet no doubt since transportation has come up we'll get our usual "London is efficient" bollocks getting spouted. Yes its efficient, efficient at ensuring a majority of its population don't have a home of their own. No shock that such a disgusting story comes out of London.
We need to encourage millions more houses, and opportunities for people outside of London.
london has a special problem when it comes to housing. there's a lot which are empty but used by foreign nationals/companies as investments. deal with that and it may get a bit better.
Good article. Activists are just that. Of course they are going to argue their corner and little else. But that isn’t the whole story. Activists are part of the rich tapestry of the public realm. It is naive to try and get rid or ignore them,
I also don’t think ignoring “activists” - and I am using this term in a very broad sense which you will see latter - based on their organisational structure makes sense. Some folk on this thread seem to think that a charity that provides services or receives revenue or subsidy from the public sector should never campaign or lobby. What rot. Or if it isn’t nonsense, how should we treat private sector firms that receive significant sums from providing government services or subsidies? Are they banned from lobbying?
I believe, or at least Private Eye tells me, that a lot of exhibitors at the most recent party conferences receive huge slugs of their revenue from the taxpayer. I am totally sure that their generosity to our leading political parties is about serving the greater good.
If anything single issue groups and charities lack the sort of access and influence the private sector has. Hence they resort to the sort of disruption tactics that annoy most folk. If you’ve got the powerful in your pocket you don’t glue yourself to the Docklands Light Railway.
The bit I do agree with is the relative failure of politics and politicians. Poor legislation, inadequately scrutinised, appears to have gifted the judicial review machines.The hollowed out civil service also opens the cracks which the JR crowbar can get into. From my recollection most JRs challenge on whether a decision is “reasonable” or whether proper process was followed. Courts tend to be reluctant to conclude that a decision is irrational - and the apocryphal man on the Clapham bus is relevant here - so it often turns on process. I think it shouldn’t be beyond politicians and the rest of the public sector to make decision in a proper and documented manner. To be sure it is more paperwork. But that is what a bureaucracy implies.
But Interesting points that made me think a bit - so thanks.
And yet no doubt since transportation has come up we'll get our usual "London is efficient" bollocks getting spouted. Yes its efficient, efficient at ensuring a majority of its population don't have a home of their own. No shock that such a disgusting story comes out of London.
We need to encourage millions more houses, and opportunities for people outside of London.
The majority of people in London do have a home, just most rent as it is the most expensive region in the UK to buy property.
In that area of Peckham highlighted in the article it seems many are in temporary accomodation and as Housing Minister Felicity Buchan says "We're spending £2bn over three years to tackle homelessness and get families into permanent accommodation.
"We are committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes, and a large number of the new homes delivered through our £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent."
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
The problem has been that since 2008 governments have helped in the 'demand' side of the equation without sorting out the supply side.
that's because it's easier. you assist with deposits, you do shared ownership etc. Interest rates being at nothing has also boosted demand and what people think that they can afford. Interest rates going up is a good thing for affordability because house prices will go down as it's not possible to get a mortgage.
they need to fix planning, remove demand incentives and get house builders building all of the houses they have the planning for already.
Demand has come from population growth, not assistance with deposits/shared ownership etc - every household needs a home, so demand scales with population growth versus housing construction more than anything else.
Absolutely you're completely right that planning reform is essential. It would also destroy the oligopoly of builders too.
'In a heroic move today, Palestinian freedom fighters from besieged Gaza broke Zionist colonial barriers and entered settlements on stolen Palestinian land inside 48 Palestine.'
Don't know if this is verified but does suggest the PSC isn't quite the 'peace' movement it claims to be.
It's a fairly good rule of thumb that when it comes to politics, campaigns, and charities that the names they pick are misleading.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should c
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Is Le Pen really right wing?
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
Well Trump's economics are also anti globalisation and anti free trade and pro tariff and anti immigration like Le Pen.
Le Pen may be a bit more statist than Trump but she isn't a socialist either, just a protectionist like Trump.
Even the Tories have at times advocated tariffs, that doesn't make you leftwing, just not a free trade liberal
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 5h In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
On present polls Trump won't be defeated and might even win the popular vote as well as EC.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Either way Trump is in the WH and American democracy is over.
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
What we have going in our favour is Trump is 1) old and 2) obese.
Actuarial risks are not insignificant over the next 5 years before democracy crumbles.
This is a dictator's charter. Nixon's silent majority gets to ban any protests that right-wingers don't like. Two fingers to that.
Is there a difference between banning protest, and not incentivising campaiging groups with government money? Or putting specific restrictions on some types of activity? That's already the case, see those chaps who went up a bridge, so where's the right line? Should very minority pressure groups get to derail projects which have mass support or mass neutrality?
I think we have to err on the side of protestors and lobbiers, we don't want to empower governments to just stop people saying things they do not like. But is there not a some capacity to rebalance structures and rules to not make decision making at least prohibitively long and costly?
It's the amount of times that things can go through the courts which frustrate me. For Example...
there is one man, an ex green councillor, who has successfully held up the upgrading of 3 stretches of the A47 in Norfolk. The council wants it and the people of Norfolk want it but he has 'crowdfunded' a legal battle because he thinks that the government 'hasn't taken into account the cumulative CO2 emissions'. The parts of the road in question are not safe and significant upgrade is needed but this one man crusade has been through the high count and is going to the court of appeal. I suspect he'd take it to the supreme count and ECHR if he had the opportunity. There's no prospect of significant changes to the schemes as a result of the lawsuits.
in this case, if he wins it throws into question all roadbuilding projects in the UK.
Its bad laws that enable him to do so, the law needs changing.
He should be able to campaign or protest all he wants, but once the decision has been made it should go ahead, no ifs or buts.
Want your politicians to do something different, then campaign for different candidates with different policies.
Unfortunately our politicians love to pass bad laws, in the virtue of being seen to do something, which then allows people to abuse those laws to further their agenda.
There was no reason to pass a bill committing to net zero by 2050, which is the bill that has I believe been the backbone of many of these reviews. It should be policy, but not law. By making policy into bad law, it allows bad faith actors to act like this.
Keep law and policy separate. Enact policies to get us to net zero, don't pass an ill thought through bad law anyone can abuse to further their own agenda.
Policy without law isn't worth the paper it's written on. There is widespread support and was a political consensus, including in manifestos, for net zero - the purpose of the law is to prevent cases like this undermining a national objective.
I'm surprised at your objection to this - on housebuilding you have no patience for people who get in the way of a national objective of more affordable homes.
If the Tories want to change the law and abandon their manifesto commitment to net zero, call a GE and let's see how they get on.
Policy without law absolutely is worth the paper its written on. There should be a plan to get to net zero, but individual cases should have nothing to do with that plan. Take roads for instance, if the plan is to get to net zero by having zero emission vehicles driving on the roads, then the courts should have no say whatsoever on the emissions of vehicles driving on the roads as anything time zero equals zero. That's just a fundamental law of mathematics and it trumps laws of the land.
Stuff needs to be done, make a decision on what you're doing and do it. The steps you take are the policies and the law, the objective is not and should not be.
"We will be at net zero" should not be the law, the law should be "[in order to get to net zero] we are doing x, y and z" and x, y and z should be debated and potentially changed democratically.
I don't want a law saying "homes should be affordable", that's preposterous. I want concrete steps taken (like reforming planning) to get us there. Laws with meat on them, to get to the policy objective, not setting the policy objective as law and then doing sod all.
Well, bad luck. It is the law, and precisely because of cases like this where local plans undermine a national objective. Perhaps that's where the housing crisis had stemmed from - a lack of obligation?
And it's not doing "sod all". Why would you complain about it otherwise? If it is used to block the building of the road it's been highly effective.
If its being used to block anything, then sod all is happening. That's the problem.
That's the...point?
No, its not.
The point is to have development, not block it.
If you're so concerned about Net Zero getting in the way of road building, you'll be delighted to hear that the Tories (after 13 years) have u-turned and have abandoned it.
Transformed their electoral chances too. Hang on...
There is no Net Zero reason to get in the way of road building.
What there is, is badly written laws that get in the way. Laws the Tories have passed some of.
It's a lot of concrete to facilitate vehicles that are a long way from being carbon neutral (even EV ones). The road will never be Net Zero.
Like houses produce shit, roads produce pollution.
Bullshit, neither produce either.
People produce shit, houses don't create jack shit.
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue - according to the Government.
It's a ruinous policy.
Its not a loss of revenue, its simply less revenue.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
Pure semantics.
It's a loss of revenue over revenue that would have been raised by maintaining existing (sensible) policy.
You're last 3 paras are pure fiction and I'm not wasting time on them; roads are funded out of Council Tax for local roads, and general taxation for strategic roads. There is no balance on such.
We’ve been over this before here - it is true that the government takes in more in direct taxes on driving (fuel taxes mostly) than it spends on the roads. The indirect costs of driving are not included in this accounting however - the kids in London with asthma thanks to the NOx emissions that the ULEZ is trying to reduce are not included in Barty’s balance sheet.
I think there are some government reports out there that try and do a full accounting.
Either way, taxes are raised to (roughly) cover government expenditure in a variety of ways - there’s no a priori reason why fuel taxes should exactly match road expenditure. Until the advent of electric vehicles fuel taxes were as good a way as any at taxing economic activity in a reasonably equitable fashion.
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Or it just means that their political system may not be the same as ours, or that their political cycle may be different to ours. Both of which are to various extents true, so reading across from one to another is folly.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard. The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
There was more of a divide at that time though, in Germany and Canada and the US the left were in power and ahead in polls in the late 1990s as they were in the UK and the right as you say were ahead and in power in Australia and Spain and France (at least at presidential level).
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
New Zealand again was on a different cycle, Ardern didn't rise to power as PM during Covid, she was already PM years before anyone had even heard of it. Italy too is a terrible comparator, them changing governments is nothing new, they haven't had any long lasting stable governments in the past 40 years besides Berlusconi.
Every country is unique, none is a carbon copy of another.
Italy has had a clear swing to the right, away from the centre left and technocratic governments it now has a rightwing populist government with a clear overall majority for the right and PM Meloni still leads the polls.
In NZ Ardern got a landslide victory post Covid, in 2017 her party trailed the Nationals and she only got in via deals with NZ First and the Greens
Which means absolutely nothing for the UK, any more than the rise of John Howard meant a swing to John Major should have been expected the following year.
The UK is the UK, not Italy. British voters will vote in their constituencies based upon their interests, not anyone else's.
Only reason Italian or European politics would be especially relevant is if their MEPs could pass laws to affect us, but we voted for Brexit, so only British voters and British politicians will decide our electoral future.
The trend of western governments being unpopular due to higher inflation and higher interest rates they are having to tackle will affect the UK however and will hit an incoming Labour government as much as it has hit this current Tory government
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should c
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Is Le Pen really right wing?
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
Well Trump's economics are also anti globalisation and anti free trade and pro tariff and anti immigration like Le Pen.
Le Pen may be a bit more statist than Trump but she isn't a socialist either, just a protectionist like Trump.
Even the Tories have at times advocated tariffs, that doesn't make you leftwing, just not a free trade liberal
Le Pen has mainstreamed her party, so now accepts gay marriage and abortion. Between that and her Peronist economic policy she isn't really a right wing politician any more.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government."
This just doesn't make any sense. If I am contracted by govt to do a job, like build a school or supply office chairs... I have now also lost the right to take them to court if they don't pay me?
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
The problem has been that since 2008 governments have helped in the 'demand' side of the equation without sorting out the supply side.
that's because it's easier. you assist with deposits, you do shared ownership etc. Interest rates being at nothing has also boosted demand and what people think that they can afford. Interest rates going up is a good thing for affordability because house prices will go down as it's not possible to get a mortgage.
they need to fix planning, remove demand incentives and get house builders building all of the houses they have the planning for already.
Demand has come from population growth, not assistance with deposits/shared ownership etc - every household needs a home, so demand scales with population growth versus housing construction more than anything else.
Absolutely you're completely right that planning reform is essential. It would also destroy the oligopoly of builders too.
The UK population has no grown enough to cause the problems. not enough housing has been built and demographics have also changed things. there are more older people who are more likely to live in a larger house with excess bedrooms. the fact that there's not enough smaller homes for people to downsize into if they wanted goes back to planning.
demand incentives has just made matters worse. (plus the London housing market being used as an investment by the rich). on top of that you've got second homes and AirBnB making things worse too.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should c
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Is Le Pen really right wing?
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
Well Trump's economics are also anti globalisation and anti free trade and pro tariff and anti immigration like Le Pen.
Le Pen may be a bit more statist than Trump but she isn't a socialist either, just a protectionist like Trump.
Even the Tories have at times advocated tariffs, that doesn't make you leftwing, just not a free trade liberal
Le Pen has mainstreamed her party, so now accepts gay marriage and abortion. Between that and her Peronist economic policy she isn't really a right wing politician any more.
Trump accepts gay marriage and doesn't want to ban abortion outight, so have most western right of centre parties, so have the Tories.
However both he and Le Pen are certainly protectionist Nationalists not Liberals, indeed increasingly that is the major divide in many western nations not the 20th century divide of capitalists v socialists or social democrats
The British Left - and the wider, western Left - has somehow contrived it that they are on the side of these people. These are THEIR people. How can this have happened?
It is, I submit, a catastrophe for their cause, in the long term
I’m glad your excellent article got published, @Alanbrooke. In order to give single issue activists the opportunity to have a successful campaign, what about Swiss style referenda? They could be national, e.g. “Should oil be stopped?” or local, e.g. “Should the A47 be improved?”, to be voted on by Norfolk residents. The relevant activists could campaign and fundraise to try to convince voters to vote for their cause. They may even find that their campaigning methods are counterproductive, but that’s democracy.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government" sounds kind of mafia-like - "you don't want to take us to court, shame if anything happened to your funding...". A bit like how the government is banning people who disagree with it on anything from speaking to civil servants. Illiberal, cancel-culture behaviour in my view. If the government has decided to provide funding to an organisation to deliver services or otherwise fulfil the government's objectives, the fact that the organisation is challenging some other government decision should be immaterial. Similarly, the government shouldn't threaten people who take it to court. We are a country governed by laws, and nobody is above the law, not even the government. Nobody should be bullied out of seeking legal redress if the government is potentially acting illegally.
It should be no government money for any group that is lobbying the government, let alone taking them to court.
The Government should have a fiduciary duty to look after our taxes reasonably. If our taxes are getting spent on lobbying etc that's not a good use of our taxes.
Our taxes should go to provide goods and services. If an organisation wants to provide goods and services, then fine, if its competitive it should be a productive use of those taxes. If an organisation is lobby, then fine, but it should raise its funds for lobbying privately and not from taxes.
OLB is making a different point to you (and Alanbrooke), though. Say the Government decides to outsource some of its functions to a charity - e.g. Shelter for housing or the RSPCA for prosecutions for cruelty. They pay a market rate for this service, which is often ring-fenced. It's convenient for the Government not to have to employ civil servants for everything (and I don't think you or Alanbrooke are big fans of a large civil service) if there is an exprert service available.
If Shelter or the RSPCA then decide to lobby or indeed sue the Government, the money for that comes "entirely" from private donations. That is already the case, contrary to the impression that you may have. What you and Alanbrooke seem to be saying is that the price of Shelter lobbying the Government is that they lose the agreed contracts, disrupting the service while the Government looks round for someone else to do it. (In practice, all that would happen would be that the charity wouold set up a separate arm for lobbying.)
(Declaration of non-interest - I work for a charity, and we do lobbying, but we don't get any Government money for anything. Literally NOBODY gets Government money for lobbying.)
Yes, as a Trustee of a charity, we are very careful that our money is spent exclusively on charitable purposes. Anyone who thinks a charity is not using its funds properly should c
At the moment rightwing parties are ahead in polls in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada and tied for the lead in Spain, the US and on the latest poll Australia.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
Is Le Pen really right wing?
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
Well Trump's economics are also anti globalisation and anti free trade and pro tariff and anti immigration like Le Pen.
Le Pen may be a bit more statist than Trump but she isn't a socialist either, just a protectionist like Trump.
Even the Tories have at times advocated tariffs, that doesn't make you leftwing, just not a free trade liberal
Le Pen has mainstreamed her party, so now accepts gay marriage and abortion. Between that and her Peronist economic policy she isn't really a right wing politician any more.
Trump accepts gay marriage and doesn't want to ban abortion outight, so have most western parties.
However both he and Le Pen are certainly protectionist Nationalists not Liberals, indeed increasingly that is the major divide in many western nations not the 20th century divide of capitalists v socialists or social democrats
Trump isn't really right wing either. His spending alongside tax cuts is the opposite of right wing economics. Trump's danger comes not from his politics, but rather from his gang boss style of power, rewarding his family and friends and pursuing his vendettas.
Can I just say thank you to @boulay and @JosiasJessop for their posts on the Hamas / Israel issue, which express much of what I feel.
My son on his return home from a job interview saw an altercation between someone objecting to a woman in a hijab tearing down posters of the kidnapped hostages. He simply couldn't understand why anyone would do this. Nor can I. It seems to me to be simple cruelty, a wish not to see the faces of people who are suffering right now, a wish to dehumanise them because to recognise their existence might cause others to wonder about what has been done to them and their families and by whom.
And there seems to be a lot of this cruelty about - painting Hitler moustaches, threatening Jewish schools and the rest. It is simply wrong and unacceptable that in 2023 Jewish schools should need extra protection, Jewish friends of mine are taking down the mezuzah on their homes to avoid attack and so on. The shock and fear and upset that has been caused to our fellow Britons here - not just by the attack - but by the response of far too many here is underplayed. It disgusts me. Jews are feeling hurt and vulnerable and seeing in their country a display of the sort of behaviour which makes them realise why their parents and grandparents learnt to keep a packed suitcase or a few gold coins handy (my oldest friend's father - a refugee from Germany - did just that to his dying day).
As for those demanding that Starmer change his party's policy, frankly, I hope he does not. He seems to me to have got it right. His one big achievement has been to turn the moral sewer that Labour had turned into under Corbyn into a party that can be voted for by decent people. There is a moral line which should not be crossed, IMO, and no decent party should want the votes of people who tear down posters of kidnapped children - either because they support or celebrate what was done or because they hate the religion or ethnicity of the victims.
I have close Jewish friends and family. I have found the last few weeks more upsetting than I could have imagined. Parts of our society are pretty nasty. So I am leaving the news and social media for a while. Romantic novels and gardening for me for the foreseeable future.
Whatever anyone believes about the events in the Middle East, such behaviour, and such attitudes are utterly indefensible. No one should be seeking the votes of such a minority.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
The price of housing is a function of supply. As is quality.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
Bingo.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
The problem has been that since 2008 governments have helped in the 'demand' side of the equation without sorting out the supply side.
that's because it's easier. you assist with deposits, you do shared ownership etc. Interest rates being at nothing has also boosted demand and what people think that they can afford. Interest rates going up is a good thing for affordability because house prices will go down as it's not possible to get a mortgage.
they need to fix planning, remove demand incentives and get house builders building all of the houses they have the planning for already.
Demand has come from population growth, not assistance with deposits/shared ownership etc - every household needs a home, so demand scales with population growth versus housing construction more than anything else.
Absolutely you're completely right that planning reform is essential. It would also destroy the oligopoly of builders too.
The UK population has no grown enough to cause the problems. not enough housing has been built and demographics have also changed things. there are more older people who are more likely to live in a larger house with excess bedrooms. the fact that there's not enough smaller homes for people to downsize into if they wanted goes back to planning.
demand incentives has just made matters worse. (plus the London housing market being used as an investment by the rich). on top of that you've got second homes and AirBnB making things worse too.
The English population has grown by over ten million this century so far, that's a considerable population growth. In the same time neither housing, nor roads, nor most other infrastructure has kept pace. Hence we have a considerable shortage of what we should have.
AirBnB etc are tinkering at the edges, but if there were sufficient houses there'd be enough for that too. If there were ten million extra homes in this country, there'd be enough to solve our housing shortage and allow some to be used for businesses without harming people who want somewhere to live.
The British Left - and the wider, western Left - has somehow contrived it that they are on the side of these people. These are THEIR people. How can this have happened?
It is, I submit, a catastrophe for their cause, in the long term
Governments that hate us and actively want to undermine us will always look to find common cause with those inside our society who if they don't despise us, certainly want to bring down the system.
The British Left - and the wider, western Left - has somehow contrived it that they are on the side of these people. These are THEIR people. How can this have happened?
It is, I submit, a catastrophe for their cause, in the long term
Anyone who is the enemy of Israel and the US is a friend of the hard left, even if their social policies and attitude to LGBT people and women make even Rees Mogg look liberal
If the state is serious about getting to net zero, it should be putting its effort into facilitating and ensuring zero emission technologies are used by 2050. Not blocking development in an impotent goal to cut emissions, which can never result in zero.
See my response above - the argument would be the opportunity cost. For example, £80 billion on fuel duty freeze versus £36 billion for HS2 to Manchester. Which of those contributes more towards achieving Net Zero?
One is a fictitious lie, the other is spending.
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
It's the OBR's own numbers. Please don't call me a liar.
Bollocks, please quote me the OBR saying that the Treasury has "spent" £80 billion in fuel duty, because its a lie.
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue - according to the Government.
It's a ruinous policy.
Its not a loss of revenue, its simply less revenue.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
Pure semantics.
It's a loss of revenue over revenue that would have been raised by maintaining existing (sensible) policy.
You're last 3 paras are pure fiction and I'm not wasting time on them; roads are funded out of Council Tax for local roads, and general taxation for strategic roads. There is no balance on such.
We’ve been over this before here - it is true that the government takes in more in direct taxes on driving (fuel taxes mostly) than it spends on the roads. The indirect costs of driving are not included in this accounting however - the kids in London with asthma thanks to the NOx emissions that the ULEZ is trying to reduce are not included in Barty’s balance sheet.
I think there are some government reports out there that try and do a full accounting.
Either way, taxes are raised to (roughly) cover government expenditure in a variety of ways - there’s no a priori reason why fuel taxes should exactly match road expenditure. Until the advent of electric vehicles fuel taxes were as good a way as any at taxing economic activity in a reasonably equitable fashion.
Taxing private transportation while subsidising other transportation is neither equitable nor economically rational.
Road transportation should be as equitably taxed (or subsidised) as rail etc is in London.
The British Left - and the wider, western Left - has somehow contrived it that they are on the side of these people. These are THEIR people. How can this have happened?
It is, I submit, a catastrophe for their cause, in the long term
Yup - it will be - as it will needlessly lump in some fairly reasonable ideas and modes of thinking alongside the rotten stuff, and gift reasonable discourse to the centre and right. And as someone who has always thought of oneself as on the wider left - though have been pushed to the centre left by exactly this guff - it's extremely worrying that too many people really don't get it. There was kind of a dry run in the Corbyn years where lots of people pointed to this stuff and said, "Look, this is a massive problem. You might not think it is, because it comes cloaked in the fuzzy buzzwords of solidarity - but once people actually notice what you think it looks crazy, and the excuses are codswallop." Initially, they got away with it as people are very tribal and there was bigger stuff on. But eventually it all collapsed when people noticed that this part of the left would ask Putin nicely if he'd used a chemical weapon, or were extraordinarily weird and tone deaf about criticism from Jews pointing out that 'anti-Zionism' was often antisemitism with a rebrand. Similar will likely happen to a lot of left movement politics - which initially had lots of sympathy because there are some bits that are valuable, but will quickly find the normally sympathetic running a mile if it has to come with weird cranky ideas, nonsensical theories about the world and accepting extremism.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Select_committee_(United_Kingdom)
One of the few aspects of Parliament which continues to function quite well.
I'm just pointing out why the law is effective for achieving Net Zero. There are better uses of the concrete and money for reducing emissions, would be the argument. HS2? Wind turbines? Efficient housing? Solar panels? That's the opportunity cost of this new road.
The vast majority of the electorate voted for it, so we can't have too many complaints.
This government clearly isn’t serious, though.
Thank you @Alanbrooke once again for another thought provoking article.
I'm not convinced - after all, CND was an "activist" group which at times had a lot of support yet in the end it didn't move policy - we didn't unilaterally disarm - but the debate was had. Huge crowds marched in opposition to the war in Iraq yet we still fought. Huge crowds marched to support the countryside but it has little or no impact.
You are right about activism but also wrong - if people are concerned enough or angry enough about something they will seek to actively oppose whether it's the backfilling development in their street or climate change. One could argue there's a lot of anger or perhaps there's more to be angry about but don't assume the passive will always be such - everyone has that trigger.
I'd argue activism has rarely been a driver for changes in Government policy - I'd go further and say there is a huge disconnect between the actions of Government and the intentions of activists. Sometimes activism derives from the sense of being ignored or not being listened to - a political system which ignores activism in toto becomes increasingly remote and it's that fertile soil in which increasingly radical solutions gain traction.
No, I don't think we should give weight to the disinterested - far from it, we want more people to be angrier more often about more things. That stimulates debate and ought to push politicians and parties to look seriously at the issues which anger people.
This angered me:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67126160
Now, I hear a lot talking on here about building houses and that's all fine but they have to be houses which people can afford (and that's without inviting a house price crash) not just the prices developers would like people to pay.
What I'm not hearing is a debate from any party about this and what the solutions might be.
We should be building turbines and houses and roads and clean industry and everything else a modern, developed, industrious nation requires.
I note my stalker has been there, as well, almost exactly ten years ago!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sicilys-secret-cities-noto-scicli-and-ragusa-pvfqkqw7stj
Freezing fuel duty hasn't cost the Treasury a penny, fuel duty has raised (net) hundreds of billions of pounds for the Exchequer even if you're too ignorant to acknowledge the truth and persist with a lie - and if you're serious about Net Zero then we need fuel duty to be eliminated anyway, since fuel will be eliminated so the duty will be eliminated too.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4274682-where-gop-speaker-nominee-mike-johnson-stands-on-ukraine-israel/
https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/carol-vorderman-blasted-over-twitter-tirades-raf-crunch-meeting
Rachel Riley is not the only Countdown alumna getting grief for posting on TwiX.
Niche interview from Ukraine - with the head of a charity called Behind Blue Eyes, who donate disposable cameras to children in Ukraine, to picture what they see.
I don't know how to assess this, so I won't try very much - yet I can see that for some this will be immensely valuable as a bridge to link to something more normal, and as a way to recognise, eventually 'name' the war and help it eventually become memories of the past and less dominant shadows over a future present, and mentally process traumatic experience - recording it along the way.
https://youtu.be/SMto3Yz1_GQ?t=1579
Welcome to the Behind Blue Eyes project, where kids who have faced war trauma learn how to achieve dreams and goals with the power of their own creativity.
As residents of Ukraine’s liberated and frontline villages, they receive disposable film cameras to capture their childhood without any guidance, supervision or intervention.
This unique body of work travels to the community of adults and raise funds to fulfill wish lists which we have collected from the authors along with the film."
What the OBR factually reports is £24.3 in fuel duty receipts forecast for this economic year. That's receipts, not expenditure: https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/fuel-duties/
There is not a single penny of expenditure listed under fuel duty on the OBR page.
I imagine all leaders in this situation must model themselves on Churchill. Mussolini certainly did, Zelensky obviously does, I suspect Bibi is the same
US President Joe Biden has addressed the war between Israel and Gaza, and said "Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields".
Speaking at a press conference, Biden said there's no going back to the "status quo" that Israelis and Palestinians had before the Hamas attack.
In Biden and Zelensky the world has the leaders it currently needs, compared to some of their recent predecessors. I'm no fan of Bibi, but hopefully this is an opportunity for him to step up to the plate too while other parties are working with him, to deliver for Israel.
But this is why he’s been manoeuvred into the speakership.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/house-speaker-republican-mike-johnson-january-6-mastermind-trump-election-2020.html
… His case, stringing together a series of implausible legal claims, brought together many Republicans who were queasy at Trump’s wild lies, and Trump’s strongest supporters. Johnson circulated his case to the party and reminded them that Trump “anxiously awaited” their support. As the New York Times explained in a deeply reported story last year, Johnson’s arguments had a singular influence. About three-quarters of Republicans supporting Trump’s election challenge, the Times noted, “relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”..
Ways Elon is making Twitter like Russia.
-He's a bit of a dictator
-Believes his own propaganda
-Applies rules arbitrarily
-It's going broke
-Everyone smart is thinking how to escape
He totally failed. He must carry the can, and he will. He is dust
I am merely noting that in terms of eve-of-battle speeches, that was pretty good. Stirring reference to Isaiah etc. I severely doubt it will be enough to save his career
You (rightly) condemn the Sunak approach of freezing personal allowances in cash terms, so that they are worth less as inflation has its effect.
Fuel duty has been frozen in cash terms for ages, which is a real terms cut. Which is the point.
OTOH it was brilliant statesmanship when it looked like he’d stopped Israel invading Gaza, now Israel is invading Gaza “he’s played a blinder”
This is such nonsense. Neither position is true
Taxing less isn't spending. Its simply taxing less.
The net tax remains vastly in the Treasuries favour, so it remains net receipts even if the net receipts figure has changed, there is no net expenditure.
If people are net contributors to the tax system, then that is helping the Treasury not hurting it, and the Treasury rightly knows that thanks to Net Zero fuel duty is being eliminated anyway so it makes both economic and environmental sense to transition away from it as the source of funding.
If the Treasury remains hooked on fuel duty to fund its expenditure, then it will oppose net zero, because it won't be able to afford the loss of duties. Which is why every environmentalist who is serious about net zero should be happy to see it getting phased out.
I never praised Biden for stopping Israel from invading Gaza, indeed I said that Netanyahu would be making an historic mistake if he failed to do so.
Nor am I saying "he's played a blinder" currently, but in wholeheartedly supporting Israel and saying there can be no return to the status quo, and calling out Hamas for using human shields which is the reason Palestinian civilians get caught in the crossfire he is doing the right thing.
The right thing that many of his parties own supporters don't want to hear, any more than the left wants to hear it here.
Well done to anyone who says the truth, even if its not always popular.
The UK seems to be the exception in being the only major western nation at the moment where a left of centre party is clearly ahead. That does suggest Starmer's honeymoon may be short if a new Labour government has to deal with the economic situation other left liberal governments are having to deal with (the left or liberals in power in most western nations at the moment except Italy, NZ and the UK)
The lights are slowly going out.
To take one example, in Australia in 1996 they rejected their existing Labor government and went for the Liberal (we would call them Conservative) Coalition opposition with a new Prime Minister, John Howard.
The next year the UK rejected the existing Conservative government and went for Labour opposition with a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Did the fact these were opposing sides of the "left-right divide" mean the other had a short honeymoon? No, both were PMs for about a decade, coincidentally both leaving office in 2007.
We will vote how we vote, not how other countries vote.
@BillKristol
·
5h
In 2020, Johnson was more than a routine election denier. He was an active and committed election overturner.
As speaker, he’ll presumably spend 2024 helping lay the groundwork for reversing a Trump defeat in November, and then work to overturn that defeat in Nov. and Dec.
He has to get through his criminal cases next year first of course
Finished.
Done.
Unbelievable that vast numbers want to throw it all away.
At the moment however after a clear swing to the centre left in most western nations post Covid, with the left coming to power in the US, Germany and Australia since 2020 and liberals being re elected in France and Canada, there now seems to be something of a swing back.
The right have come to power in Italy and NZ and are leading in polls in most western nations as largely left leaning governments grapple with high inflation.
The UK has still not had a general election post Covid so Starmer may benefit from the delayed swing to the left before a potential swing back here too as a Labour government has to try and keep inflation and interest rates down
Transport is necessary for people to get about and live their lives, and the delay on switching to clean electric vehicles isn't because of a lack of consumer demand, its because of a lack of industrial and economic capacity - and a lack of enough electricity supply yet for them anyway.
The state should be working to eliminate the barriers to switching over to electric vehicles, such as vehicle and battery supply, clean electricity supply, charging infrastructure etc
However the rightwing nationalist Law and Justice won most seats still
If Trump is convicted and jailed next year, which is still very possible, even half of Republicans say they wouldn't vote for him again anyway
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/03/republicans-vote-trump-prison-poll-jan-6-trial
That represents a loss of well over £100bn in total revenue foregone, which could have been spent on making national debt smaller and incentivising more economical vehicles. I'm not aware of an exact calculation.
The IFS assessed in 2018 that by 2017 the loss of Government revenue was *already* £9bn a year. Spreadsheet THAT.
On a straight line basis from 2010 that is £36bn lost revenue by 2017.
https://twitter.com/theifs/status/1047366148197666816?lang=en
The "temporary" (LOL) 5p cut in the last year has cost an extra £5bn in lost revenue in 2023-4 - according to the Government. That is on top of the perhaps £15bn they have already lost in 2023-4 by their freeze since 2010.
Every country is unique, none is a carbon copy of another.
Last time plenty in the House will have balked. Are we really going to try to overturn an election, some may have thought. Some did, most did not.
Now? Most would.
At least a Pence Gambit is off the table.
My son on his return home from a job interview saw an altercation between someone objecting to a woman in a hijab tearing down posters of the kidnapped hostages. He simply couldn't understand why anyone would do this. Nor can I. It seems to me to be simple cruelty, a wish not to see the faces of people who are suffering right now, a wish to dehumanise them because to recognise their existence might cause others to wonder about what has been done to them and their families and by whom.
And there seems to be a lot of this cruelty about - painting Hitler moustaches, threatening Jewish schools and the rest. It is simply wrong and unacceptable that in 2023 Jewish schools should need extra protection, Jewish friends of mine are taking down the mezuzah on their homes to avoid attack and so on. The shock and fear and upset that has been caused to our fellow Britons here - not just by the attack - but by the response of far too many here is underplayed. It disgusts me. Jews are feeling hurt and vulnerable and seeing in their country a display of the sort of behaviour which makes them realise why their parents and grandparents learnt to keep a packed suitcase or a few gold coins handy (my oldest friend's father - a refugee from Germany - did just that to his dying day).
As for those demanding that Starmer change his party's policy, frankly, I hope he does not. He seems to me to have got it right. His one big achievement has been to turn the moral sewer that Labour had turned into under Corbyn into a party that can be voted for by decent people. There is a moral line which should not be crossed, IMO, and no decent party should want the votes of people who tear down posters of kidnapped children - either because they support or celebrate what was done or because they hate the religion or ethnicity of the victims.
I have close Jewish friends and family. I have found the last few weeks more upsetting than I could have imagined. Parts of our society are pretty nasty. So I am leaving the news and social media for a while. Romantic novels and gardening for me for the foreseeable future.
The Government has no divine right to every single penny we earn.
The Treasury is massively, massively up not down when it comes to the amount it taxes drivers, versus what it spends on investment and maintenance of the roads.
If the Treasury was net spending more on roads than it was getting off drivers (including buses etc that use roads too) then you'd have a point, but you have none.
In NZ Ardern got a landslide victory post Covid, in 2017 her party trailed the Nationals and she only got in via deals with NZ First and the Greens. Now the Nationals are back in power again
The UK is the UK, not Italy. British voters will vote in their constituencies based upon their interests, not anyone else's.
Only reason Italian or European politics would be especially relevant is if their MEPs could pass laws to affect us, but we voted for Brexit, so only British voters and British politicians will decide our electoral future.
It's hard to think about and talk about specific actions that might occur in the middle east, issues that are beyond individuals or nations unfortunately. But it is not hard to avoid glorifying or dismissing cruelty, so when a lot of people do not avoid it, it feels very intentional.
Currently prices are at whatever people can afford, in many areas. It’s only when supply outstrips demand that you’ll see much of a shift.
It's a loss of revenue over revenue that would have been raised by maintaining existing (sensible) policy.
You're last 3 paras are pure fiction and I'm not wasting time on them; roads are funded out of Council Tax for local roads, and general taxation for strategic roads. There is no balance on such.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208002456/north-carolina-redistricting-congressional-districts
Certainly not me.
Biden is doing a decent job, but it’s essentially impossible to be ‘brilliant’. There is no ‘win’ here; just the avoidance of greater disaster.
You could build 10 million very high quality, 5 bedroom houses or flats across the country, with not a single "affordable" home getting built. Supply and demand would mean that an extra 10 million homes means houses are more affordable across the spectrum. Those who currently live in a 3 bed would could move into a bigger home, and the pre-existing 3 bed would get sold as a result and be "affordable".
Building "affordable" homes too often is a code for building slums. We should be better than that.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1717187507610120395
'In a heroic move today, Palestinian freedom fighters from besieged Gaza broke Zionist colonial barriers and entered settlements on stolen Palestinian land inside 48 Palestine.'
Don't know if this is verified but does suggest the PSC isn't quite the 'peace' movement it claims to be.
Councils don't just get their funding from Council Tax, they quite rightly get payments from the Treasury. There absolutely is a balance to be had.
People produce shit, houses don't create jack shit.
More Peronite populism catering to interest groups, just with a frisson of Culture war to keep the troops interested. Her economics are quite left wing opposing globalisation, free trade, against privatisation etc.
This is a truly disgusting story.
And yet no doubt since transportation has come up we'll get our usual "London is efficient" bollocks getting spouted. Yes its efficient, efficient at ensuring a majority of its population don't have a home of their own. No shock that such a disgusting story comes out of London.
We need to encourage millions more houses, and opportunities for people outside of London.
that's because it's easier. you assist with deposits, you do shared ownership etc. Interest rates being at nothing has also boosted demand and what people think that they can afford. Interest rates going up is a good thing for affordability because house prices will go down as it's not possible to get a mortgage.
they need to fix planning, remove demand incentives and get house builders building all of the houses they have the planning for already.
Just let supply and demand work, no need for a "policy", the state needs to step out of the way not sort the problem out. If land in Edinburgh is zoned for housing, let people build whatever they want, which in places like Edinburgh or London should mean probably building up. Elsewhere where more free space exists, let people build out. Let people decide what they want, and where they want it.
I also don’t think ignoring “activists” - and I am using this term in a very broad sense which you will see latter - based on their organisational structure makes sense. Some folk on this thread seem to think that a charity that provides services or receives revenue or subsidy from the public sector should never campaign or lobby. What rot. Or if it isn’t nonsense, how should we treat private sector firms that receive significant sums from providing government services or subsidies? Are they banned from lobbying?
I believe, or at least Private Eye tells me, that a lot of exhibitors at the most recent party conferences receive huge slugs of their revenue from the taxpayer. I am totally sure that their generosity to our leading political parties is about serving the greater good.
If anything single issue groups and charities lack the sort of access and influence the private sector has. Hence they resort to the sort of disruption tactics that annoy most folk. If you’ve got the powerful in your pocket you don’t glue yourself to the Docklands Light Railway.
The bit I do agree with is the relative failure of politics and politicians. Poor legislation, inadequately scrutinised, appears to have gifted the judicial review machines.The hollowed out civil service also opens the cracks which the JR crowbar can get into. From my recollection most JRs challenge on whether a decision is “reasonable” or whether proper process was followed. Courts tend to be reluctant to conclude that a decision is irrational - and the apocryphal man on the Clapham bus is relevant here - so it often turns on process. I think it shouldn’t be beyond politicians and the rest of the public sector to make decision in a proper and documented manner. To be sure it is more paperwork. But that is what a bureaucracy implies.
But Interesting points that made me think a bit - so thanks.
In that area of Peckham highlighted in the article it seems many are in temporary accomodation and as Housing Minister Felicity Buchan says "We're spending £2bn over three years to tackle homelessness and get families into permanent accommodation.
"We are committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes, and a large number of the new homes delivered through our £11.5bn Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent."
Absolutely you're completely right that planning reform is essential. It would also destroy the oligopoly of builders too.
Le Pen may be a bit more statist than Trump but she isn't a socialist either, just a protectionist like Trump.
Even the Tories have at times advocated tariffs, that doesn't make you leftwing, just not a free trade liberal
Actuarial risks are not insignificant over the next 5 years before democracy crumbles.
I think there are some government reports out there that try and do a full accounting.
Either way, taxes are raised to (roughly) cover government expenditure in a variety of ways - there’s no a priori reason why fuel taxes should exactly match road expenditure. Until the advent of electric vehicles fuel taxes were as good a way as any at taxing economic activity in a reasonably equitable fashion.
"No government money for any group with a legal case against the government."
This just doesn't make any sense. If I am contracted by govt to do a job, like build a school or supply office chairs... I have now also lost the right to take them to court if they don't pay me?
demand incentives has just made matters worse. (plus the London housing market being used as an investment by the rich). on top of that you've got second homes and AirBnB making things worse too.
However both he and Le Pen are certainly protectionist Nationalists not Liberals, indeed increasingly that is the major divide in many western nations not the 20th century divide of capitalists v socialists or social democrats
It is, I submit, a catastrophe for their cause, in the long term
In order to give single issue activists the opportunity to have a successful campaign, what about Swiss style referenda? They could be national, e.g. “Should oil be stopped?” or local, e.g. “Should the A47 be improved?”, to be voted on by Norfolk residents. The relevant activists could campaign and fundraise to try to convince voters to vote for their cause. They may even find that their campaigning methods are counterproductive, but that’s democracy.
No one should be seeking the votes of such a minority.
AirBnB etc are tinkering at the edges, but if there were sufficient houses there'd be enough for that too. If there were ten million extra homes in this country, there'd be enough to solve our housing shortage and allow some to be used for businesses without harming people who want somewhere to live.
Road transportation should be as equitably taxed (or subsidised) as rail etc is in London.