I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Labour’s promise of 20,000 more prison places.
As long as also accompanied by better rehabilitation inside given the vast majority of prisoners will eventually be released back into society
I’m hoping they can cut pointless prison sentences by harnessing AI to manage tags. Each person on a tag has their allowed times and movements put into a system and then AI is analysing and watching all of them and warns the wearer if in danger of breaking their curfew or route/allowed areas and then notifies the authorities if warning is ignored.
It would allow people to retain family lives and work, which avoids the risk of falling down the vicious circle of prison leading to more crime and reduces the amount of people needed to manage offenders.
There are a lot of criminals where prison will not achieve anything good for society but they need to be punished and so having their movement restricted for the period of sentence to home and work, and maybe for example an hour in a supermarket per week or a weekly visit to parents, would be more appropriate.
It's quite possible that Sinn Fein will lose their last seat in the EU Parliament now. Their support has fallen away massively, as they got on the wrong side of the Irish immigration argument.
I know its not the same election, and I've not followed Irish politics in a while but that's quite a change then, last I saw it Sinn Fein were nearly at the same as FF and FG combined and looked like favourites to get the Taoiseach next election.
Curious what changed to make FF and FG popular and Sinn Fein unpopular when it was looking the opposite not long ago.
FF and FG haven't become that much more popular, though FG have had a little bounce from Simon Harris replacing Varadkar. The main change is that SF have lost a lot of support and Independents have surged, most likely as a result of the immigration crisis - 2,000 asylum seekers in tents on the streets and protests across the country whenever a derelict hotel is suspected of being prepared to house asylum seekers.
Matt Goodwin on good form re. the centrist Tory commentary on the return of Farage.
He has this aside which is a point I make quite often here:
I mean, on a side note, is this what all that lobbying for Rishi Sunak among the Tory elite class was for? Is this it? Is this what ‘getting the adults back in the room’ and ousting Boris Johnson was all about? An average in the polls of 21% four weeks out from an election? A prime minister who looks utterly lost and out of his depth? A Tory party that’s never looked so out of touch with the country? Fiddling around the edges with smoking bans, reforming A-levels, and high-speed rail? I await the William Hague and Matthew Parris columns warning us once again that Farage is the amateur and only they are the experts who truly understand the modern world.
He’s not wrong. The so-called “adults” are like six year old kids trying to drive a car. Embarrassing; David Lord Cameron FFS
Off topic. Interesting stuff on old Lowry interviews uncovered.
I’ve reappraised him recently; I’d mentally pigeonholed him as a bit tiresome and amateurish but actually there’s a lot to his work - and I feel the key to it was looking at it from the viewpoint of his having probably quite deep and chronic depression.
Beyond the factory/crowd scenes he is best known for, there is a lot of pretty weird and visionary and even near-abstract (his seascapes). Since experiencing a sustained depressive bout myself I found I could relate to his work so much more.
His studies of girls in chaste but preposterously tight/throttling dress take on a peculiar dimension when considering the absence of romance in his life.
I was listening to a podcast the other week, can’t remember which one, about an artist called Richard Dadd the other week who I had sadly overlooked.
Absolutely fascinating life, tragic mental illness causing him to murder his father. He was hired as expedition artist for some chap going to Egypt and did great work and his mental illness built and built whilst out there, but his prolific works in Bedlam and Broadmoor are remarkable.
From what I recollect, the Teal (not "Teal Green") candidates in last Australia GE were way more akin to UK Liberal Democrats than English/Welsh & Scottish Greens.
Opposing Coalition's overtly anti-enviro govt was part of their appeal, but only part. Basically they gave voters disenchanted with then-government an option other than Labor OR Greens.
The Greens in the UK are utterly unserious. Embarrassing.
Someone was saying we need a Teal Green movement like Oz. They may be right.
In my article on Solarpunk, a proposed-but-not-written paragraph would have proposed that the utility of the Greens was not as a party in itself, but as a generator of ideas which can be exploited by other parties. It would have gone on to say that the Conservatives, being more concerned with power than ideology (stop laughing), were well placed to do this.
It's not difficult to make a national security argument for a wholly renewables-based economy, for example.
I also thought the Cons would be able to discard the dafter Green proposals like pumping hydrogen around the country and retrofitting heatpumps to flats like it was bloody BladeRunner, but it appears I was wrong...
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
From what I recollect, the Teal (not "Teal Green") candidates in last Australia GE were way more akin to UK Liberal Democrats than English/Welsh & Scottish Greens.
Opposing Coalition's overtly anti-enviro govt was part of their appeal, but only part. Basically they gave voters disenchanted with then-government an option other than Labor OR Greens.
Yes, they were explicitly post-, ex-, anti-Coalition. An even better comparison is the Tory independents chucked out by Dom / Boris in 2019.
To be clear leave lied through its teeth, so did remain. Now we are in a general election and tory, labour , lib dem, greens, snp and reform are all lying to the electorate.
This is our democracy now who can lie best and gull people into believing them
Too many gull people. One hopes for a tern around.
We wont know till is plover
Which twite started this? Stop all this snipeing and don't be a coot.
To be clear leave lied through its teeth, so did remain. Now we are in a general election and tory, labour , lib dem, greens, snp and reform are all lying to the electorate.
This is our democracy now who can lie best and gull people into believing them
Too many gull people. One hopes for a tern around.
We wont know till is plover
Which twite started this? Stop all this snipeing and don't be a coot.
It looks arguing is your pigeon
too much chaff
No need to crow about it
I can't swallow this anymore..
then you should exit swift
What about the booby prize, for the biggest turkey?
Off topic. Interesting stuff on old Lowry interviews uncovered.
I’ve reappraised him recently; I’d mentally pigeonholed him as a bit tiresome and amateurish but actually there’s a lot to his work - and I feel the key to it was looking at it from the viewpoint of his having probably quite deep and chronic depression.
Beyond the factory/crowd scenes he is best known for, there is a lot of pretty weird and visionary and even near-abstract (his seascapes). Since experiencing a sustained depressive bout myself I found I could relate to his work so much more.
His studies of girls in chaste but preposterously tight/throttling dress take on a peculiar dimension when considering the absence of romance in his life.
Alcaraz takes the French Open. Can cancel my Discovery+ now. Three weeks to Wimbledon on the BBC.
He's different league. A sublime talent. 3 slams on 3 surfaces at age 21. I hope Sinner also proves special otherwise Alcaraz will totally dominate for years. He's great for the sport and great to watch but you need big rivalries.
RN look to be winning 31-32% in France. LREM on 15%, PS on 14%, Les Republicans on 8%, Other Right and Greens just above the 5% threshold.
Le Pen cruising to victory at the next POTFR elex, as things stand
If you add Zemmours 5.5% to Lepen thats 38% of France voting radical right. If thats repeated at a presidential election Lepen is La Presidente.
This doesn't surprise me.
I've felt a much more tangibly tense atmosphere between the ethnic groups whenever I've been France over the last decade, much worse than in the UK. The country may be ahead of us in many other areas, but Britain's more tolerant approach has served it much better in ethnic and cultural relations. Farage, or a solely Faragist Tory Party in the future, isn't going to reach those kind of figures any time soon.
Off topic. Interesting stuff on old Lowry interviews uncovered.
I’ve reappraised him recently; I’d mentally pigeonholed him as a bit tiresome and amateurish but actually there’s a lot to his work - and I feel the key to it was looking at it from the viewpoint of his having probably quite deep and chronic depression.
Beyond the factory/crowd scenes he is best known for, there is a lot of pretty weird and visionary and even near-abstract (his seascapes). Since experiencing a sustained depressive bout myself I found I could relate to his work so much more.
His studies of girls in chaste but preposterously tight/throttling dress take on a peculiar dimension when considering the absence of romance in his life.
I was listening to a podcast the other week, can’t remember which one, about an artist called Richard Dadd the other week who I had sadly overlooked.
Absolutely fascinating life, tragic mental illness causing him to murder his father. He was hired as expedition artist for some chap going to Egypt and did great work and his mental illness built and built whilst out there, but his prolific works in Bedlam and Broadmoor are remarkable.
Sounds really interesting - I’m vaguely aware of him so will dig it out.
RN look to be winning 31-32% in France. LREM on 15%, PS on 14%, Les Republicans on 8%, Other Right and Greens just above the 5% threshold.
Le Pen cruising to victory at the next POTFR elex, as things stand
If you add Zemmours 5.5% to Lepen thats 38% of France voting radical right. If thats repeated at a presidential election Lepen is La Presidente.
This doesn't surprise me.
A far more tangibly tense atmosphere between the ethnic groups whenever I've been France over the last decade, much worse than in the UK. The country may be ahead of us in many other areas, but Britain's more tolerant approach has served it much better in race and cultural relations. Farage will never reach those kind of figures.
I agree, but there's also french culture. When I first lived there I thought they were all aggressively having a go at me. But after a while I realised they all have a go at each other in the same way.
Off topic. Interesting stuff on old Lowry interviews uncovered.
I’ve reappraised him recently; I’d mentally pigeonholed him as a bit tiresome and amateurish but actually there’s a lot to his work - and I feel the key to it was looking at it from the viewpoint of his having probably quite deep and chronic depression.
Beyond the factory/crowd scenes he is best known for, there is a lot of pretty weird and visionary and even near-abstract (his seascapes). Since experiencing a sustained depressive bout myself I found I could relate to his work so much more.
His studies of girls in chaste but preposterously tight/throttling dress take on a peculiar dimension when considering the absence of romance in his life.
I was fortunate enough to go to an exhibition of his work many years ago and was knocked out by the range, skill and profundity of his work. Anyone who just thinks of him as just a painter of northern industrial landscapes is seriously underating him.
The far right is going to have its day in the sun, though lack of internal coordination between the parties makes its administrative impact rather limited.
The other thing that stops them uniting into a powerful bloc is that different versions of them believe different things.
Put simply, there are truly nasty neo-nazis in suits, like the AfD and Sweden democrats, the successors to Hitler and Mussolini, and there are dozens of essentially Falangist parties, the successors to Franco. The current iteration of the RN in France, the PiS in Poland and Meloni in Italy are Falangists. At worst. Arguably just 19th century style authoritarians.
The AfD are the scariest. Worse than Trump, though less powerful.
The other divide is pro-Putinists vs the rest. Another where PiS and Meloni are on one side.
History tends to repeat itself and what happens on a small scale in the UK first (reformation and religious conflict, anti-royalist revolution, the rise of socialism) then manifests itself in a vastly more bloody way in Central Europe next. We did Brexit back in 2016, so they are due.
RN look to be winning 31-32% in France. LREM on 15%, PS on 14%, Les Republicans on 8%, Other Right and Greens just above the 5% threshold.
Le Pen cruising to victory at the next POTFR elex, as things stand
If you add Zemmours 5.5% to Lepen thats 38% of France voting radical right. If thats repeated at a presidential election Lepen is La Presidente.
Depends where Les Republicains voters go, most of them voted for Macron in the run off last time but if they switched to Le Pen next time then yes she would likely narrowly be elected President of France
Matt Goodwin on good form re. the centrist Tory commentary on the return of Farage.
He has this aside which is a point I make quite often here:
I mean, on a side note, is this what all that lobbying for Rishi Sunak among the Tory elite class was for? Is this it? Is this what ‘getting the adults back in the room’ and ousting Boris Johnson was all about? An average in the polls of 21% four weeks out from an election? A prime minister who looks utterly lost and out of his depth? A Tory party that’s never looked so out of touch with the country? Fiddling around the edges with smoking bans, reforming A-levels, and high-speed rail? I await the William Hague and Matthew Parris columns warning us once again that Farage is the amateur and only they are the experts who truly understand the modern world.
He’s not wrong. The so-called “adults” are like six year old kids trying to drive a car. Embarrassing; David Lord Cameron FFS
If Goodwin were as good on 'How to run the country' as he is on 'How Not to run the country' then I think he would be taken more seriously.
Putting into effect what people say they want is quite hard. Has Goodwin tried pleasing all the people who want low tax and great public services, who want no foreigners except X my friend because that's different, who want freedom for themselves and constraints for others etc...
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
Maybe so but most remainers seem to quote is as a yearly think....we are 100 billlion less in gdp than we should be.
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
RN look to be winning 31-32% in France. LREM on 15%, PS on 14%, Les Republicans on 8%, Other Right and Greens just above the 5% threshold.
Le Pen cruising to victory at the next POTFR elex, as things stand
If you add Zemmours 5.5% to Lepen thats 38% of France voting radical right. If thats repeated at a presidential election Lepen is La Presidente.
This doesn't surprise me.
I've felt a much more tangibly tense atmosphere between the ethnic groups whenever I've been France over the last decade, much worse than in the UK. The country may be ahead of us in many other areas, but Britain's more tolerant approach has served it much better in ethnic and cultural relations. Farage, or a solely Faragist Tory Party in the future, isn't going to reach those kind of figures any time soon.
A lot of it is language. Anyone who comes to Britain learns English or WANTS to learn it. People that migrate to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway have no desire to learn the local language, they can get away with English (this seriously riles locals, and understandably, hence the early rise of hard right parties in these countries). This is now playing out in bigger countries like France, Italy and Germany where incomers have no desire to learn French, Italian or German, they can get away with their own language plus English at a pinch
Add in the extra criminality, the insane rape stats, the gangs and drugs, and Europe is headed for a Hard Right V Migrants showdown within the next decade. It is baked in. Also gonna happen in Britain, we are just behind the curve, because Brexit
Yes yes yes migration brings benefits - and it really DOES being benefits if it is judicious - see the death of east Asia in birth rates - but it also brings massive issues which can no longer be ignored. The crunch is coming
To be clear leave lied through its teeth, so did remain. Now we are in a general election and tory, labour , lib dem, greens, snp and reform are all lying to the electorate.
This is our democracy now who can lie best and gull people into believing them
Too many gull people. One hopes for a tern around.
We wont know till is plover
Which twite started this? Stop all this snipeing and don't be a coot.
It looks arguing is your pigeon
too much chaff
No need to crow about it
I can't swallow this anymore..
then you should exit swift
What about the booby prize, for the biggest turkey?
I would have to chicken out of that else I would be puffin my man boobs out
RN look to be winning 31-32% in France. LREM on 15%, PS on 14%, Les Republicans on 8%, Other Right and Greens just above the 5% threshold.
Le Pen cruising to victory at the next POTFR elex, as things stand
If you add Zemmours 5.5% to Lepen thats 38% of France voting radical right. If thats repeated at a presidential election Lepen is La Presidente.
Depends where Les Republicains voters go, most of them voted for Macron in the run off last time but if they switched to Le Pen next time then yes she would likely narrowly be elected President of France
It's hard to see who the run off will be against. That reinvigoration of the PS might be the sign theyre on their way back. Renaissance without Macron just looks flaky and likely to lose more support., his drop in support is supposedly because he is seen as drifting too far on the right. If the run off is RN versus PS LR voters will either hold their noses or not vote.
Matt Goodwin on good form re. the centrist Tory commentary on the return of Farage.
He has this aside which is a point I make quite often here:
I mean, on a side note, is this what all that lobbying for Rishi Sunak among the Tory elite class was for? Is this it? Is this what ‘getting the adults back in the room’ and ousting Boris Johnson was all about? An average in the polls of 21% four weeks out from an election? A prime minister who looks utterly lost and out of his depth? A Tory party that’s never looked so out of touch with the country? Fiddling around the edges with smoking bans, reforming A-levels, and high-speed rail? I await the William Hague and Matthew Parris columns warning us once again that Farage is the amateur and only they are the experts who truly understand the modern world.
He’s not wrong. The so-called “adults” are like six year old kids trying to drive a car. Embarrassing; David Lord Cameron FFS
If Goodwin were as good on 'How to run the country' as he is on 'How Not to run the country' then I think he would be taken more seriously.
Putting into effect what people say they want is quite hard. Has Goodwin tried pleasing all the people who want low tax and great public services, who want no foreigners except X my friend because that's different, who want freedom for themselves and constraints for others etc...
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
Laura K’s Sunday article on the Beeb makes a big play of there being 4 weeks to go. She mentions it twice, and strongly in the context of things could change:
"And yet - take a breath, repeat after me - there are still four weeks to run”
She’s right that things might change but there aren’t really 4 weeks to go. Campaigning will cease in 3 weeks and 3 days.
And, more importantly, people will begin voting by post in the next c. 10-14 days.
No, you are right. LK is unbearable, we knew that already; she is hopeless, again that is not news; but we can now add innumeracy to her list of dubious talents.
Give her a break, she's distraught her beloved Tories have f*cked royally and now look like paying the price. Must be hard for her.
The Greens in the UK are utterly unserious. Embarrassing.
The Greens used to be all "save the whales" and "ban CFCs", the modern Greens are far left lunatics who should be allowed no power over us at all.
Falling support for Green/Ecology parties seems a feature of the Euro elections.
FWIW my sense is that two things are starting to coalesce: one is that proper full blown greenery brings about a sort of society most people don't want, giving a lot of power to people they don't like and don't trust.
The second is that if (big if) there is a solution to to CO2 problem it isn't going to be of the hand knitted yogurt 'just stop oil and everything else you actually use' variety. This has too few fans in USA and China and doesn't heat the house in countries like UK where it gets cold.
Time for Plan B. I think Starmer quietly think so too. It is, be it noted, less important to him than spending money he hasn't got.
The far right is going to have its day in the sun, though lack of internal coordination between the parties makes its administrative impact rather limited.
The other thing that stops them uniting into a powerful bloc is that different versions of them believe different things.
Put simply, there are truly nasty neo-nazis in suits, like the AfD and Sweden democrats, the successors to Hitler and Mussolini, and there are dozens of essentially Falangist parties, the successors to Franco. The current iteration of the RN in France, the PiS in Poland and Meloni in Italy are Falangists. At worst. Arguably just 19th century style authoritarians.
The AfD are the scariest. Worse than Trump, though less powerful.
The other divide is pro-Putinists vs the rest. Another where PiS and Meloni are on one side.
History tends to repeat itself and what happens on a small scale in the UK first (reformation and religious conflict, anti-royalist revolution, the rise of socialism) then manifests itself in a vastly more bloody way in Central Europe next. We did Brexit back in 2016, so they are due.
Is it not a category error to call any democratic politician a fascist/falangist/nazi given that the one thing they had in common was opposition to multi-party democracy?
It's where 90% of his vote will come from, it's a no brainer of a strategy.
And he's not wrong on this, is he?
One of the problems with the "blame Sunak" argument is that none of the alternatives are obviously better.
It's the Tory Party. I did remark that if Sunak is taking a backseat and letting other ministers take the lead, then the Tory share could fall further.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we are not underperforming when we were in the eu by 4% which is what remainers claim that we lost 4% gdp by leaving
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Labour’s promise of 20,000 more prison places.
As long as also accompanied by better rehabilitation inside given the vast majority of prisoners will eventually be released back into society
A liberal lefty has hacked into HY's account.
No not much different to what Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has said
The 20,000 prison places are what the conservatives have planned but not been able to deliver due to problems with the planning system. Labour are saying that they will circumvent this by issuing 'development consent orders' but these still have to go through a year plus long process of examination so not a quick route. The government could just 'call in' the planning applications submitted by the Ministry of Justice and approve them. Apparently the hold ups are something to do with badgers and retained EU rules about protected species.
The 20,000 are not enough, there are 87,000 prisoners in 80,000 places at present. Really they need something like 100,000 more prison places to start to meet public demand for longer sentences. At least having labour in power will hopefully stop the government opportunistically passing laws for longer sentences in the hope that the consequences will be passed on to the next government.
Matt Goodwin on good form re. the centrist Tory commentary on the return of Farage.
He has this aside which is a point I make quite often here:
I mean, on a side note, is this what all that lobbying for Rishi Sunak among the Tory elite class was for? Is this it? Is this what ‘getting the adults back in the room’ and ousting Boris Johnson was all about? An average in the polls of 21% four weeks out from an election? A prime minister who looks utterly lost and out of his depth? A Tory party that’s never looked so out of touch with the country? Fiddling around the edges with smoking bans, reforming A-levels, and high-speed rail? I await the William Hague and Matthew Parris columns warning us once again that Farage is the amateur and only they are the experts who truly understand the modern world.
He’s not wrong. The so-called “adults” are like six year old kids trying to drive a car. Embarrassing; David Lord Cameron FFS
If Goodwin were as good on 'How to run the country' as he is on 'How Not to run the country' then I think he would be taken more seriously.
Putting into effect what people say they want is quite hard. Has Goodwin tried pleasing all the people who want low tax and great public services, who want no foreigners except X my friend because that's different, who want freedom for themselves and constraints for others etc...
Exactly. It's all just glib xenophobic nonsense pitched to bigots and simpletons.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
Maybe so but most remainers seem to quote is as a yearly think....we are 100 billlion less in gdp than we should be.
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
The 4% fall in GDP compared to the counterfactual is completely implausible, but can never be proven nor disproven. But the fact that the French and German economies are getting hammered as much as, if not more than ours, gives us a clue that it is in fact bollocks.
On the general topic of things being reported in the Mail, here's something else of interest:
Jeremy Hunt has vowed to do more to help those on six-figure salaries if the Tories win the general election - and he clings on to his own seat.
The Chancellor suggested, if he remains in charge of the Treasury beyond 4 July, he would be focused on removing 'cliff edges' for high earners in the tax system.
Mr Hunt pointed to how the Government's offer of free childcare for parents is not available if one of them is earning over £100,000.
....
'Around here the childcare reforms have been pretty popular,' the Chancellor said, as he spoke to the newspaper in Bramley, Surrey.
'But people also do raise the fact that one person earning over £100,000 means you don't get access to them and that creates a cliff edge.
'Because it was a big commitment we just couldn't afford to do more when I made the original announcement.
'But those are things I think we definitely want to make progress on, yes.'
He added: 'I've always said that if you want to be economically productive we have to get rid of the cliff edges in the tax system.
'The removal of the personal allowance, the fact that childcare support stops when one person in a household is earning over £100,000.
'If you speak to economists, they will say the most damaging things in the tax system are when you have things with a high marginal rate.
'So it is absolutely on our list as something we would like to do more on.'
Compare this to the incessant foot-dragging over the victimisation of Carer's Allowance claimants who, earning, shall we say, somewhat less than £100,000, have found themselves falling over a cliff edge for earning about 56p too much and being ruthlessly pursued by Government-appointed debt collectors.
A good illustration of where Conservative priorities *appear* to lie - but it'll be fascinating to see which, if either, of these issues is deemed worthy of mention in the forthcoming manifesto.
It's quite hard dealing with the whole nation. Where I live £100k pa is loads and loads. In much of London and the SE it isn't (SFAICS).
£100k is more than double the median London wage, which is about £44k.
£97400 before tax puts someone in the top 4% of those having liability for income tax:
Matt Goodwin on good form re. the centrist Tory commentary on the return of Farage.
He has this aside which is a point I make quite often here:
I mean, on a side note, is this what all that lobbying for Rishi Sunak among the Tory elite class was for? Is this it? Is this what ‘getting the adults back in the room’ and ousting Boris Johnson was all about? An average in the polls of 21% four weeks out from an election? A prime minister who looks utterly lost and out of his depth? A Tory party that’s never looked so out of touch with the country? Fiddling around the edges with smoking bans, reforming A-levels, and high-speed rail? I await the William Hague and Matthew Parris columns warning us once again that Farage is the amateur and only they are the experts who truly understand the modern world.
Tories, please note. Clearly Goodwin is no longer your friend. Please desist posting his drivel.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we are not underperforming when we were in the eu by 4% which is what remainers claim that we lost 4% gdp by leaving
Hang on: Remainers are claiming that we've lost 4% cumulative. That is, that our GDP is 4% lower than it would have been if we'd remained.
If we had GDP growth of 1% less a year for four years, that would cumulatively come to a 4% difference.
I'm not commenting on whether that has happened or not - because there are so many other factors that affect GDP levels - but that would be the mechanism by which it had come about; that our previous outperformance had disappeared, and - cumulatively - added up to 4%.
Off topic. Interesting stuff on old Lowry interviews uncovered.
I’ve reappraised him recently; I’d mentally pigeonholed him as a bit tiresome and amateurish but actually there’s a lot to his work - and I feel the key to it was looking at it from the viewpoint of his having probably quite deep and chronic depression.
Beyond the factory/crowd scenes he is best known for, there is a lot of pretty weird and visionary and even near-abstract (his seascapes). Since experiencing a sustained depressive bout myself I found I could relate to his work so much more.
His studies of girls in chaste but preposterously tight/throttling dress take on a peculiar dimension when considering the absence of romance in his life.
I was fortunate enough to go to an exhibition of his work many years ago and was knocked out by the range, skill and profundity of his work. Anyone who just thinks of him as just a painter of northern industrial landscapes is seriously underating him.
I was in the latter category until recently but have happily reappraised since. Whether he is a genuinely major artist, I’m not sure - but he was certainly much more interesting than the million prints of ‘going to the match’ might leave you thinking.
I don’t think that naff ‘Matchstick Men’ song helped either.
He's needing you to stand in for him at a meeting with President Biden because he is delivering campaign leaflets in Bootle and the PM is watching snooker?
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
Maybe so but most remainers seem to quote is as a yearly think....we are 100 billlion less in gdp than we should be.
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we are not underperforming when we were in the eu by 4% which is what remainers claim that we lost 4% gdp by leaving
Hang on: Remainers are claiming that we've lost 4% cumulative. That is, that our GDP is 4% lower than it would have been if we'd remained.
If we had GDP growth of 1% less a year for four years, that would cumulatively come to a 4% difference.
I'm not commenting on whether that has happened or not - because there are so many other factors that affect GDP levels - but that would be the mechanism by which it had come about; that our previous outperformance had disappeared, and - cumulatively - added up to 4%.
Correct. I cannot understand why Pagan is being so dense on this.
On the general topic of things being reported in the Mail, here's something else of interest:
Jeremy Hunt has vowed to do more to help those on six-figure salaries if the Tories win the general election - and he clings on to his own seat.
The Chancellor suggested, if he remains in charge of the Treasury beyond 4 July, he would be focused on removing 'cliff edges' for high earners in the tax system.
Mr Hunt pointed to how the Government's offer of free childcare for parents is not available if one of them is earning over £100,000.
....
'Around here the childcare reforms have been pretty popular,' the Chancellor said, as he spoke to the newspaper in Bramley, Surrey.
'But people also do raise the fact that one person earning over £100,000 means you don't get access to them and that creates a cliff edge.
'Because it was a big commitment we just couldn't afford to do more when I made the original announcement.
'But those are things I think we definitely want to make progress on, yes.'
He added: 'I've always said that if you want to be economically productive we have to get rid of the cliff edges in the tax system.
'The removal of the personal allowance, the fact that childcare support stops when one person in a household is earning over £100,000.
'If you speak to economists, they will say the most damaging things in the tax system are when you have things with a high marginal rate.
'So it is absolutely on our list as something we would like to do more on.'
Compare this to the incessant foot-dragging over the victimisation of Carer's Allowance claimants who, earning, shall we say, somewhat less than £100,000, have found themselves falling over a cliff edge for earning about 56p too much and being ruthlessly pursued by Government-appointed debt collectors.
A good illustration of where Conservative priorities *appear* to lie - but it'll be fascinating to see which, if either, of these issues is deemed worthy of mention in the forthcoming manifesto.
It's quite hard dealing with the whole nation. Where I live £100k pa is loads and loads. In much of London and the SE it isn't (SFAICS).
£100k is more than double the median London wage, which is about £44k.
£97400 before tax puts someone in the top 4% of those having liability for income tax:
Worth remembering that the top 1.5% pay more than 35% of total income tax
They could take a pay cut and thereby pay less tax.
Who would benefit from that?
Presumably either the owners of their employers (if the money were retained by the firm) or their customers (if it fed thorough to lower prices for whatever it was they do). Or the taxpayer, if their work is ultimately state funded.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
Maybe so but most remainers seem to quote is as a yearly think....we are 100 billlion less in gdp than we should be.
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
Nobody I know is saying we've lost 4% a year.
They're saying its 10%, that's why we have 5 million unemployed
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Labour’s promise of 20,000 more prison places.
As long as also accompanied by better rehabilitation inside given the vast majority of prisoners will eventually be released back into society
I’m hoping they can cut pointless prison sentences by harnessing AI to manage tags. Each person on a tag has their allowed times and movements put into a system and then AI is analysing and watching all of them and warns the wearer if in danger of breaking their curfew or route/allowed areas and then notifies the authorities if warning is ignored.
It would allow people to retain family lives and work, which avoids the risk of falling down the vicious circle of prison leading to more crime and reduces the amount of people needed to manage offenders.
There are a lot of criminals where prison will not achieve anything good for society but they need to be punished and so having their movement restricted for the period of sentence to home and work, and maybe for example an hour in a supermarket per week or a weekly visit to parents, would be more appropriate.
Warehousing criminals can play a part - some crimes are committed en-mass by repeat offenders. See burglary, when burglary gangs often rob multiple houses per day. Or mobile phone theft.
With burglary, there have been cases where imprisoning one or two people caused double digits percentage drops in a particular crime over a wide area.
Someone posted government data on actual incomes pre and post tax. It is quite fascinating. A 50k wage puts you in the top 16% of earners, £100k in the top 4%. What this seems to demonstrate to me is that the salary expectations of graduates as envisaged by the student loan system is completely disconnected from reality. To even service the interest payments on a 70k loan you would need to be in the top 10% of earners.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we are not underperforming when we were in the eu by 4% which is what remainers claim that we lost 4% gdp by leaving
Hang on: Remainers are claiming that we've lost 4% cumulative. That is, that our GDP is 4% lower than it would have been if we'd remained.
If we had GDP growth of 1% less a year for four years, that would cumulatively come to a 4% difference.
I'm not commenting on whether that has happened or not - because there are so many other factors that affect GDP levels - but that would be the mechanism by which it had come about; that our previous outperformance had disappeared, and - cumulatively - added up to 4%.
But would we have higher gdp growth if we hadnt brexited. Now the answer is maybe yes, maybe no. I just dislike it being stated as a fact. Both sides lied, both sides continue to lie
Ye Gods. Someone has Goodwinned the thread AGAIN! One yearns for some sunny day where we aren’t subjected to the deranged ramblings of this prize helmet.
He's needing you to stand in for him at a meeting with President Biden because he is delivering campaign leaflets in Bootle and the PM is watching snooker?
Someone posted government data on actual incomes pre and post tax. It is quite fascinating. A 50k wage puts you in the top 16% of earners, £100k in the top 4%. What this seems to demonstrate to me is that the salary expectations of graduates as envisaged by the student loan system is completely disconnected from reality. To even service the interest payments on a 70k loan you would need to be in the top 10% of earners.
That was the intention, wasn't it? It's a graduate tax on high earners, in all but name.
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Ummm.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we are not underperforming when we were in the eu by 4% which is what remainers claim that we lost 4% gdp by leaving
Hang on: Remainers are claiming that we've lost 4% cumulative. That is, that our GDP is 4% lower than it would have been if we'd remained.
If we had GDP growth of 1% less a year for four years, that would cumulatively come to a 4% difference.
I'm not commenting on whether that has happened or not - because there are so many other factors that affect GDP levels - but that would be the mechanism by which it had come about; that our previous outperformance had disappeared, and - cumulatively - added up to 4%.
But would we have higher gdp growth if we hadnt brexited. Now the answer is maybe yes, maybe no. I just dislike it being stated as a fact. Both sides lied, both sides continue to lie
It's not a fact it's a forecast compared to another forecast both of which would be wrong given subsequent events.
It's quite possible that Sinn Fein will lose their last seat in the EU Parliament now. Their support has fallen away massively, as they got on the wrong side of the Irish immigration argument.
I know its not the same election, and I've not followed Irish politics in a while but that's quite a change then, last I saw it Sinn Fein were nearly at the same as FF and FG combined and looked like favourites to get the Taoiseach next election.
Curious what changed to make FF and FG popular and Sinn Fein unpopular when it was looking the opposite not long ago.
They’ve followed a relentlessly left wing line on social issues which is out of kilter with a fair chunk of Irish nationalist opinion, and they were caught on the wrong side of public opinion on immigration.
And, paradoxically, they let themselves be outflanked to the left on Israel/Palestine.
It turns out that many Irish voters care about more than unification.
I'm astonished at how much traction Israel/Palestine creates amongst some people, something they can't really influence and very rarely affects them personally.
Ye Gods. Someone has Goodwinned the thread AGAIN! One yearns for some sunny day where we aren’t subjected to the deranged ramblings of this prize helmet.
You want to stop deranged ramblings on PB? What does that leave?
Thinking 100k is an average salary is no different to the remainer lie that we lost 4% gdp when even where we were in the eu the last time our gdp increased by 4% was in 2000
Is this a riddle?
No its simple statement...our gdp didnt grow by 4% a year while we were in the eu since 2000.....the remainer lie is we lost 4% gdp somehow by leaving even though our gdp has continued rising. If it didnt rise by 4% while we were in the eu claiming it would have done is people like you just talking bollocks or as I would put it being a fucking lying piece of shit
I think you missed your last dose of thorazine
Oh wow ad hominem because you know I am right and you can't argue from facts.....yeah talk to the hand
When was the last year when we were in the eu when our gdp increased by 4% then go on tell me?
Come on dude: the everyone's GDP increased massively in 2021 as Covid receded and economies came back to life.
I'm more positive on Brexit that I've ever been, but that's not a good argument.
I excluded the covid years for the reason you said, for example in 2020 are gdp was -10.4% in 2021 it was +8.7%. The covid effect and I suspect most european countries would reflect the same. My point is though we rarely got an increase of 4% gdp while we were in the eu the last time being 2000. To say brexit cost us 4% gdp is a lie because since brexit our gdp would be negative ever since then. It is a remainer lie.....now if we had stayed in might our gdp be higher well thats a counter factual, maybe yes, maybe no but it irritates me this claimed 4% from remainers when there is no evidence for it
Look, I don't know who's making these claims or frankly why you've suddenly got a bee in your bonnet, but try this form of argument.
If you're going to get twenty-five quid, and someone says hey, I know, let's throw one of those pounds in the lake because if we do that we'll get a magic wish from the Lake People. So the money comes and you pocket £24 and you throw the other pound coin into the water -- plop! -- and you wait for your magic Lake People wish.
And you wait.
And you wait.
And eventually you realise you aren't getting a magic wish. You tell the person that their stupid policy cost you 4%. That would be a fair statement, even though at no point did any money actually leave your pocket.
Just to be clear, I've no idea where this 4% stuff is coming from, I'm just reflecting the number back at you because you used it. I don't have any kind of position on whether Brexit has cost this amount or not. I can tell you though (in case you need it spelling out, which I'm certain you do) that there are no magic-wish-giving Lake People.
It's the ONS's mean of other people's predictions:
Many of those predictions, when you look at the detail, have very dodgy central cases: for example, one of them assumes, as the central case, that we leave with no deal and then make a deal after a couple of years. Almost all assume immigration falls markedly or catastophically.
I used the 4% drop in gdp as it often features in remainer arguments about why brexit isn't working. I am merely pointing out its bollocks because we rarely achieved a 4% increase on gdp while in the eu
The 4% forecasted fall in GDP is measuring the long term effect on the economy relative to the no Brexit counterfactual, it doesn't refer to a drop in GDP from one year to the next.
Maybe so but most remainers seem to quote is as a yearly think....we are 100 billlion less in gdp than we should be.
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
The 4% fall in GDP compared to the counterfactual is completely implausible, but can never be proven nor disproven. But the fact that the French and German economies are getting hammered as much as, if not more than ours, gives us a clue that it is in fact bollocks.
Yes, precise percentage GDP counterfactuals are effing nonsense generally, they are even more absurd during a 5 year period which saw a global plague and a terrible war
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Labour’s promise of 20,000 more prison places.
As long as also accompanied by better rehabilitation inside given the vast majority of prisoners will eventually be released back into society
A liberal lefty has hacked into HY's account.
No not much different to what Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has said
The 20,000 prison places are what the conservatives have planned but not been able to deliver due to problems with the planning system. Labour are saying that they will circumvent this by issuing 'development consent orders' but these still have to go through a year plus long process of examination so not a quick route. The government could just 'call in' the planning applications submitted by the Ministry of Justice and approve them. Apparently the hold ups are something to do with badgers and retained EU rules about protected species.
The 20,000 are not enough, there are 87,000 prisoners in 80,000 places at present. Really they need something like 100,000 more prison places to start to meet public demand for longer sentences. At least having labour in power will hopefully stop the government opportunistically passing laws for longer sentences in the hope that the consequences will be passed on to the next government.
Idea - Train the prisoners in building trades. Then they can build prisons as part of their sentence reduction.
Badgers are thugs. If they were humans, they would be the shaven headed guy at the end of the bar who no one sits next to. With "Love" and "Hate" tattoos on their knuckles. Build the prisons round them.
Comments
It would allow people to retain family lives and work, which avoids the risk of falling down the vicious circle of prison leading to more crime and reduces the amount of people needed to manage offenders.
There are a lot of criminals where prison will not achieve anything good for society but they need to be punished and so having their movement restricted for the period of sentence to home and work, and maybe for example an hour in a supermarket per week or a weekly visit to parents, would be more appropriate.
https://x.com/spignal/status/1799864866582225235
The 80 extra rape courts also is a step forward. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Absolutely fascinating life, tragic mental illness causing him to murder his father. He was hired as expedition artist for some chap going to Egypt and did great work and his mental illness built and built whilst out there, but his prolific works in Bedlam and Broadmoor are remarkable.
Opposing Coalition's overtly anti-enviro govt was part of their appeal, but only part. Basically they gave voters disenchanted with then-government an option other than Labor OR Greens.
It's not difficult to make a national security argument for a wholly renewables-based economy, for example.
I also thought the Cons would be able to discard the dafter Green proposals like pumping hydrogen around the country and retrofitting heatpumps to flats like it was bloody BladeRunner, but it appears I was wrong...
https://x.com/tilojung/status/1799858314052084142
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1799866761359347794
Perhaps nothing surprising ? If so, Farage migh have had his chips.
I've felt a much more tangibly tense atmosphere between the ethnic groups whenever I've been France over the last decade, much worse than in the UK. The country may be ahead of us in many other areas, but Britain's more tolerant approach has served it much better in ethnic and cultural relations. Farage, or a solely Faragist Tory Party in the future, isn't going to reach those kind of figures any time soon.
Tonight's accommodation. Cheap, nice set menu. Just under 300 km cycled so far. Knackered.
The other thing that stops them uniting into a powerful bloc is that different versions of them believe different things.
Put simply, there are truly nasty neo-nazis in suits, like the AfD and Sweden democrats, the successors to Hitler and Mussolini, and there are dozens of essentially Falangist parties, the successors to Franco. The current iteration of the RN in France, the PiS in Poland and Meloni in Italy are Falangists. At worst. Arguably just 19th century style authoritarians.
The AfD are the scariest. Worse than Trump, though less powerful.
The other divide is pro-Putinists vs the rest. Another where PiS and Meloni are on one side.
History tends to repeat itself and what happens on a small scale in the UK first (reformation and religious conflict, anti-royalist revolution, the rise of socialism) then manifests itself in a vastly more bloody way in Central Europe next. We did Brexit back in 2016, so they are due.
Now it all makes sense.
Putting into effect what people say they want is quite hard. Has Goodwin tried pleasing all the people who want low tax and great public services, who want no foreigners except X my friend because that's different, who want freedom for themselves and constraints for others etc...
I am not claiming there is no drop in gdp from leaving the eu, I am merely saying its not 4% a year as we never really got 4% a year while in the eu
Add in the extra criminality, the insane rape stats, the gangs and drugs, and Europe is headed for a Hard Right V Migrants showdown within the next decade. It is baked in. Also gonna happen in Britain, we are just behind the curve, because Brexit
Yes yes yes migration brings benefits - and it really DOES being benefits if it is judicious - see the death of east Asia in birth rates - but it also brings massive issues which can no longer be ignored. The crunch is coming
One of the problems with the "blame Sunak" argument is that none of the alternatives are obviously better.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Let's imagine that while in the EU, we grew at 3% per year, while the rest of the EU grew at 2% a year. We'd been outperforming them by 1% a year. (And, by the way, that delta is about right, albeit the numbers are more like 2.6% and 1.6%.)
Then let's imagine that post Brexit, we grew at 2% a year. Well, if during that period, the rest of the EU grew at 0% per year, we could argue that Brexit had been a benefit, in that we were now growing even faster than our continental peers.
By contrast, if both we and the EU grew at 1% per year, you could argue that it had been a relative failure, because we were no longer able to maintain the same outperformance we had while in the EU.
That said, both of these examples are incomplete, because we need to look at wages relative to prices, we need to look at sustainability, and the like.
Plus, of course, in the short to medium term, most of things that affect GDP have nothing - positive or negative - to do with the EU. Covid, Ukraine, energy prices, and the like will all have much greater impact that any small changes to imports and exports to the EU.
But we have a GAA team if that helps
https://warwickshire.gaa.ie/
The second is that if (big if) there is a solution to to CO2 problem it isn't going to be of the hand knitted yogurt 'just stop oil and everything else you actually use' variety. This has too few fans in USA and China and doesn't heat the house in countries like UK where it gets cold.
Time for Plan B. I think Starmer quietly think so too. It is, be it noted, less important to him than spending money he hasn't got.
I did remark that if Sunak is taking a backseat and letting other ministers take the lead, then the Tory share could fall further.
The 20,000 are not enough, there are 87,000 prisoners in 80,000 places at present. Really they need something like 100,000 more prison places to start to meet public demand for longer sentences. At least having labour in power will hopefully stop the government opportunistically passing laws for longer sentences in the hope that the consequences will be passed on to the next government.
Hmm.
You should do your duty, if this is what transpired.
But the fact that the French and German economies are getting hammered as much as, if not more than ours, gives us a clue that it is in fact bollocks.
If we had GDP growth of 1% less a year for four years, that would cumulatively come to a 4% difference.
I'm not commenting on whether that has happened or not - because there are so many other factors that affect GDP levels - but that would be the mechanism by which it had come about; that our previous outperformance had disappeared, and - cumulatively - added up to 4%.
I don’t think that naff ‘Matchstick Men’ song helped either.
Same as for everyone else.
With burglary, there have been cases where imprisoning one or two people caused double digits percentage drops in a particular crime over a wide area.
Next door to our hotel.
There's no snooker on right now.
Give an interview so bad their press officer has to step in...
https://x.com/christiancalgie/status/1799859124047593566
That said after my highly successful bet with @Sandpit I could be tempted by the correct odds, if you are willing to offer
That is, not at all.
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-and-the-transformation-of-american-adolescence-how-gen-zs-formative-experiences-shape-its-politics-priorities-and-future/
Badgers are thugs. If they were humans, they would be the shaven headed guy at the end of the bar who no one sits next to. With "Love" and "Hate" tattoos on their knuckles. Build the prisons round them.
However, I don't trust SKS to deliver it, and very much doubt he even believes it.