He won't, he will cut income tax and most likely an IHT cut or abolition will be in the manifesto as a carrot for the core vote and Reform voters to vote Tory again
IHT for the core vote? Will the core vote even pay IHT?
In fairness to @HYUFD it is a principle for him and like minded Tories.
In fairness to @HYUFD most of the remaining Tory vote aren't bright enough to know they aren't rich enough to be impacted by it...
They only end up paying more tax or getting fewer services to compensate for the rich who do get impacted by it.
It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country.
Rubbish, Denmark and Iceland (and effectively Greece) also have established churches and are fine places to live in. Being the established church also ensures all residents of a Parish have an automatic right to a marriage or funeral in their local C of E church.
The Lords is a fully unelected revising chamber, made up of appointed Lords, hereditary peers and a few Bishops (less than 5% in a still 46% Christian nation).
I thought Britain and Iran were the only countries in the world with places reserved in parliament for clerics?
1/ As Britain shivers in winter's grip and high-profile #Tory rebels quit after the #Rwanda Bill, how are the #polls shaping up? #Labour stretches its lead by three to 25 points.
🔴 Lab 48% (+3) 🔵 Con 23% (NC) 🟠 LD 9% (-2) ⚪ Ref 10% (-1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (NC)
1/ As Britain shivers in winter's grip and high-profile #Tory rebels quit after the #Rwanda Bill, how are the #polls shaping up? #Labour stretches its lead by three to 25 points.
🔴 Lab 48% (+3) 🔵 Con 23% (NC) 🟠 LD 9% (-2) ⚪ Ref 10% (-1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (NC)
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
Ruling classes have always been self-serving.
Not entirely. A lot of them accepted that death or permanent injury in battle was the price tag that came attached to their privileges.
The current lot think that their privileges come for free.
Far too positive. The previous lot also thought that those without privileges should also go along willy-nilly to support them and suffer death or permament injury. And the common soldiers always had much worse medical and other treatment than the nobles or officers. Was still the case in the Great War - look at what happened to folk with PTSD. Orficers got a nice sanatorium; too many ORs got nine bullets at dawn.
Officers had many privileges. But, casualty rates were always highest among those ranked Second Lieutenant to Major. Inevitably, as they had to lead the attack.
Highest were the young subalterns straight out of public school. Lieutenant George in Blackadder. Life expectancy for junior officers at the start of the war? Six weeks.
It was shocking. I had a daily reminder at school for five years where every morning I would walk through the War Cloister which was the memorial to the school’s dead in WW1 and then added to with the WW2 dead. There were 500 boys names on there from WW1 and they were pretty much all around my age when I left or was pissing it up at university.
The one that always brought it home was John Thynne, Viscount Weymouth. Absolutely everything to live for in most other periods of life but dead at 21 pointlessly. At least he is remembered if only by a few people as there were millions who weren’t.
My old place put together a website which has the stories and details of every old boy they have records of who died in any war since foundation and some crazy stories. It’s obviously important to me as it could have been me but good that people care about their memories.
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
Ruling classes have always been self-serving.
Not entirely. A lot of them accepted that death or permanent injury in battle was the price tag that came attached to their privileges.
The current lot think that their privileges come for free.
Far too positive. The previous lot also thought that those without privileges should also go along willy-nilly to support them and suffer death or permament injury. And the common soldiers always had much worse medical and other treatment than the nobles or officers. Was still the case in the Great War - look at what happened to folk with PTSD. Orficers got a nice sanatorium; too many ORs got nine bullets at dawn.
Officers had many privileges. But, casualty rates were always highest among those ranked Second Lieutenant to Major. Inevitably, as they had to lead the attack.
Highest were the young subalterns straight out of public school. Lieutenant George in Blackadder. Life expectancy for junior officers at the start of the war? Six weeks.
It was shocking. I had a daily reminder at school for five years where every morning I would walk through the War Cloister which was the memorial to the school’s dead in WW1 and then added to with the WW2 dead. There were 500 boys names on there from WW1 and they were pretty much all around my age when I left or was pissing it up at university.
The one that always brought it home was John Thynne, Viscount Weymouth. Absolutely everything to live for in most other periods of life but dead at 21 pointlessly. At least he is remembered if only by a few people as there were millions who weren’t.
My old place put together a website which has the stories and details of every old boy they have records of who died in any war since foundation and some crazy stories. It’s obviously important to me as it could have been me but good that people care about their memories.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
It will no doubt come as a great shock to this site that the story in the Mail doesn't come close to the headline. Several family members represented by a particular solicitor are apparently "instructing" their solicitors to make a complaint. No such complaint seems to have been made as yet, let alone investigated, let alone resulted in a charge.
Given the precedent of Operation Branchform proceedings are somewhat unlikely to be in this decade.
Thanks; the wording of the headline had seemed suspiciously specific but I couldn't find the actual story.
It's more than a bit naughty because a summary complaint is another name for a summons which makes it sound like an actual prosecution is ongoing.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
Also, as less trite reply, there is an early 70s TV show called 'Hine' about the arms trade and the UK/MoD vs. private sector. It's worth digging out if you can find it. Paul Eddington gives a very good pre Yes Minister turn as a civil servant.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
Because it has the 5th largest economy in the world?
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
That sounds as if it is up there with Ken Loach's Spirit Of '45 stuff? Deride the turn taken post-1979 all you want but to pretend it all came out of nowhere...........
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
I quite agree. Our governing class cares largely about the fruits of office.
But, the decay in the calibre of governing classes seems widespread in rich world countries. There’s no comparison between the leaders of 30 years ago, and the dross we have today.
A subtly different point, with which I agree.
My point is more that Britain lacks a sense of national project. So the government keeps making decisions that are essentially corrosive of British identity and longer-term prosperity.
For what should be obvious reasons, this diagnosis doesn’t apply to the US and NZ.
The obvious reason (British identity) is that USA and NZ are not British, but you imply there is more. Do let us into the secret.
Settler nations, founded in “modern” times.
Few in America doubt a sense of American destiny.
New Zealanders are all pretty clear that they have a unique cultural and geographical inheritance and that the world doesn’t owe them a living.
The huge scale of modern migration has not helped. Parts of Britain have gone from feeling like a homeland - a home - to feeling like a hotel. And quite a rundown hotel, with too many guests. Everything has an air of transience. The fridge has milk bottles with names on
This is NOT the fault of immigrants, it is however what happens with epochal-scale immigration. America knew this so it made damn sure the migrants all went in the melting pot (at least until recently) and forced them to BECOME Americans, with shared rituals, devotions and holidays - from July 4th to Thanksgiving. Multiculti Britain does not do that
Everyone lurks in their own room, playing very different video games
If I understand correctly, British immigration of late has been at a *larger scale*, per capita, than anything experienced in American history.
It’s mind-boggling.
You understand correctly. More people are coming into Britain - per capita - than came into America during the 1890s or 1920s or any time in the history of the USA
Voters are only just noticing this. We discussed this yesterday. British voters UNDERestimate the scale of inwards migration by about 500%. But now they are beginning to see
It could get messy
Of course it could; and it seems vital that it doesn't. There is lots of discussion as to how to 'stop the boats' (as if that were numerically where the problem lay - which it isn't); and some discussion of reducing the future numbers generally and all that. But suppose the real problem in the mind of many - Tory and Reform voters but not only them - is not stopping the future stuff, but the reality and consequences of that which has already occurred.
At the moment this is only discussed in a proxy form - stopping the future stuff takes its place as a substitute. GB News, Suella, Patel, Reform, The Tory Right etc stick firmly to that agenda, making all their efforts look, as they are, pointless. But will that sticking plaster stick?
The German discussion of deportation shows where this could easily end up, unless we are lucky
No western society will tolerate itself becoming, say, 30-40% Muslim, because at that point the country will be transformed into something utterly unrecognisable - and non western. This is not Islamophobia, westermers want to live in a western country, that is all
Yet the vast migration continues and the demographic trends are relentless
So implacable force :: immovable object? Something will give
The best possible outcome would be for Islam to suddenly experience an Enlightenment, and for its conservative trends to disappear, then integration would be infinitely easier - but there seems no sign of that, sadly
I saw signs of it in East London, as a councillor meeting many Muslim sixth formers. They seemed acutely aware that they lived in two worlds - the relatively conservative environment of their family, and the liberal/western viewpoint of their school (and the internet), and carried what they saw as the future responsibility of their generation to marry the two, surprisingly heavily.
Well that is some small reason for very cautious optimism, in what can otherwise be a bleak debate
A good moment to bow out, as it is late late late here, in sultry Phnom Penh
Nightynight
Not sure if this article on the BBC has been quoted in discussion, the idea of banning AfD in Germany. As if that is a good solution to the issue.
Douglas Murray has been saying that the danger is that eventually all this culminates in a nativist revolt, and a theme in his recent work is warning about this. 'Far right' parties are a way of addressing the issue by vocalising concerns. If you try and bury the concerns, ie by outlawing them through "hate speech" legislation, the eventual revolt just gets more nasty and brutal.
I don't think the AfD will be banned, and the article shows little support for that. However, given its history, it's hardly surprising that a lot of German people are concerned about the rise of a political party that explains that country's challenges by focusing on 'outgroups' and what to do about them.
Despite what Douglas Murray says, it doesn't take much to transform from 'vocalising concerns' to beating the shit out of immigrants, for those who are susceptible to such ideas.
I don't see an outright ban happening, but there is a very strong backlash against the AfD since the story of the secret Potsdam meeting came out. In the last 12 years of living in Germany I've not seen anything quite like it. There's potentially a lot of support there for politicians willing to call for a ban.
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
The C of E bishops and clergy haven't been the Tory party at prayer since the 1950s.
The C of E congregations are still largely Conservative but even then the Jewish vote was more heavily Conservative in 2019 than the Anglican vote and the current Tory PM is Hindu
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
Reminds me of another great and rather under-appreciated (imho) Play for Today 'The Saturday Party" :
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
Also, as less trite reply, there is an early 70s TV show called 'Hine' about the arms trade and the UK/MoD vs. private sector. It's worth digging out if you can find it. Paul Eddington gives a very good pre Yes Minister turn as a civil servant.
Admitting that he works for the BBC… I guess the distinction is between “worked for” & “employed by”?
I’ve temporarily unblocked you to let you know that your tweet is libellous. I didn’t take a penny, a pound, a Riyal, or anything else from Qatar for the World Cup. I worked for the BBC and the BBC alone. I suggest you delete your inflammatory lies immediately.
It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country.
Rubbish, Denmark and Iceland (and effectively Greece) also have established churches and are fine places to live in. Being the established church also ensures all residents of a Parish have an automatic right to a marriage or funeral in their local C of E church.
The Lords is a fully unelected revising chamber, made up of appointed Lords, hereditary peers and a few Bishops (less than 5% in a still 46% Christian nation).
I thought Britain and Iran were the only countries in the world with places reserved in parliament for clerics?
You don't even need an upper house to have an established church, see Denmark
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
Also, as less trite reply, there is an early 70s TV show called 'Hine' about the arms trade and the UK/MoD vs. private sector. It's worth digging out if you can find it. Paul Eddington gives a very good pre Yes Minister turn as a civil servant.
He won't, he will cut income tax and most likely an IHT cut or abolition will be in the manifesto as a carrot for the core vote and Reform voters to vote Tory again
IHT for the core vote? Will the core vote even pay IHT?
In fairness to @HYUFD it is a principle for him and like minded Tories.
In fairness to @HYUFD most of the remaining Tory vote aren't bright enough to know they aren't rich enough to be impacted by it...
In marginal Tory bluewall seats like Kensington or Cities of London and Westminster even the average property is worth over £1 million and hit by IHT.
As are large numbers of home counties detached properties and estates still even with the Osborne allowance for married couples homes
It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country.
Rubbish, Denmark and Iceland (and effectively Greece) also have established churches and are fine places to live in. Being the established church also ensures all residents of a Parish have an automatic right to a marriage or funeral in their local C of E church.
The Lords is a fully unelected revising chamber, made up of appointed Lords, hereditary peers and a few Bishops (less than 5% in a still 46% Christian nation).
I thought Britain and Iran were the only countries in the world with places reserved in parliament for clerics?
You don't even need an upper house to have an established church, see Denmark
Umm try reading Catman's post "It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country." To which you replied "Rubbish..."
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
Illumina is a sequencing company. The UK now has one that's potentially better - Oxford Nanopore. It will possibly get bought too.
He won't, he will cut income tax and most likely an IHT cut or abolition will be in the manifesto as a carrot for the core vote and Reform voters to vote Tory again
IHT for the core vote? Will the core vote even pay IHT?
In fairness to @HYUFD it is a principle for him and like minded Tories.
In fairness to @HYUFD most of the remaining Tory vote aren't bright enough to know they aren't rich enough to be impacted by it...
In marginal Tory bluewall seats like Kensington or Cities of London and Westminster even the average property is worth over £1 million and hit by IHT.
As are large numbers of home counties detached properties and estates still even with the Osborne allowance for married couples homes
What's your view on a cap on social care costs as in Dilnot?
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
TRL is a useful concept.
Most politicians have no idea that TRL-1 and TRL-9 are different, let alone there are any stages in between.
The C of E bishops and clergy haven't been the Tory party at prayer since the 1950s.
The C of E congregations are still largely Conservative but even then the Jewish vote was more heavily Conservative in 2019 than the Anglican vote and the current Tory PM is Hindu
In always thought the comment "Tory party at prayer" meant "The C of E congregations" and not the bishops.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
TRL is a useful concept.
Most politicians have no idea that TRL-1 and TRL-9 are different, let alone there are any stages in between.
Thank goodness they've kept investing in our amazing CMOS research though!
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
Millions know G & S very well; many to the point they can quote from the show. Tidy.
Abigail's made her name initially I suspect, but very much doubt modern tv britain would say that is why she is well known.
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
Millions know G & S very well; many to the point they can quote from the show. Tidy.
Abigail's made her name initially I suspect, but very much doubt modern tv britain would say that is why she is well known.
“We keep coming up against the fatal tension between the obvious political collapse of this government and the obvious unwillingness of Conservative MPs to put it out of its misery,” one rebel said. “That tension can’t hold for very long. It can only be resolved by removing the PM.”
The Conservatives face two by-elections in February, both of which they are expected to lose, followed by what Tory MPs fear will be a hugely damaging set of local election results. Time, the rebel argues, is running out. “The local elections are the hard stop — realistically we can’t really change after the end of May,” they said. “The party does need to come to this conclusion organically, but may also need a steer.”
I'm not sure what this anonymous rebel is saying. If they go past May then they can't bin Sunak before the GE? I'm pretty sure they can and probably should.
It’s a dice roll, but it’s hard to see anything getting better for them under Sunak. Of course, they could come out of it looking even more ludicrous and making it even worse.
They really made some terrible unforced errors by elevating Truss and Sunak. That said, who is the alternative who is going to be able to ride in and save the day?
Morning all! One benefit of the Tories endlessly swapping PM is that is has disarmed the notion that you vote for a PM. Presidential politics is unhelpful in our system. Perhaps the reason why recent Tory smears against Starmer and Davey haven’t worked is that people are voting for change, not the person.
If they bin off Sunak then the replacement won’t be Braverman. Too many people are prejudiced against people who aren’t as white and male as themselves.
The problem is the leader the right wants isn’t a Tory MP. They could install the ghosts of Powell or Moseley into an empty vessel (Jonathan Gillis perhaps) and the Nigel would still be the one they want.
Have to laugh. As the Tories head towards the abyss, the person they believe can win them victory won just under 4m votes at the height of his powers. Though if the Tory members would like to be down to 4m votes I think we shouldn’t stand in their way.
Strong point this. I deeply doubt that the current Tory membership would ever choose a non-white leader over a white one.
Not convinced with that. It is hard to see someone for instance like Barclay, Dowden or Gove winning a member vote against Badenoch or Braverman.
The whole discussion about whether the Tories would do better with or without a new leader is for the birds.
The party is toxic and riven between the ascendant GB News faction that feels the party isn’t toxic enough and the neutered One Nation faction that seems resigned to declaring the water to be wet as the ship goes down.
In the absence of a dynamic, charismatic figure that could unite the party, drag it back to its senses and persuade the public to give it a second look, the leadership is practically irrelevant.
Seriously, which of these prospects would make any difference at all (in the absence of a serious failure on the part of Labour)?
Anderson: too provocative Badenoch: too wild Barclay: too bland Braverman: too fired Cameron: too previous Cleverly: too gaffe-prone Dowden: too forgettable Farage: too outside Frost: too unelected Gove: too weird Hunt: too unpopular Johnson: too Johnson Mordaunt: too woke Shapps: too schizophrenic Truss: to the pub
You missed off the star of the show:
#Priti4Leader
Haha! Gosh, what an embarrassment of riches a richness of embarrassments they have to choose from! Here’s the updated list, with additions asterisked:
Anderson: too provocative Badenoch: too wild Barclay: too bland Braverman: too fired Cameron: too previous Cleverly: too gaffe-prone Farage: too outside Frost: too unelected Gove: too weird Hunt: too unpopular ***Jenrick: too cruel Johnson: too Johnson Mordaunt: too woke ***Patel: too sinister ***Rees-Mogg: too Victorian Shapps: too schizophrenic Truss: to the pub ***Tugendhat: Tugendhat
If I was a Tory (and thank Richard Dawkins I’m not), I’d want Tugendhat as the next leader out of that lot or even Mordaunt or Cleverly. I suspect they’ll actually go for Badenoch.
You mean the Minister Pretending Not To Be In Charge Of The Post Office?
She'd be great. She could pretend not to be in charge of the country.
In fairness she won't be. She will be LOTO. Any leadership change will come after the election, not before it.
This requires a rather different skill set. From what I have seen Mordaunt has a distinct lead on those skills, whether she can run a department or not. After all, there is little prospect of her ever running a department again.
There is no-one on the Tory side fit to run a car boot sale, frankly. Let alone the country. The current lot are tainted and/or useless.
Time for a new generation - assuming that they can find anyone and that those they do find are capable of and willing to do the hard thinking about what conservatism in the 21st century means. And speak some hard truths to the membership.
There is a fundamental problem with our politics in this and it is not just a Tory problem. A government gets elected with some decent leadership, say Blair and Brown or Cameron and Osborne. They are inexperienced and their team even more so so they inevitably make a lot of mistakes.
They remain in government for an extended period. Original thinkers burn out or get caught up with their ideas not being as clever as they think. Boring but competent managerial types climb the greasy poll. In extended periods, such as our last 3 governments who have all had more than a decade in power, they eventually reach the top. But they have nothing to say and no ideas of what to do.
So they lose to the opposition who by that time have lost all the vaguely competent or at least experienced types that were in the previous government and start the cycle again.
If government is to improve what do we do about this? In the late 60s and 70s we tried switching governments much more frequently. This meant they had some idea of how to govern but it also meant that we had policy chaos. British Steel switching back and forward between private and public ownership comes to mind.
I can set out the problem but I am frankly struggling for an answer.
Jumping in late so apologies if I have missed the discussion.
The fundamental issue is that our constitutional settlement dates to the 17th century when life was simpler and slower. The executive was small and almost part time. That is not feasible in the modern world.
You need to have a full time executive that can be drawn from wherever it is needed. It shouldn’t be limited to the members of the legislature. They have a different and important role: representing the interests of their constituents and scrutinising legislation.
The answer is to separate the roles.
1) have a directly elected head of government (potentially have a “slate” election - so you vote for a core team of, say, 5-6 individuals (PM, FS, Chancellor, HS, may be health and defence - other posts to be appointed).
2) The have the full powers of the executive as at present. Accountable to the legislature but not members of it, they have the prerogative rights but need to convince the legislature to pass laws.
3) Fixed terms for the executive - say 4 years - and a 2x term limit.
4) Independent legislature with two functions: accountability via committees and legislation via the House. Create a meaningful career path outside of cosying up to the government.
Lots of detail to be worked through but this addresses the main issues.
Errr:
That's the US system. And trust in it is much lower than trust in the UK system.
The lack of trust is caused by too many power centres competing and a lack of flexibility in the constitution
Too many safe seats due to gerrymandering, politicisation of the courts, disputes between the states and the feds and deadlock in legislative branch.
It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country.
Rubbish, Denmark and Iceland (and effectively Greece) also have established churches and are fine places to live in. Being the established church also ensures all residents of a Parish have an automatic right to a marriage or funeral in their local C of E church.
The Lords is a fully unelected revising chamber, made up of appointed Lords, hereditary peers and a few Bishops (less than 5% in a still 46% Christian nation).
Guaranteeing those rights could be perfectly possible through other legislation (and, indeed, guaranteeing the same ceremonies in equivalent recognised religions for qualified individuals). That said, I'd question why anyone should be able to just rock up at a church and get married. They should at least have to declare themselves to believe in the religion in question and for that to not be obviously false.
As for the Lords, it shouldn't be a revising chamber and for most of its history it wasn't. It should be far closer in power to the Commons, to act as a check on the excesses of the latter - which means it needs legitimacy, which means it should be elected. There's no point describing how its composed without justifying why it should be so composed, and there isn't any such justification bar tradition and inertia (and the vested interests in the Commons wanting to keep it powerless and without mandate).
That said, I wouldn't get rid of the bishops until it was properly elected. Glacial piecemeal progress has been the practice over the last 115 years and is the best barrier to proper reform.
No it couldn't, either you have an established state church or you don't. If you don't want one fine but C of E Vicars would then be entirely within their rights to refuse you a wedding or funeral in your nearest C of E church unless you are baptised in the C of E and attend church a reasonable amount of times. As say most RC priests require for those getting Catholic weddings.
An elected Senate replacing the House of Lords would often lead to US style deadlock, with the Senate often voting down legislation passed by the Commons and blocking it entirely rather than just revising it as the appointed Lords does
Plenty of other countries (most, indeed), have upper houses with far more substantial powers than the Lords have and manage without the nonsense the Americans get involved with. Indeed, England/Britain had near-enough co-equal powers between the two Houses through most of parliament's existence and managed well enough.
Nick Wallis on Full Disclosure suggesting that Asian sub-Postmasters were given longer sentences than white sub-Postmasters for similar unsafe convictions.
Nick Wallis on Full Disclosure suggesting that Asian sub-Postmasters were given longer sentences than white sub-Postmasters for similar unsafe convictions.
The story gets worse.
That was mentioned a while back, IIRC
Kind of inevitable given the range of moral failings among the people involved. Racism makes it a complete set, pretty much.
Though it does bring us back to this question - are racists nasty and stupid because they are racists or does racism cause people to be nasty and stupid?
Nick Wallis when pushed by O'Brien to suggest who is the most egregious bad faith actor in the Post Office scandal, and he picks the National Federation of sub-Postmasters.
A union who sided with the employer and threw their members to the dogs.
Nick Wallis is embarking on a theatre tour to tell the Post Office scandal story.
Admitting that he works for the BBC… I guess the distinction is between “worked for” & “employed by”?
I’ve temporarily unblocked you to let you know that your tweet is libellous. I didn’t take a penny, a pound, a Riyal, or anything else from Qatar for the World Cup. I worked for the BBC and the BBC alone. I suggest you delete your inflammatory lies immediately.
Nick Wallis on Full Disclosure suggesting that Asian sub-Postmasters were given longer sentences than white sub-Postmasters for similar unsafe convictions.
The story gets worse.
That was mentioned a while back, IIRC
Kind of inevitable given the range of moral failings among the people involved. Racism makes it a complete set, pretty much.
Though it does bring us back to this question - are racists nasty and stupid because they are racists or does racism cause people to be nasty and stupid?
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
That sounds as if it is up there with Ken Loach's Spirit Of '45 stuff? Deride the turn taken post-1979 all you want but to pretend it all came out of nowhere...........
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
I quite agree. Our governing class cares largely about the fruits of office.
But, the decay in the calibre of governing classes seems widespread in rich world countries. There’s no comparison between the leaders of 30 years ago, and the dross we have today.
A subtly different point, with which I agree.
My point is more that Britain lacks a sense of national project. So the government keeps making decisions that are essentially corrosive of British identity and longer-term prosperity.
For what should be obvious reasons, this diagnosis doesn’t apply to the US and NZ.
The obvious reason (British identity) is that USA and NZ are not British, but you imply there is more. Do let us into the secret.
Settler nations, founded in “modern” times.
Few in America doubt a sense of American destiny.
New Zealanders are all pretty clear that they have a unique cultural and geographical inheritance and that the world doesn’t owe them a living.
The huge scale of modern migration has not helped. Parts of Britain have gone from feeling like a homeland - a home - to feeling like a hotel. And quite a rundown hotel, with too many guests. Everything has an air of transience. The fridge has milk bottles with names on
This is NOT the fault of immigrants, it is however what happens with epochal-scale immigration. America knew this so it made damn sure the migrants all went in the melting pot (at least until recently) and forced them to BECOME Americans, with shared rituals, devotions and holidays - from July 4th to Thanksgiving. Multiculti Britain does not do that
Everyone lurks in their own room, playing very different video games
If I understand correctly, British immigration of late has been at a *larger scale*, per capita, than anything experienced in American history.
It’s mind-boggling.
You understand correctly. More people are coming into Britain - per capita - than came into America during the 1890s or 1920s or any time in the history of the USA
Voters are only just noticing this. We discussed this yesterday. British voters UNDERestimate the scale of inwards migration by about 500%. But now they are beginning to see
It could get messy
Of course it could; and it seems vital that it doesn't. There is lots of discussion as to how to 'stop the boats' (as if that were numerically where the problem lay - which it isn't); and some discussion of reducing the future numbers generally and all that. But suppose the real problem in the mind of many - Tory and Reform voters but not only them - is not stopping the future stuff, but the reality and consequences of that which has already occurred.
At the moment this is only discussed in a proxy form - stopping the future stuff takes its place as a substitute. GB News, Suella, Patel, Reform, The Tory Right etc stick firmly to that agenda, making all their efforts look, as they are, pointless. But will that sticking plaster stick?
The German discussion of deportation shows where this could easily end up, unless we are lucky
No western society will tolerate itself becoming, say, 30-40% Muslim, because at that point the country will be transformed into something utterly unrecognisable - and non western. This is not Islamophobia, westermers want to live in a western country, that is all
Yet the vast migration continues and the demographic trends are relentless
So implacable force :: immovable object? Something will give
The best possible outcome would be for Islam to suddenly experience an Enlightenment, and for its conservative trends to disappear, then integration would be infinitely easier - but there seems no sign of that, sadly
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
He really records no post-war decline until Thatcher gets in? Wow. Must have blinkers like a Shire pony.
You're thinking economically, not nationally. Up to a point in the 20th century, the British patria was the Empire and the UK was a warfare state (his term), geared to producing ships and guns and coal to police the Empire and seas. Companies included Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and Imperial Airways. Then it contracted and the British patria became the UK and the UK was a welfare state (his term), a process of adjustment over some decades. Companies include British Steel, British Coal, the National Health Service. During the neoliberal period this national base was abandoned and the British patria became diffuse, spreading out to Europe or Anglosphere or India or global, depending on taste.
Edgerton notes these patterns, and his book "The Fall And Rise Of The British Nation" summarises this. Gardenwalker described this summary.
The economy and the nation. The economy is just the nation in numbers.
Um, I'm surprised to hear you say that. The nation is a group of people who describe themselves as "us". The economy is what the people do. I am not my job. What we are is different from what we do.
They are two ways of looking at the same thing. One can see the nation through the lense of its economic activity, its health statistics, its religious choices etc. If one knew everything about everyone's actions as participants in the economy, one would know everything about them.
But my point is really that the dismantlement and sell-off of the nationalised industries cannot be critiqued without understanding how nationalisation had made them joke industries staffed by joke workers and producing joke products. It is nationalisation that is responsible for this, not privatisation. As an example, private enterprise covered the country in railways - nationalisation enabled their decimation. These things happened between 1945 and 1979.
Although it is easy to characterise them as joke industries, they did exist and produce things, including Concorde. Where losses were covered by the government and profits (if made) going to the government.
But now in our globalised times we work in industries where losses are covered by the goverment and profits (if made) go to the pension funds and venture capitalists of other countries.
We sold our souls and got an iPad. It's not obviously better.
Certainly. But like everyone getting the supercold because of lockdowns, we must recognise that it was the public ownership that destroyed them as much as the coup de grace of being exposed to market forces. The best way would appear to be the American way - grow the businesses in a free market environment, and when it comes to foreign takeovers, cheat and step on necks to stop it happening. We're sort of the opposite. Our Rolls Royces, ICIs, Great Western Railways, Austins etc. grew out of capitalism, were then 'helped' by decades of state ownership, then the withered remains were released to be swallowed by bigger beasts in the jungle.
Concorde was a classic of the government picking winners.
The father of one of my school friends lost his job in the Air Ministry and got black balled in the U.K. aviation industry for writing a report that pointed out why it wasn’t a good idea, during the early development phase.
And in that instance, it largely worked, until (arguably) the US destroyed it out of jealousy.
I do have some sympathy for Viewcode's arguments. If we can't create world beating companies and nurture them to adulthood, a firesale of nationalised industries seems counter productive. That's why I don't support the Tories proposed sell-off of Channel 4, or selling off the Beeb. Nice as an idea, but the reality is they would be quickly asset-stripped and plundered of IP, making a few Brits very rich and able to move to Monaco, and long term making more money for the US media corporations.
I remember seeing Eric Schmidt (then CEO of Google) at an Oxford Union debate, lamenting the fact that the UK 'never produced a Google' and baffled by this, because we have this incredible innovation culture. This is largely because brilliant innovations (such as Lithium Ion battery technology) are not backed up with long-term capital investment: innovators and companies tend to sell out as early as possible and they (and long-term capital) tends to go buy property (LI technogy was commercialised by Sony and other Japanese companies).
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
That's a very good point.
Also worth noting Concorde was a commercial disaster.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
That sounds as if it is up there with Ken Loach's Spirit Of '45 stuff? Deride the turn taken post-1979 all you want but to pretend it all came out of nowhere...........
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
I quite agree. Our governing class cares largely about the fruits of office.
But, the decay in the calibre of governing classes seems widespread in rich world countries. There’s no comparison between the leaders of 30 years ago, and the dross we have today.
A subtly different point, with which I agree.
My point is more that Britain lacks a sense of national project. So the government keeps making decisions that are essentially corrosive of British identity and longer-term prosperity.
For what should be obvious reasons, this diagnosis doesn’t apply to the US and NZ.
The obvious reason (British identity) is that USA and NZ are not British, but you imply there is more. Do let us into the secret.
Settler nations, founded in “modern” times.
Few in America doubt a sense of American destiny.
New Zealanders are all pretty clear that they have a unique cultural and geographical inheritance and that the world doesn’t owe them a living.
The huge scale of modern migration has not helped. Parts of Britain have gone from feeling like a homeland - a home - to feeling like a hotel. And quite a rundown hotel, with too many guests. Everything has an air of transience. The fridge has milk bottles with names on
This is NOT the fault of immigrants, it is however what happens with epochal-scale immigration. America knew this so it made damn sure the migrants all went in the melting pot (at least until recently) and forced them to BECOME Americans, with shared rituals, devotions and holidays - from July 4th to Thanksgiving. Multiculti Britain does not do that
Everyone lurks in their own room, playing very different video games
If I understand correctly, British immigration of late has been at a *larger scale*, per capita, than anything experienced in American history.
It’s mind-boggling.
You understand correctly. More people are coming into Britain - per capita - than came into America during the 1890s or 1920s or any time in the history of the USA
Voters are only just noticing this. We discussed this yesterday. British voters UNDERestimate the scale of inwards migration by about 500%. But now they are beginning to see
It could get messy
Of course it could; and it seems vital that it doesn't. There is lots of discussion as to how to 'stop the boats' (as if that were numerically where the problem lay - which it isn't); and some discussion of reducing the future numbers generally and all that. But suppose the real problem in the mind of many - Tory and Reform voters but not only them - is not stopping the future stuff, but the reality and consequences of that which has already occurred.
At the moment this is only discussed in a proxy form - stopping the future stuff takes its place as a substitute. GB News, Suella, Patel, Reform, The Tory Right etc stick firmly to that agenda, making all their efforts look, as they are, pointless. But will that sticking plaster stick?
The German discussion of deportation shows where this could easily end up, unless we are lucky
No western society will tolerate itself becoming, say, 30-40% Muslim, because at that point the country will be transformed into something utterly unrecognisable - and non western. This is not Islamophobia, westermers want to live in a western country, that is all
Yet the vast migration continues and the demographic trends are relentless
So implacable force :: immovable object? Something will give
The best possible outcome would be for Islam to suddenly experience an Enlightenment, and for its conservative trends to disappear, then integration would be infinitely easier - but there seems no sign of that, sadly
I saw signs of it in East London, as a councillor meeting many Muslim sixth formers. They seemed acutely aware that they lived in two worlds - the relatively conservative environment of their family, and the liberal/western viewpoint of their school (and the internet), and carried what they saw as the future responsibility of their generation to marry the two, surprisingly heavily.
Well that is some small reason for very cautious optimism, in what can otherwise be a bleak debate
A good moment to bow out, as it is late late late here, in sultry Phnom Penh
Nightynight
Not sure if this article on the BBC has been quoted in discussion, the idea of banning AfD in Germany. As if that is a good solution to the issue.
Douglas Murray has been saying that the danger is that eventually all this culminates in a nativist revolt, and a theme in his recent work is warning about this. 'Far right' parties are a way of addressing the issue by vocalising concerns. If you try and bury the concerns, ie by outlawing them through "hate speech" legislation, the eventual revolt just gets more nasty and brutal.
I don't think the AfD will be banned, and the article shows little support for that. However, given its history, it's hardly surprising that a lot of German people are concerned about the rise of a political party that explains that country's challenges by focusing on 'outgroups' and what to do about them.
Despite what Douglas Murray says, it doesn't take much to transform from 'vocalising concerns' to beating the shit out of immigrants, for those who are susceptible to such ideas.
I don't see an outright ban happening, but there is a very strong backlash against the AfD since the story of the secret Potsdam meeting came out. In the last 12 years of living in Germany I've not seen anything quite like it. There's potentially a lot of support there for politicians willing to call for a ban.
A ban - without addressing any of the issues or allowing alternative expression of concern about them - seems remarkably dumb.
I can understand the terror given Germany's history but 1/4 of the electorate might simply check out and resort to extra-democratic action outside the law.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
It is entirely at the gift of Tata as to whether they transition with one, two or no blast furnaces. However the Government do (did) have leverage in that they are bankrolling the electric arc furnace to the tune of half a billion pounds.
I am not making a party political issue of this (as Sunak has attempted) having stated that a decade ago Cameron won the hearts of the Port Talbot steelworkers negotiating with Tata a deal that saved the plant.
I find Jones's argument compelling that Brexit is involved, but Mandy Rice Davies might claim I was Lord Astor in this instance. "I would, wouldn't I?"
There is a bigger question, that of, should a nation of the size and stature of the UK have no production capability for virgin steel, or are we comfortable relying on China and India?
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
Millions know G & S very well; many to the point they can quote from the show. Tidy.
Abigail's made her name initially I suspect, but very much doubt modern tv britain would say that is why she is well known.
I love quoting from G & S shows.
I am the model of a modern major general has to be the best, but I do love HMS Pinafore, the Mikado and others.
As for Abigail's Party - never heard of it before.
He won't, he will cut income tax and most likely an IHT cut or abolition will be in the manifesto as a carrot for the core vote and Reform voters to vote Tory again
IHT for the core vote? Will the core vote even pay IHT?
In fairness to @HYUFD it is a principle for him and like minded Tories.
In fairness to @HYUFD most of the remaining Tory vote aren't bright enough to know they aren't rich enough to be impacted by it...
In marginal Tory bluewall seats like Kensington or Cities of London and Westminster even the average property is worth over £1 million and hit by IHT.
As are large numbers of home counties detached properties and estates still even with the Osborne allowance for married couples homes
Given that you have to earn only £1,048 per month to be hit by income tax why should I care if people getting unearned assets of over a million have to pay tax on a small part of it ?
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
I wasn't alive when Abigail's Party was released, so I'm a bit of a young fogey in that regard. Also, my favourite pop music styles are from when I was in the nursery, ie. New Wave, synth pop, ska, etc.
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
Oh, that's a relief, I was concerned that we were the only G20 country giving up our virgin steel making capacity, but now you've offered that reassurance, fuck it, let's just have a whip round for saucepans again.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
It's like parachutes or morse code: usually you don't need them, but when SHTF you really need them, fast, now, and no arguments.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
Or ditch the arbitary and unachievable targets. Which should never have been adopted in the first place.
3 blistering articles about the problems of the United States from UnHerd magazine.
The documentary about drugs in Philadelphia that I posted earlier is also required viewing. It's really eye-opening, especially about the reality of how gang warfare operates in 2024.
I wasn't alive when Abigail's Party was released, so I'm a bit of a young fogey in that regard. Also, my favourite pop music styles are from when I was in the nursery, ie. New Wave, synth pop, ska, etc.
Abigail's Party is very well known because it features so highly in most lists of the greatest shows in the history of British television. For example it was at number 11 in the BFI top 100, between Brideshead Revisited and I, Claudius.
I hate to agree with the Telegraph, but I think they are probably correct in this instance. Gavin and Stacey trumps Abigail's Party. My wife would have Pride and Prejudice in pole position.
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
"So where did it start? The collapse of the 20th-century print pyramid and its replacement by the cracked mirror of the internet clearly had something to do with the current madness. The election of Donald Trump, and the subsequent rise of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which was promoted by Trump-phobic elites as fact, both helped to make insanity and illogic the coin of everyday political discourse. Once that happened, it didn’t take much to drive the entire country mad."
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
It is entirely at the gift of Tata as to whether they transition with one, two or no blast furnaces. However the Government do (did) have leverage in that they are bankrolling the electric arc furnace to the tune of half a billion pounds.
I am not making a party political issue of this (as Sunak has attempted) having stated that a decade ago Cameron won the hearts of the Port Talbot steelworkers negotiating with Tata a deal that saved the plant.
I find Jones's argument compelling that Brexit is involved, but Mandy Rice Davies might claim I was Lord Astor in this instance. "I would, wouldn't I?"
There is a bigger question, that of, should a nation of the size and stature of the UK have no production capability for virgin steel, or are we comfortable relying on China and India?
It's not compelling at all that Brexit is involved, that's just confirmation bias.
You have a better argument with the Government not driving a better deal with Tata. I agree we need a domestic virgin steel capability.
"So where did it start? The collapse of the 20th-century print pyramid and its replacement by the cracked mirror of the internet clearly had something to do with the current madness. The election of Donald Trump, and the subsequent rise of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which was promoted by Trump-phobic elites as fact, both helped to make insanity and illogic the coin of everyday political discourse. Once that happened, it didn’t take much to drive the entire country mad."
Thank you for that, Andy, which I read with interest. I think the author cherry-picked examples to serve his thesis (Democrats bad) rather than look for other things that could have caused it: most notably some kind of (preferably numeric) definition of it. Specifically I don't think Trump/Russia was the cause, rather an early symptom of it.
I have an article I wish to write on this, although there is a queue. Would you like to read it when done?
3 blistering articles about the problems of the United States from UnHerd magazine.
The documentary about drugs in Philadelphia that I posted earlier is also required viewing. It's really eye-opening, especially about the reality of how gang warfare operates in 2024.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
A lot of spleen and invective, which in itself is rather telling.
You are a total fanatic when it comes to Net Zero - as you just want to call out what you perceive as heresy against your dogma - so I simply ignore what you say on the subject.
3 blistering articles about the problems of the United States from UnHerd magazine.
The documentary about drugs in Philadelphia that I posted earlier is also required viewing. It's really eye-opening, especially about the reality of how gang warfare operates in 2024.
I saw that. Truly eye-opening and excellent journalism.
What's so interesting is how so many started with a job and apartment and (legitimate) prescription pain relief, although opiates, for serious pain or an injury but then sink into a spiral as they need more and more of it.
Once down there it's very hard, if impossible, to come back; no-one really helps them.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
The western world has been shutting down its steelworks for decades.
Sometimes because of economic strategy and sometimes because of environmental strategy.
Welsh Labour have been as indifferent to the inevitable consequences as Westminster Conservatives.
Far be it for me to defend Welsh Labour, but your final paragraph is bollocks. And Westminster under Cameron also understood both the strategic and social and economic consequences for South Wales from the closure, or repurposing of Port Talbot.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
If we regard steel production as a national strategic concern even if not profitable, then surely it needs to be nationalised?
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
If we regard steel production as a national strategic concern even if not profitable, then surely it needs to be nationalised?
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
If we regard steel production as a national strategic concern even if not profitable, then surely it needs to be nationalised?
The problem with nationalisation was that all investment = Treasury says no. They had other things to spend money on.
In addition all improvements in productivity = politicians say no. Reducing the workforce was too toxic.
The end result was that it was cheaper to buy a ton of Chinese made cutlery (finished) in Sheffield than a ton of stainless steel from the local furnaces.
At some stage, and it’s not entirely clear when, the British governing class abandoned the British national *project*.
I think David Edgerton is probably the best writer on this, his thesis is that 1945 represented the creation of a new British state that was - contra to received opinion - surprisingly advanced and puissant - but that the neo-liberal age since 1979 has seen its slow and now rapid dismantlement.
Why should Britain retain the ability to manufacture steel? Why should Britain maintain armed forces and be concerned about Russian aggression? Why shouldn’t it import a million immigrants a year? Why shouldn’t Scotland go its own way? Why shouldn’t Britain run a massive trade deficit? Why should we keep the BBC?
The modern dispensation barely knows how to answer these questions.
That sounds as if it is up there with Ken Loach's Spirit Of '45 stuff? Deride the turn taken post-1979 all you want but to pretend it all came out of nowhere...........
Some posters may be overly focused on 1979 as the turning point. The point still stands: the British governing class don’t seem to really care about *Britain*.
This is not even a left or right point, as it seems widely prevalent.
I quite agree. Our governing class cares largely about the fruits of office.
But, the decay in the calibre of governing classes seems widespread in rich world countries. There’s no comparison between the leaders of 30 years ago, and the dross we have today.
A subtly different point, with which I agree.
My point is more that Britain lacks a sense of national project. So the government keeps making decisions that are essentially corrosive of British identity and longer-term prosperity.
For what should be obvious reasons, this diagnosis doesn’t apply to the US and NZ.
The obvious reason (British identity) is that USA and NZ are not British, but you imply there is more. Do let us into the secret.
Settler nations, founded in “modern” times.
Few in America doubt a sense of American destiny.
New Zealanders are all pretty clear that they have a unique cultural and geographical inheritance and that the world doesn’t owe them a living.
The huge scale of modern migration has not helped. Parts of Britain have gone from feeling like a homeland - a home - to feeling like a hotel. And quite a rundown hotel, with too many guests. Everything has an air of transience. The fridge has milk bottles with names on
This is NOT the fault of immigrants, it is however what happens with epochal-scale immigration. America knew this so it made damn sure the migrants all went in the melting pot (at least until recently) and forced them to BECOME Americans, with shared rituals, devotions and holidays - from July 4th to Thanksgiving. Multiculti Britain does not do that
Everyone lurks in their own room, playing very different video games
If I understand correctly, British immigration of late has been at a *larger scale*, per capita, than anything experienced in American history.
It’s mind-boggling.
You understand correctly. More people are coming into Britain - per capita - than came into America during the 1890s or 1920s or any time in the history of the USA
Voters are only just noticing this. We discussed this yesterday. British voters UNDERestimate the scale of inwards migration by about 500%. But now they are beginning to see
It could get messy
Of course it could; and it seems vital that it doesn't. There is lots of discussion as to how to 'stop the boats' (as if that were numerically where the problem lay - which it isn't); and some discussion of reducing the future numbers generally and all that. But suppose the real problem in the mind of many - Tory and Reform voters but not only them - is not stopping the future stuff, but the reality and consequences of that which has already occurred.
At the moment this is only discussed in a proxy form - stopping the future stuff takes its place as a substitute. GB News, Suella, Patel, Reform, The Tory Right etc stick firmly to that agenda, making all their efforts look, as they are, pointless. But will that sticking plaster stick?
The German discussion of deportation shows where this could easily end up, unless we are lucky
No western society will tolerate itself becoming, say, 30-40% Muslim, because at that point the country will be transformed into something utterly unrecognisable - and non western. This is not Islamophobia, westermers want to live in a western country, that is all
Yet the vast migration continues and the demographic trends are relentless
So implacable force :: immovable object? Something will give
The best possible outcome would be for Islam to suddenly experience an Enlightenment, and for its conservative trends to disappear, then integration would be infinitely easier - but there seems no sign of that, sadly
I saw signs of it in East London, as a councillor meeting many Muslim sixth formers. They seemed acutely aware that they lived in two worlds - the relatively conservative environment of their family, and the liberal/western viewpoint of their school (and the internet), and carried what they saw as the future responsibility of their generation to marry the two, surprisingly heavily.
Well that is some small reason for very cautious optimism, in what can otherwise be a bleak debate
A good moment to bow out, as it is late late late here, in sultry Phnom Penh
Nightynight
Not sure if this article on the BBC has been quoted in discussion, the idea of banning AfD in Germany. As if that is a good solution to the issue.
Douglas Murray has been saying that the danger is that eventually all this culminates in a nativist revolt, and a theme in his recent work is warning about this. 'Far right' parties are a way of addressing the issue by vocalising concerns. If you try and bury the concerns, ie by outlawing them through "hate speech" legislation, the eventual revolt just gets more nasty and brutal.
I don't think the AfD will be banned, and the article shows little support for that. However, given its history, it's hardly surprising that a lot of German people are concerned about the rise of a political party that explains that country's challenges by focusing on 'outgroups' and what to do about them.
Despite what Douglas Murray says, it doesn't take muc h to transform from 'vocalising concerns' to beating the shit out of immigrants, for those who are susceptible to such ideas.
"So where did it start? The collapse of the 20th-century print pyramid and its replacement by the cracked mirror of the internet clearly had something to do with the current madness. The election of Donald Trump, and the subsequent rise of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which was promoted by Trump-phobic elites as fact, both helped to make insanity and illogic the coin of everyday political discourse. Once that happened, it didn’t take much to drive the entire country mad."
Thank you for that, Andy, which I read with interest. I think the author cherry-picked examples to serve his thesis (Democrats bad) rather than look for other things that could have caused it: most notably some kind of (preferably numeric) definition of it. Specifically I don't think Trump/Russia was the cause, rather an early symptom of it.
I have an article I wish to write on this, although there is a queue. Would you like to read it when done?
Just to note a comment on the unherd article above by 'T-BONE'.
"I think the solution is calmly dismantling bureacratic progressivism through the Democratic process of open debate. Critical Theory silences debate. Half of the West does not hear opposing arguments because they’ve been given trigger warnings about who they shouldn’t listen to. For years Heterodox speakers were deplatformed often through violent suppression on college campuses. Any bureacracy that doesn’t revere diversity of viewpoint is failing its obligations."
This articulates well the point I am trying to make myself with many of my comments. For many reasons 'debate' is becoming impossible because of a certain discourse about rights and the need to protect people from offense which is a consequence of ideas heavily influenced by (if not a direct consequence of) "Critical Theory". Even outside of the political sphere, it creates problems because of its pervasive cultural influence. I work in the public sector and have this problem with colleagues, particularly younger colleagues, they are unable to debate things and thus cannot be corrected when they are wrong and you have to find other more indirect ways of stopping them lead themselves and the wider organisation to disaster. It is not too difficult to work out that this is leading us to ruin which is ultimately what draws people to alternatives like Trump. I am highly conflicted because even though I like Starmer and would really like to vote labour I think they will do nothing about this problem . The act of voting labour would be likely to exacerbate the problem I have outlined above, which I would see myself as probably the biggest structural issue facing Britain (in common with other countries across the west).
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
We produce 11 millions tons of scrap a year but export 80% of it (for conversion) because we don't have the reprocessing capacity.
Our existing steel plants only produce 6 million tons a year so we max them out and still have loads of scrap left over.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
From an avowed patriot who claims we need to spend more on defence, what an appallingly stupid and lackadaisical comment.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
I see no reason our national security concerns can't be met with EAF steel.
The US produces over 70% of its domestic steel with EAFs.
This is a really interesting debate. Given we import almost all of our iron ore, I suppose the national security argument for virgin steel can only be made if we also develop stockpiles of ore or re-open some mines? Or are we happy to rely on friendly relations and open trade with Canada/Sweden? How much do we need for military purposes?
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
If we regard steel production as a national strategic concern even if not profitable, then surely it needs to be nationalised?
I don't see how that follows.
You can argue Government has a role in subsidy or strategic planning without thinking it needs a role in managing the means of production.
If it did this would all be about jobs and wages, strikes would be a regular occurrence, and investment would be starved.
Comments
Kate Ferguson
@kateferguson4
·
3h
EXCL - Is Labour's biggest politicial soap opera about to make a return?
Some party insiders are pushing for David Miliband to get a seat so he can keep his lefty brother Ed Miliband "in check"...
Comes as the £28bn saga continues
We had a pioneer in gene therapy technology called Solexa that was sold to a US company (Illumina) in the noughties for £600m. At the time it was called the 'Deal of the Century' but as that company is now valued at many billions (largely off that technology) venture capitalists here now ruefully refer to it as the 'steal of the century'.
Pilkington Glass and the float glass process is a great example from the 1960s: government helped Pilkington to become a world leader. We *can* produce world-beating companies, but it is rare because our culture isn't particularly long-term orientated when it comes to investment and technological development. We'd rather let others do the long, grindy, risky work of commercialisation. Maybe that's a hangover from Empire, maybe we're simply better at being the 'ideas people'. And hey, maybe that's OK.
But let's stop using Concorde as *the* example of big, government-backed tech projects eh? There's loads of other much better examples around.
No she isn't, she's most famous for being in Abigail's Party.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2024/01/20/alison-steadman-marie-curie-charity-appeal-bbc-here-we-go/
https://www.memorabletv.com/uk-tv/hine-itv-1971-barrie-ingham-paul-eddington/
Kate Ferguson
@kateferguson4
EXCL - Bishops in the House of Lords voted with the government in just five votes in an entire year.
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1748777441827446795
She was also in another great Play for Today, Nuts in May.
The C of E congregations are still largely Conservative but even then the Jewish vote was more heavily Conservative in 2019 than the Anglican vote and the current Tory PM is Hindu
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0675332/
I’ve temporarily unblocked you to let you know that your tweet is libellous. I didn’t take a penny, a pound, a Riyal, or anything else from Qatar for the World Cup. I worked for the BBC and the BBC alone. I suggest you delete your inflammatory lies immediately.
https://x.com/garylineker/status/1748804674604421346?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
@markthehibby
Sturgeon kept her WhatsApp messages with Alex Salmond for 3 years!
https://x.com/markthehibby/status/1748823044255096850?s=20
As are large numbers of home counties detached properties and
estates still even with the Osborne allowance for married couples homes
"It's bad enough that we have an established church, but that they get guaranteed places in our legislature is completely nuts for a supposedly modern country."
To which you replied
"Rubbish..."
The UK now has one that's potentially better - Oxford Nanopore. It will possibly get bought too.
Most politicians have no idea that TRL-1 and TRL-9 are different, let alone there are any stages in between.
..
Oh.
Abigail's made her name initially I suspect, but very much doubt modern tv britain would say that is why she is well known.
Too many safe seats due to gerrymandering, politicisation of the courts, disputes between the states and the feds and deadlock in legislative branch.
A little hint:
S
Q
T
R
R
Some read that as squatter.
Others know who owns the place.
The story gets worse.
Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
·
44m
“You just not as sharp as you used to be”
Nikki Haley questions Trump’s mental fitness after he repeatedly confused her with Nancy Pelosi.
#TrumpMentalHealth
https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1748843169150591320
T
R
U
S
S
coming back as leader of the Tory Party, and Queen of England?
Kind of inevitable given the range of moral failings among the people involved. Racism makes it a complete set, pretty much.
Though it does bring us back to this question - are racists nasty and stupid because they are racists or does racism cause people to be nasty and stupid?
A union who sided with the employer and threw their members to the dogs.
Nick Wallis is embarking on a theatre tour to tell the Post Office scandal story.
https://youtu.be/9T6J2R5L5zo?si=juy-qbE4NAUgtrJa
"Jon Ronson breaks down why the right are abandoning the culture war", PoliticsJoe on YouTube, Jan 9, 2024, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564OsNLD5vY
(Interesting quote: "Britain is a class-based society that pretends that it's an identity-based society". Ah, conformation bias, my oldest ally
Also worth noting Concorde was a commercial disaster.
Port Talbot accounts for 1.5% of the UKs carbon emissions.
It has to transition to EAF - that require far fewer workers- to hit our Net Zero targets.
Tata aren't being particularly sensitive about managing the transition or finding their employees other jobs but this was always going to happen.
I can understand the terror given Germany's history but 1/4 of the electorate might simply check out and resort to extra-democratic action outside the law.
It's Jeremy Corbyn types preaching to Theresa May types.
Note the most important thing: how totally ineffective that is in changing their views.
I am not making a party political issue of this (as Sunak has attempted) having stated that a decade ago Cameron won the hearts of the Port Talbot steelworkers negotiating with Tata a deal that saved the plant.
I find Jones's argument compelling that Brexit
is involved, but Mandy Rice Davies might claim I was Lord Astor in this instance. "I would, wouldn't I?"
There is a bigger question, that of, should a nation of the size and stature of the UK have no production capability for virgin steel, or are we comfortable relying on China and India?
Sometimes because of economic strategy and sometimes because of environmental strategy.
Welsh Labour have been as indifferent to the inevitable consequences as Westminster Conservatives.
I am the model of a modern major general has to be the best, but I do love HMS Pinafore, the Mikado and others.
As for Abigail's Party - never heard of it before.
And there are many ways to hit our target - 45% of our carbon emissions target could be acheived by dressing agricultural fields with rock dust, with precisely no jobs or vital national security capabilities affected. If the Government cannot meet its Net Zero targets without abandoning any pretence of safeguarding national security they should piss off and let someone else try.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011cpr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P'tang,_Yang,_Kipperbang
One of the first ever programs on C4.
And this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Sweet_(film)
She appeared in a lot of lower middle class suburban London roles.
"Why American cities are squalid
Human flourishing is seen as dirty
By Chris Arnade"
https://unherd.com/2024/01/why-american-cities-are-squalid/
"The American Crack-Up
The nation remains blinded by a veil of madness
By David Samuels"
https://unherd.com/2024/01/the-american-crack-up/
"Is Iowa the next step to civil war?
Disunity can take decades to fester
By Michael Auslin"
https://unherd.com/2024/01/is-iowa-the-next-step-to-civil-war/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=925wmb-4Yr4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_TV_100
"So where did it start? The collapse of the 20th-century print pyramid and its replacement by the cracked mirror of the internet clearly had something to do with the current madness. The election of Donald Trump, and the subsequent rise of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which was promoted by Trump-phobic elites as fact, both helped to make insanity and illogic the coin of everyday political discourse. Once that happened, it didn’t take much to drive the entire country mad."
https://unherd.com/2024/01/the-american-crack-up/
You have a better argument with the Government not driving a better deal with Tata. I agree we need a domestic virgin steel capability.
I have an article I wish to write on this, although there is a queue. Would you like to read it when done?
You are a total fanatic when it comes to Net Zero - as you just want to call out what you perceive as heresy against your dogma - so I simply ignore what you say on the subject.
Once down there it's very hard, if impossible, to come back; no-one really helps them.
We also import 50% of our total steel, which can't be environmentally friendly. Steel is essential for the green transition via electric vehicles, wind turbines, HS2 etc, so domestic production through EAF is probably the right way to go. Do we produce enough scrap steel to significantly reduce our imports via EAF? (We currently export most of it, so there must be a case in favour).
In addition all improvements in productivity = politicians say no. Reducing the workforce was too toxic.
The end result was that it was cheaper to buy a ton of Chinese made cutlery (finished) in Sheffield than a ton of stainless steel from the local furnaces.
"I think the solution is calmly dismantling bureacratic progressivism through the Democratic process of open debate. Critical Theory silences debate. Half of the West does not hear opposing arguments because they’ve been given trigger warnings about who they shouldn’t listen to. For years Heterodox speakers were deplatformed often through violent suppression on college campuses. Any bureacracy that doesn’t revere diversity of viewpoint is failing its obligations."
This articulates well the point I am trying to make myself with many of my comments. For many reasons 'debate' is becoming impossible because of a certain discourse about rights and the need to protect people from offense which is a consequence of ideas heavily influenced by (if not a direct consequence of) "Critical Theory". Even outside of the political sphere, it creates problems because of its pervasive cultural influence. I work in the public sector and have this problem with colleagues, particularly younger colleagues, they are unable to debate things and thus cannot be corrected when they are wrong and you have to find other more indirect ways of stopping them lead themselves and the wider organisation to disaster. It is not too difficult to work out that this is leading us to ruin which is ultimately what draws people to alternatives like Trump. I am highly conflicted because even though I like Starmer and would really like to vote labour I think they will do nothing about this problem . The act of voting labour would be likely to exacerbate the problem I have outlined above, which I would see myself as probably the biggest structural issue facing Britain (in common with other countries across the west).
As it is no longer Saturday, the open thread is now closing
Our existing steel plants only produce 6 million tons a year so we max them out and still have loads of scrap left over.
It helps our circular economy.
You can argue Government has a role in subsidy or strategic planning without thinking it needs a role in managing the means of production.
If it did this would all be about jobs and wages, strikes would be a regular occurrence, and investment would be starved.