Joe Biden? Was the President playing 4-d chess in waiting until after the RNC, where Trump committed to Vance, before announcing his retirement, or was that a lucky coincidence?
If it was a plan it was a good one, and Biden pulled off an utterly convincing performance as an infirm but stubborn old codger hanging onto his position for grim death.
It is indeed chess. The sacrifice of Biden reveals a concealed checkmate (or at least bloody obvious to me but concealed from all the Don't be beastly to Joe, it shows you are a secret Trumpian crowd). Admittedly I am light headed with (unrealised) betting gains, but I am pretty confident that Trump is out of options.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
The person who made a mess of my treatment a couple of years ago was a white Scottish bloke - he was fundamentally unsuited to his job and treated patients as idiots.
I ended up back at my GPs (a west African immigrant) who realised I had been misdiagnosed, and sent me quickly to a consultant neurologist (a South African immigrant), who was absolutely brilliant and got me the treatment I needed. After a lot of physio, I am almost back to normal...
Thanks, immigrants.
This is a futile debate either way. Their are incompetents and great workers in all demographics. Using them to make point either against m migration or to be happy clappy over it I just don’t see the point. The issue is one more of the NHS and it’s being fit for purpose or not.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
And several people - including me - have muddled the two, and none of us have dementia!
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
The political problem is mentioned in the one paragraph you snipped:
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of doctors being trained to protect their income.
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
The political problem is mentioned in the one paragraph you snipped:
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
Sorry about that, it was two or three actually. Didn't want to snip any but the post was 724 too many characters
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
Kelly and Shapiro both appear to be sensible choices, more centrist than Harris and appealing to swing voters in a way that Vance probably doesn’t.
Agree that a retiring Governor is a better choice than a sitting Senator, other things being equal.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
The political problem is mentioned in the one paragraph you snipped:
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
I am with Peston on the stupidity of making a God of the fiscal rules. As usually we are overreacting and overcorrecting for the reputational vandalism of Kwarteng's budget. The problem was not so much the unfunded spending, although that was quite significant, but the deliberate lack of process behind it and the wilful rubbishing of the OBR, and therefore the vibes and sense of panic that resulted. But as a consequence Reeves has now locked herself in to some really quite silly fiscal rules.
The first bit of silliness is the fact there is no meaningful distinction made between investment and current spending. The second, and very much related, is the need for debt as a portion of GDP to be falling in the 5th year of the forecast.
That second one is particularly pernicious. It means that governments can happily spend in year 1 and 2 on current priorities and crises, but have to make it up somewhere so do so in the latter part of the 5 years. Those latter years being, of course, where any kind of long term investment spending would sit. Hence we get things like the dismembering of HS2.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of doctors being trained to protect their income.
I have suspicions that ASLEF exert similar pressures.
If anyone needs some evidence to support the idea that people of great age can also be entirely capable and in control of their faculties, 99 year old Anita Lasker-Wallfisch just interviewed on Woman's Hour. Very much an anti bullshit person.
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
A genuine question.
The problem is she's sane and not a fully paid up MAGA fellow traveller for all she has belatedly endorsed Trump.
Remember, Trump doesn't want somebody to increase his popularity. He seems to genuinely believe he's enormously popular and will win easily. He wants a weak tool who will say or do whatever he orders. Vance fits that profile. Haley doesn't.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
It is a pretty sickening sight, they are so obsequious with it too. I almost expected one to be sweeping the floor in front of him and another waving an incence thurible, In a nutshell demonstrates the arrogant heirachism that lingers from the 19th century.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of doctors being trained to protect their income.
I have suspicions that ASLEF exert similar pressures.
Not in the past 10 years - ASLEF haven't needed to because the Government did the work for them...
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
I can't fault the staff at Queen's Med. Kind, compassionate and competent, from the cleaners to consultants. The majority were not white British. There had been something like 15 assaults on staff over the weekend and it was hellishly busy, but they just grafted away, getting the job done.
Incidentally, when Queens Medical Centre first opened in the late 1970s, it was massive (and became larger as more of the building work was completed). This led to an issue: there were not enough staff within the local area, especially at lower grades (porters, cleaners etc). Therefore the hospital had to send busses around various parts of Nottingham to collect staff. When I was a kid it was the largest hospital in Britain.
I don't know how long this went on for; but the transport was still quite a substantial cost in the 1980s.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
Ben Shapiro is the right-wing pundit, and Josh Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania. You’re not the only one confused.
The other one that got me was Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General. I always read his name as Bill Burr, someone who’s a lot funnier.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
And several people - including me - have muddled the two, and none of us have dementia!
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
The political problem is mentioned in the one paragraph you snipped:
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
I am with Peston on the stupidity of making a God of the fiscal rules. As usually we are overreacting and overcorrecting for the reputational vandalism of Kwarteng's budget. The problem was not so much the unfunded spending, although that was quite significant, but the deliberate lack of process behind it and the wilful rubbishing of the OBR, and therefore the vibes and sense of panic that resulted. But as a consequence Reeves has now locked herself in to some really quite silly fiscal rules.
The first bit of silliness is the fact there is no meaningful distinction made between investment and current spending. The second, and very much related, is the need for debt as a portion of GDP to be falling in the 5th year of the forecast.
That second one is particularly pernicious. It means that governments can happily spend in year 1 and 2 on current priorities and crises, but have to make it up somewhere so do so in the latter part of the 5 years. Those latter years being, of course, where any kind of long term investment spending would sit. Hence we get things like the dismembering of HS2.
Whilst that's true, it does take time to turn a tanker around. The question is how long before changes made now actually show up in the statistics.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
Indeed.
A realistic annual number might be 0.1% of the population with perhaps extra from specific obligations such as Ukraine or Hong Kong.
0.1% of the population is 66,970. 49,862 people were granted asylum in 2023, but it's 54,258 if you also include those coming through resettlement programmes. It seems to me that the current asylum arrangements are, under your criteria, entirely sustainable.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of doctors being trained to protect their income.
I have suspicions that ASLEF exert similar pressures.
Not in the past 10 years - ASLEF haven't needed to because the Government did the work for them...
The DfT; not the government. IMV that's one of the situation where the tail definitely wags the dog.
Only the Kerch Bridge left now. A couple of bombs there and Crimea is completely cut off, except via the Ukranian mainland.
Last Russian train ferry AIUI; there are still car and lorry ferries. But trains are by far the Russian's preferred transport mechanism away from the front line.
But in less-positive news, it is rumoured that the Russians have advanced 6km in the last week in one part of the front...
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
Indeed.
A realistic annual number might be 0.1% of the population with perhaps extra from specific obligations such as Ukraine or Hong Kong.
Which, curiously enough, is roughly the current rate;
In 2023, 67,337 applications for asylum were made in the UK, which related to 84,425 individuals (more than one applicant can be included in a single application)...
In 2022, there were around 13 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK. Across the EU27 there were 22 asylum applications for every 10,000 people. The UK was therefore below the average among EU countries for asylum applications per head of population, ranking 19th among EU27 countries plus the UK on this measure.
By setting a number you would reduce the fear that the current 'anyone who qualifies' policy would allow the country to be overwhelmed.
The fear that "the current 'anyone who qualifies' policy would allow the country to be overwhelmed" is entirely concocted by right-wing pundits. If we want to reduce the fear, maybe we should just set a number on the amount of articles right-wing pundits are allowed to write?
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
And several people - including me - have muddled the two, and none of us have dementia!
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Any analysis out there of Vance's relations with the TrumpSpawn?
That could well be the key long-term psychodrama, should he win. May even be an issue during the campaign.
Good point. I don't think trump is demented but I am relaxed as hell about people insinuating he is or shortly will be, and the denial and propping up and general insanity involved if he goes full retard in office will make Biden's departure look like Cincinnatus going back to his plough.
This is the Biden dividend. What the proppers failed to understand is that it's all relative innit. 78 is 3 years younger than 81. Take the 81 out of the picture and 78 is fecking old. It's older than Biden on election and look what happened there.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
An awful lot of council tax payers aren't doing so based on "their asset"...
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
And I suspect harder for Trump to attack. Partly because Trump is eight years older than he was in 2016 and not entirely there any more. Plus, we've all seen him in action. The cheeky spite that has a certain attraction has been replaced by glowering nastiness.
But also, Clinton H's vibe was to take herself seriously, and that made her vulnerable to Trump's trash talk. Harris might be advised to just laugh at him, and like the 1992 version of John Major, she has a lovely smile.
The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
The political problem is mentioned in the one paragraph you snipped:
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
I am with Peston on the stupidity of making a God of the fiscal rules. As usually we are overreacting and overcorrecting for the reputational vandalism of Kwarteng's budget. The problem was not so much the unfunded spending, although that was quite significant, but the deliberate lack of process behind it and the wilful rubbishing of the OBR, and therefore the vibes and sense of panic that resulted. But as a consequence Reeves has now locked herself in to some really quite silly fiscal rules.
The first bit of silliness is the fact there is no meaningful distinction made between investment and current spending. The second, and very much related, is the need for debt as a portion of GDP to be falling in the 5th year of the forecast.
That second one is particularly pernicious. It means that governments can happily spend in year 1 and 2 on current priorities and crises, but have to make it up somewhere so do so in the latter part of the 5 years. Those latter years being, of course, where any kind of long term investment spending would sit. Hence we get things like the dismembering of HS2.
Whilst that's true, it does take time to turn a tanker around. The question is how long before changes made now actually show up in the statistics.
A construction boom is just about the only thing a government can engineer that delivers rapid increases in GDP growth (but with risks of bust later). I do wonder if that's what's mainly behind their focus on planning reform, rather than affordability.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Given that you seem to be too stupid to realise that all children need an education I think it's safe to ignore the rest of your analysis.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Standard night out in Chatham.
It's a residential street opposite the Lines in Gillingham..
It's also the main route back from the barracks to the nearest shops / town / station so the ideal place to wait for a soldier on their way home.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
The telegraph says this
“Police investigating the attack arrested a 24-year-old on suspicion of attempted murder.
They have not ruled out terrorism as a motive, The Telegraph understands.”
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
Police say something slightly different.
Kent Police has not yet ruled out the attack being terror-related but cited mental health issues as a possible explanation.
In a statement released on Wednesday morning the force said a 24-year-old man remained in custody following the attack in Sally Port Gardens at around 5.55pm on Tuesday.
Richard Woolley, Acting Chief Superintendent of Kent Police, said: “This was an upsetting incident for all concerned and our best wishes go to the victim, his family and those who witnessed the incident.
“Residents will experience an increased police presence in the Gillingham area and I would like to reassure everyone that officers responded quickly to take a man into custody and we do not currently believe anyone else was involved.
“The motivation for the attack is currently unknown and forms part of our ongoing enquiries, although we are exploring the possibility that it may be mental health-related. We are also investigating any possible links between the location and the suspect.
---
The thing with these types of crimes is the people doing it are often mental, but it can be mental illness and terrorism inspired. They aren't mutually exclusive. People become radicalised by the fact they have a mental illness combined with the internet (and on occasion radical recruiters target such people) and convince themselves of certain things.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Given that you seem to be too stupid to realise that all children need an education I think it's safe to ignore the rest of your analysis.
“Dutch study: immigration costs state €17 billion per year”
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Costs for everything have gone up. Energy costs for unis. Staff pay rises (small but relevant). Equipment used to teach. To just try to hold the line will work up to a point.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
Drunken thuggery? Mental health? Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Why do you say that? Its not like we've not a previous incident of a soldier stabbed in a terror attack?
Quite
When was the last time a soldier in uniform was stabbed nearly to death because of a “family dispute”??
I mean, I’d say “lol” but that would be in bad taste
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Costs for everything have gone up. Energy costs for unis. Staff pay rises (small but relevant). Equipment used to teach. To just try to hold the line will work up to a point.
If the government are going to whack up fees you do it now, and take the hit.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
Police say something slightly different.
Kent Police has not yet ruled out the attack being terror-related but cited mental health issues as a possible explanation.
In a statement released on Wednesday morning the force said a 24-year-old man remained in custody following the attack in Sally Port Gardens at around 5.55pm on Tuesday.
Richard Woolley, Acting Chief Superintendent of Kent Police, said: “This was an upsetting incident for all concerned and our best wishes go to the victim, his family and those who witnessed the incident.
“Residents will experience an increased police presence in the Gillingham area and I would like to reassure everyone that officers responded quickly to take a man into custody and we do not currently believe anyone else was involved.
“The motivation for the attack is currently unknown and forms part of our ongoing enquiries, although we are exploring the possibility that it may be mental health-related. We are also investigating any possible links between the location and the suspect.
---
The thing with these types of crimes is the people doing it are often mental, but it can be mental illness and terrorism inspired. They aren't mutually exclusive. People become radicalised by the fact they have a mental illness combined with the internet (and on occasion radical recruiters target such people) and convince themselves of certain things.
Perhaps he thinks the food at Broadmoor will be better than the food at Belmarsh.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Costs for everything have gone up. Energy costs for unis. Staff pay rises (small but relevant). Equipment used to teach. To just try to hold the line will work up to a point.
If the government are going to whack up fees you do it now, and take the hit.
The whole higher education industry needs a serious review.
If today’s students are not paying off their loans and the government underwriters end up with the bill, then increasing fees while keeping everything else the same merely increases future liabilities.
Apologies if I have missed this, but is anything known about why the soldier was stabbed in Kent? No mention of terrorism, but that doesn't rule it out, surely?
BBC site.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
Police say something slightly different.
Kent Police has not yet ruled out the attack being terror-related but cited mental health issues as a possible explanation.
In a statement released on Wednesday morning the force said a 24-year-old man remained in custody following the attack in Sally Port Gardens at around 5.55pm on Tuesday.
Richard Woolley, Acting Chief Superintendent of Kent Police, said: “This was an upsetting incident for all concerned and our best wishes go to the victim, his family and those who witnessed the incident.
“Residents will experience an increased police presence in the Gillingham area and I would like to reassure everyone that officers responded quickly to take a man into custody and we do not currently believe anyone else was involved.
“The motivation for the attack is currently unknown and forms part of our ongoing enquiries, although we are exploring the possibility that it may be mental health-related. We are also investigating any possible links between the location and the suspect.
---
The thing with these types of crimes is the people doing it are often mental, but it can be mental illness and terrorism inspired. They aren't mutually exclusive. People become radicalised by the fact they have a mental illness combined with the internet (and on occasion radical recruiters target such people) and convince themselves of certain things.
It reminds me of the abuse of psychological diagnosis in the old USSR. They would put dissidents in loony bins. The dissidents would complain and say “but i’m totally sane”. The USSR would reply “but you know that criticising the state will put you in a loony bin so you must be mad to do that; so you are mad and we are correctly putting you in a loony bin”
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
... But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
You wouldn't expect Peston to be the guy who comes up with a sufficiently cunning plan to actually improve things, though, would you ?
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
Ben Shapiro is the right-wing pundit, and Josh Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania. You’re not the only one confused.
The other one that got me was Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General. I always read his name as Bill Burr, someone who’s a lot funnier.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Costs for everything have gone up. Energy costs for unis. Staff pay rises (small but relevant). Equipment used to teach. To just try to hold the line will work up to a point.
If the government are going to whack up fees you do it now, and take the hit.
When the fees came in and when they went up to 9K there was a lot of chatter about it deterring people. It didn't, in the main. Most potential students we spoke to had worked out that they were only going to be repaying after they reached a certain income threshold and that it was not treated as a normal loan.
Now I should stress this is a skewed selection - I was talking to students at Uni open days and interviews, so naturally not ones who had been put off. And its Bath, home to middle class students. But overall the numbers applying showed no real change.
What DID change was students attitude when that were here. They saw the relationship much more as paying customers, than as students. And that has consequences of its own.
They do at least have a plausible (maybe?) explanation for why the defence chose not to call their expert witness, something which seemed to be an inexplicable omission from the outside: the author suggests that they thought they had successfully undermined the prosecution case by referring to the judge’s remarks on Dr.Evans from another appeal case (which were excoriating - apparently implying that he is unfit to ever be called as an expert witness) during cross examination, and believing that that was sufficient to fatally undermine the expert witness evidence on which the prosecution relied.
It seems the jury was not convinced by the judge’s remarks in that appeal, or they did not accept that if the prosecution could not rely on their expert witness their case fell apart.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
... But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
You wouldn't expect Peston to be the guy who comes up with a sufficiently cunning plan to actually improve things, though, would you ?
The final paragraphs of the Unherd article (which I linked above) seems unpleasantly apposite for the UK
“The emerging picture is a complex one that includes both cultural and economic factors, but the overall conclusion remains the same: the current conditions under which migration to Europe takes place are not sustainable and will bring the welfare systems ever closer to collapsing. The idea promoted by Folkerts-Landau and others turned out to be far too optimistic, and what makes matters worse is that politicians still refuse to face the facts.
Placing one’s head in the sand is, unfortunately, not the same as actual policymaking. Europe has ignored these issues for too long, and voters will make their discontent heard at the voting booth.”
I suspect - with a horribly sinking feeling - that what we are witnessing in the UK is, as predicted, a welfare system starting to collapse
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
I always have a double take when I see Shapiro mentioned as he shares a surname with a barking right wing pundit.
Ben Shapiro is the right-wing pundit, and Josh Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania. You’re not the only one confused.
The other one that got me was Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General. I always read his name as Bill Burr, someone who’s a lot funnier.
Or Bill Maher.
I find it hard to keep remembering that Sidney Powell is Trump's corrupt and incompetent female lawyer whereas Lin Wood is his corrupt and incompetent male lawyer.
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
JD Vance is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention. He's the first to have a net negative favorable rating. https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1815905253793095967
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
They've also apparently filed with the FEC to try and stop Biden's funds being transferred to Harris.
The Dems have finally come to their senses, but an overweight, seventy eight year-old male can't be a life-insurer's dream. Vance promises more of the same, without the political nous, if Trump should kick the bucket.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
A genuine question.
Trump-Vance has already been given the nomination for GOP President and VP candidates at the convention with Haley endorsing it from the podium
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Stunned !!
Whereas of course had the Conservatives been re-elected everything would have been sunshine and roses with big tax cuts and spending increases. The Conservatives caused this mess and did the equivalent of sfa about it. That poor can has had more kicks than a 1970s midfielder.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
Immigration has to stop, now. Virtually all of it
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
Some Uni's are in a rather bad state, mine is rather more rosy (nice financial statement last week from the departing VC). Ultimately the fees needs to go up a bit. If not, there will be consequences.
I read a piece the other day that said if fees had kept up with inflation they should be about £12k a year. Even "cheap" degrees are costing £9k+ a year now to run, let alone STEM.
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
Costs for everything have gone up. Energy costs for unis. Staff pay rises (small but relevant). Equipment used to teach. To just try to hold the line will work up to a point.
If the government are going to whack up fees you do it now, and take the hit.
The whole higher education industry needs a serious review.
If today’s students are not paying off their loans and the government underwriters end up with the bill, then increasing fees while keeping everything else the same merely increases future liabilities.
The problem is that a bit like alternative to BBC licence fee, the alternatives are all unpalatable to one large group or other.
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
There is another option that mitigates the tax rises somewhat which is addressing structural inefficiencies in our economy and institutions. But I am not entirely convinced that anyone has what it takes to really address these, and anyway, it’s not a short term fix.
This is where we are going to see if the ming vase strategy finally comes unstuck. A tax on pensions? Very unpopular and disincentivises pension savings. Rises in income tax/VAT etc. Ruled out at the election. CGT? Raids on ISA limits? How much will that effectively raise. Etc, etc.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
HYUFD, how does what Trump says tell us anything about reality? He has very little connection to the truth.
Given Israel's repeated violations of international law, perhaps a snub or two from their main ally might prove a useful corrective?
Trump won in the past when most saw him as not in with a chance. Those who didn't want him but also weren't keen on Hillary Clinton felt they could vote Green or Libertarian without risk. If Trump is viewed as more likely to win this time, those same voters are likely to be more careful.
One thing that I think would help the Democrats with swing voters is for Harris to present as less 'woke' and more as a sort of tough-on-crime, hard-as-nails Amanda Waller-type. She was rather conviction-happy as Attorney General of California so this is probably more in line with her real persona.
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
I'm morbidly fascinated by the question: do the people actually get shoved out of high windows or is that just the official line (minus the 'shoved' bit) for the demise, which actually happens in unknown circumstances. Or does it vary?
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
At this point the repeated use of a ridiculously obvious “fake window accident” is surely a deliberate technique to terrify internal critics
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
The West is not the intended recipient of these messages.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
JD Vance is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention. He's the first to have a net negative favorable rating. https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1815905253793095967
Tbf anyone Trump picks will have negative favoribility rating.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
I agree that people living in complete shit holes would jump at the chance to live a better life, but sadly I don’t think there’s any way to prevent the people of Doncaster moving where they like in the UK.
House prices? The thought that Rotherham and Barnsley are probably worse?
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Like a Leon (or Ian) travel-photo essay, but from a staycation with a view to the Caster Donc Sell?
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
At this point the repeated use of a ridiculously obvious “fake window accident” is surely a deliberate technique to terrify internal critics
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
Probably quite effective
It also tells us to watch the Russian economy. Why are they worried?
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
HYUFD, how does what Trump says tell us anything about reality? He has very little connection to the truth.
Given Israel's repeated violations of international law, perhaps a snub or two from their main ally might prove a useful corrective?
It won't go down well with Jewish voters, even if not all are fans of Bibi they won't like her snubbing the address of the Israeli PM to Congress. Hence even more reason for Harris to pick Shapiro as he is Jewish and could win some of them back
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died. "Injuries sustained were not compatible with life." Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
The FSB really are an unimaginative bunch of scum.
The message is “we will kill you if you criticise our power & there’s nothing you can do about it”. Their transparent denials just underline the point that they believe themselves to be untouchable.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Centrist? Trump has already called her radical left and said that even Biden was more mainstream.
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
She was attacked by the left when she was a prosecutor. For being too harsh
Harris may not be as radical left as AOC or Sanders yes but she will still be the most left liberal presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated since Dukakis, indeed arguably since McGovern
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
Yes - that's fair.
However it's a highly abusive article, without knowing the circumstances of the people she is abusing. Having read all 2300 words, I think she's well out of order.
She even dismissed "patients treated in order of acuity" (FFS):
"You’ll be treated in order of acuity,” she said. Acuity? Which tier of useless NHS management came up with that buzzword to fob off the folk they are paid to care for?"
I'm happy to accept her views of her personal experience. But utterly clueless about the rest.
Instructions on french bins tell you to trier your rubbish (glass tins non recyclable). So triage turns out to be one of those french words which mean what we think.
Was recently drawn up short by a bit of naval history, RN Nelson era. In a battle, the surgeon treated the wounded in the strict order in which they arrived in the cockpit. No triage at all. Bit shit if you arrived just after a complex amputation. Or Vice-Admiral Nelson.
Triage in the medical context is indeed a French word. Not entirely surprisingly it was down to Larrey the innovatory military medic in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars (I suspect ambulance also stems from the same era, he certainly did a lot for specialist medical transport).
I wouldn't necessarily claim that A&E is a war zone, but
"Triage is defined as the prioritization of patient care based on illness/injury, severity, prognosis, and resource availability, in case of a mass casualty incident (MCI) or an exceptional medical context. The purposes of triage are to identify patients needing immediate resuscitation, to assign patients to a predesigned patient care area, thereby prioritizing their care and to initiate diagnostic/therapeutic measures as appropriate. In a combat setting, medical resources are restricted and triage is challenging."
There is another option that mitigates the tax rises somewhat which is addressing structural inefficiencies in our economy and institutions. But I am not entirely convinced that anyone has what it takes to really address these, and anyway, it’s not a short term fix.
This is where we are going to see if the ming vase strategy finally comes unstuck. A tax on pensions? Very unpopular and disincentivises pension savings. Rises in income tax/VAT etc. Ruled out at the election. CGT? Raids on ISA limits? How much will that effectively raise. Etc, etc.
At this point the Labour government has no choice: it is obliged to do something that will make it hugely unpopular with a lot of people. Tax rises. Wealth tax. Land tax. Pension raids. There are no painless options only very painful ones, and Starmer’s Honeymoon will be over, very early. This is not 1997
This stuff is certain. What is scarily uncertain is whether Labour can fix the debt and deficit crisis without crushing the economy and scaring off wealth and investors. I am not at all sure they can
The thing I hadn't really spotted about Harris before is that she's a very smiley person. Big contrast to snarly, pouty Trump.
She is an intense relief after the malevolent Trump and the sad and crazy Biden
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Interesting that Conservative commentators are debating about attacking her from the left, or excessively focussing on her personal life. They want Trump to stick to attacking her from the right on policy, and let a few of the commentators do the negative campaigning.
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
They are not 'crowning' a replacement. The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
It's not a matter of the rules but the lack of a contest is far from ideal. Surely you can see that?
Changing the nominee this late is the day is not ideal. Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Yes no VP candidate has delivered the winning state for the Presidential candidate since LBJ but Shapiro could do so for Harris if she turns out black voters in Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia too.
Call me a ridiculous old fuddy duddy but I cannot for the life of me understand why certain sporting events have started before the opening ceremony. If you need longer than 17 days (Friday 26th July to Sunday 11th of August) no-one is going to say you can't, surely?
Comments
There is one big difference between her and Osborne though. He was clear from the outset that his response would be austerity, or deep cuts in public services. He had a plan. In retrospect even his own Tory colleagues wish he hadn’t been quite as zealous as he was in pursuing that austerity plan. But it was real, and simple to communicate.
"from the outset" in this case meaning before the general election.
How about Nicky Haley as VP candidate? Might encourage some independents.
A genuine question.
That could well be the key long-term psychodrama, should he win. May even be an issue during the campaign.
Agree that a retiring Governor is a better choice than a sitting Senator, other things being equal.
The first bit of silliness is the fact there is no meaningful distinction made between investment and current spending. The second, and very much related, is the need for debt as a portion of GDP to be falling in the 5th year of the forecast.
That second one is particularly pernicious. It means that governments can happily spend in year 1 and 2 on current priorities and crises, but have to make it up somewhere so do so in the latter part of the 5 years. Those latter years being, of course, where any kind of long term investment spending would sit. Hence we get things like the dismembering of HS2.
Remember, Trump doesn't want somebody to increase his popularity. He seems to genuinely believe he's enormously popular and will win easily. He wants a weak tool who will say or do whatever he orders. Vance fits that profile. Haley doesn't.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/24/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news13/
Only the Kerch Bridge left now. A couple of bombs there and Crimea is completely cut off, except via the Ukranian mainland.
I don't know how long this went on for; but the transport was still quite a substantial cost in the 1980s.
The other one that got me was Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General. I always read his name as Bill Burr, someone who’s a lot funnier.
Okay, how to move forward? Assuming the "hole" really is £50 billion, it's not that bad when you consider we pay double that on debt interest payments thanks to previous inane borrowing but I accept it may be the tip of the financial iceberg (or moneyberg if you prefer).
Taxes will have to rise and I think there's more appetite (or acceptance) of that than is generally realised. "Fairness", which shot down Truss's plans, is still the game in town and lower income earners will want to see those with more getting more of the pain - I'm a fan of Land Value Taxation whose time has surely come.
Council Tax is going to be awkward but there has to be a recognition if you are still paying based on the value of your property in 1991 there's a fair chance your asset has multiplied in value quite a bit. We also need more bands so we can cover the extending range in house values up to £10 million.
Osborne, from memory, went with £5 of spending cuts and £1 from tax rises - Reeves might have to do something different.
The funding of Social Care remains one of the big issues around local Government finance.
But in less-positive news, it is rumoured that the Russians have advanced 6km in the last week in one part of the front...
I think that might be enough to make her POTUS. Also she is centrist. Not very Woke at all. She will appeal for all these reasons to swing voters
Data from Denmark and Holland show that most migrants end up a massive net drain on the exchequer. Yes you may get a nurse but her kids will need an education, which we pay for, and then she brings her mum who needs medication - and so on
Immigration has been a Ponzi scheme for many western countries and it’s all about to collapse. The university sector faces even greater problems
Britain is probably one of the worst placed countries in this respect. I’ve never been so pessimistic for my country. I’m increasingly unsure the UK can survive as we know it, barring some economic miracle (which might happen)
This is the Biden dividend. What the proppers failed to understand is that it's all relative innit. 78 is 3 years younger than 81. Take the 81 out of the picture and 78 is fecking old. It's older than Biden on election and look what happened there.
https://x.com/mattwalshblog/status/1815786329713635429
What they are going big on at the moment, is the fact that they’re attacking Trump as being a threat to democracy, while ignoring democracy in their own party by seeking to crown a replacement candidate without reference to their own voters.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/24/soldier-stabbed-army-barracks-kent/
But also, Clinton H's vibe was to take herself seriously, and that made her vulnerable to Trump's trash talk. Harris might be advised to just laugh at him, and like the 1992 version of John Major, she has a lovely smile.
The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked.
'The Home Office said the stabbing is not being treated as terror-related, and is believed to be the result of a mental health episode.'
Mental health?
Family dispute?
All are orders of magnitude more likely than terrorism.
Given the usual intense desire to rule out terrorism, that phrase usually means - 90% chance? - that it is terrorism.
Probably pro-Palestinian motivation?
No idea what the government will do about it. More general taxation into the system? Because putting up fees, even if it is all loan that just gets kicked into the long grass, is about as popular as fuel tax increases with the public.
It's also the main route back from the barracks to the nearest shops / town / station so the ideal place to wait for a soldier on their way home.
“Police investigating the attack arrested a 24-year-old on suspicion of attempted murder.
They have not ruled out terrorism as a motive, The Telegraph understands.”
Conflicting reports
Kent Police has not yet ruled out the attack being terror-related but cited mental health issues as a possible explanation.
In a statement released on Wednesday morning the force said a 24-year-old man remained in custody following the attack in Sally Port Gardens at around 5.55pm on Tuesday.
Richard Woolley, Acting Chief Superintendent of Kent Police, said: “This was an upsetting incident for all concerned and our best wishes go to the victim, his family and those who witnessed the incident.
“Residents will experience an increased police presence in the Gillingham area and I would like to reassure everyone that officers responded quickly to take a man into custody and we do not currently believe anyone else was involved.
“The motivation for the attack is currently unknown and forms part of our ongoing enquiries, although we are exploring the possibility that it may be mental health-related. We are also investigating any possible links between the location and the suspect.
---
The thing with these types of crimes is the people doing it are often mental, but it can be mental illness and terrorism inspired. They aren't mutually exclusive. People become radicalised by the fact they have a mental illness combined with the internet (and on occasion radical recruiters target such people) and convince themselves of certain things.
“Dutch study: immigration costs state €17 billion per year”
https://unherd.com/newsroom/dutch-study-immigration-costs-state-e17-billion-per-year/
When was the last time a soldier in uniform was stabbed nearly to death because of a “family dispute”??
I mean, I’d say “lol” but that would be in bad taste
If today’s students are not paying off their loans and the government underwriters end up with the bill, then increasing fees while keeping everything else the same merely increases future liabilities.
Now I should stress this is a skewed selection - I was talking to students at Uni open days and interviews, so naturally not ones who had been put off. And its Bath, home to middle class students. But overall the numbers applying showed no real change.
What DID change was students attitude when that were here. They saw the relationship much more as paying customers, than as students. And that has consequences of its own.
The other is the Vice President.
They do at least have a plausible (maybe?) explanation for why the defence chose not to call their expert witness, something which seemed to be an inexplicable omission from the outside: the author suggests that they thought they had successfully undermined the prosecution case by referring to the judge’s remarks on Dr.Evans from another appeal case (which were excoriating - apparently implying that he is unfit to ever be called as an expert witness) during cross examination, and believing that that was sufficient to fatally undermine the expert witness evidence on which the prosecution relied.
It seems the jury was not convinced by the judge’s remarks in that appeal, or they did not accept that if the prosecution could not rely on their expert witness their case fell apart.
“The emerging picture is a complex one that includes both cultural and economic factors, but the overall conclusion remains the same: the current conditions under which migration to Europe takes place are not sustainable and will bring the welfare systems ever closer to collapsing. The idea promoted by Folkerts-Landau and others turned out to be far too optimistic, and what makes matters worse is that politicians still refuse to face the facts.
Placing one’s head in the sand is, unfortunately, not the same as actual policymaking. Europe has ignored these issues for too long, and voters will make their discontent heard at the voting booth.”
I suspect - with a horribly sinking feeling - that what we are witnessing in the UK is, as predicted, a welfare system starting to collapse
The rules are quite clear; it's just that no one else is prepared to stand against her.
The GOP are just shit stirring, while standing in a midden.
Doncaster isn't exactly a leafy part of Surrey but it isn't all shit hole. Perhaps I need a photo series...
Renowned economist Valentina Bondarenko fell out of her window in Moscow and died.
"Injuries sustained were not compatible with life."
Her career focused on long-term socio-economic forecasting and modeling in Russia.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1815895935039545576
Harris has now refused to attend PM Netanyahu's address to Congress in a snub to Israel and 'she was rated by the non-partisan congressional scorekeeper GovTrack as one of the most left-wing among dozens of Democratic senators during her tenure.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
JD Vance is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention. He's the first to have a net negative favorable rating.
https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1815905253793095967
There is another option that mitigates the tax rises somewhat which is addressing structural inefficiencies in our economy and institutions. But I am not entirely convinced that anyone has what it takes to really address these, and anyway, it’s not a short term fix.
This is where we are going to see if the ming vase strategy finally comes unstuck. A tax on pensions? Very unpopular and disincentivises pension savings. Rises in income tax/VAT etc. Ruled out at the election. CGT? Raids on ISA limits? How much will that effectively raise. Etc, etc.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/prosecutor-harris-mixed-criminal-justice-reform-with-tough-on-crime-approach-2024-07-23/
Given Israel's repeated violations of international law, perhaps a snub or two from their main ally might prove a useful corrective?
One thing that I think would help the Democrats with swing voters is for Harris to present as less 'woke' and more as a sort of tough-on-crime, hard-as-nails Amanda Waller-type. She was rather conviction-happy as Attorney General of California so this is probably more in line with her real persona.
It is so brazen it says “we don’t care that it looks bad, we can do exactly what we like, and no one can stop us”
Probably quite effective
Trump currently leads Harris 43.4% to 40.2% with Kennedy on 7.8% and Stein on 1.6% and West on 1.2% in the RCP poll average. Trump also leads Harris 47.5% to 45.9% in a 2 way contest
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris-vs-kennedy-vs-stein-vs-west
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris
Who is not Israel.
This is how the Russian state operates.
My suspicion is that he takes more from Harris than he would have taken from Biden.
Triage in the medical context is indeed a French word. Not entirely surprisingly it was down to Larrey the innovatory military medic in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars (I suspect ambulance also stems from the same era, he certainly did a lot for specialist medical transport).
I wouldn't necessarily claim that A&E is a war zone, but
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352556816300832
"Triage is defined as the prioritization of patient care based on illness/injury, severity, prognosis, and resource availability, in case of a mass casualty incident (MCI) or an exceptional medical context. The purposes of triage are to identify patients needing immediate resuscitation, to assign patients to a predesigned patient care area, thereby prioritizing their care and to initiate diagnostic/therapeutic measures as appropriate. In a combat setting, medical resources are restricted and triage is challenging."
Honeymoon will be over, very early. This is not 1997
This stuff is certain. What is scarily uncertain is whether Labour can fix the debt and deficit crisis without crushing the economy and scaring off wealth and investors. I am not at all sure they can
Replacing him with the VP was going to be pretty well the only way it worked.
In the context of $80m plus in small donations in the 24hrs after Harris declared, how do you manufacture a contest ?
He offers the same prospectus without the craziness and superannuation.