Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
Didn't PBers of that ilk support the angle grinding of ULEZ cameras, or at least nod sagely and say it's all the fault of that nasty Labour?
Tory 2024 voters are not the ones that matter: favourability among all voters *who have an opinion*: Tom Tugendhat -31 James Cleverly -48 Robert Jenrick -54 Kemi Badenoch -57 Mel Stride -61 Priti Patel -62
Most of the public doesn't want to hear from the Tories for a number of years.
Well, tough. You're bloody well going to, and you need to.
This government is already doing disastrous things and it needs to be vigorously opposed.
Casino is turning up the volume...
Well, beware hubris. What seems laughable now can change very quickly.
Look at British politics over the last 7 years: I can think of at least two Tory collapses, and two Labour ones, a Lib Dem boomlet and a huge Brexit Party flash in the pan. On top we just had a very weird GE.
There are 5 years until the next general election.
What hubris ? I didn't vote either for your lot, or the current government.
Fair enough, I thought you were taking the piss.
Only in a friendly manner.
I don't disagree with you that government needs a coherent opposition - and I note you welcomed the re admission of Gauke. So you're on board what at least part of what's necessary to that.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.
Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
The problem is too many now have houses and not enough have a house. Something has to change.
So build more houses.
Raiding those who've already got them is just going to royally fuck people off.
Sort of hope Labour do it: we'll be rid of them much sooner.
You're right but unfortunately today those who have houses object to more being built.
A property tax replacing Council Tax and more importantly Stamp Duty would be completely the right thing to do and ensure that those who are mobile or move for work aren't punished versus those who are immobile or don't work, as happens today.
And have the side-bonus of meaning if property prices surge that costs everyone money, not just those who need to pay, and if prices fall then everyone gets a tax cut.
Pray tell what the economic rationale is for taxing inflation without indexation in the way you describe?
There are usually two reasons for a tax - as a revenue generator, and as a disincentive to whatever you're taxing...
Indeed, which is why stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with a consistent property tax that applies to all properties.
Stamp duty is a tax only on mobility. We should not be discouraging mobility.
Property taxes is a tax on property price rises. We should be discouraging that.
Especially if the tax is levied on undeveloped land value, then it would encourage more development and growth and everyone claims to want growth - but many seem to not really want it.
This is absolutely spot on.
The effect of stamp duty is to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource.
We want people to be in the right sized home for them. The best way to do that is to make the process of moving between homes as cheap as possible. Right now, we have a situation where we have housing shortages, but a record number of empty bedrooms, due to baby boomers (like OGH) essentially being discouraged from trading down, because it costs so much to do so.
I would abolish stamp duty entirely, and I would have a 0.5% annual property value tax for occupied homes, and a 2.5% one for unoccupied ones. This would work to encourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource.
Just to add, I would have self reporting of property values, but the government/council can buy anyone's home at a 50% premium to reported value. Which would discourage underreporting.
The purchase figures do appear in the contracts anyway, which go to the publicly open property registry (at least they have done in Scotland for 250++ years). But there is always the possibility of collusion.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
Didn't PBers of that ilk support the angle grinding of ULEZ cameras, or at least nod sagely and say it's all the fault of that nasty Labour?
I'm sure they were only asking questions.
The cameras? Yes, I suppose so - all that AI stuff much perplexing PB at about the same time.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.
To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him. & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
The point is, though, that this is clearly an area where sensible people can debate what is right and what is wrong.
And then there's JK Rowling.
Sadly, like the immigration debate, nearly all conversations come pre-poisoned by the lunatics.
And often by foreigners, as Mark Steel is finding today on racial politics, and as previously some stumbled innocently into US-defined antisemitic tropes, such as criticising George Soros or taking a toy octopus onto University Challenge.
Whenever I see a JK Rowling post on Twitter, I'm reminded of a line from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Dudley Dursley says
"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?"
It's a fundamental rule of the internet that all people who have made useful and cogent points at some stage will inevitably devolve into repeating the same old over the top comments, provoked by increasingly less relevant catalysts, until they just parrot random things in response to any stimuli whatsoever.
We're all on that journey, and hoping to still be on the side that is at least occasionally apposite.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.
Harris played a small part in that: "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."
Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.
And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office." (pp. 215-216)
The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.
From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.
(There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)
Let's see what her policy is going to be on nuclear to understand what her policy is on nuclear.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
It's certainly an amusing argument. It's dressed up as something grander but it seems to boil down to it being unfair that the good people (including him) might get taxed like the bad people.
This rubbing the Right's nose in diversity is going well
Some pissed up, coked up thugs doing what they have been doing for decades is just a long-established aspect of indigenous British culture reasserting itself once more, surely.
There certainly is some of that, but from the TV pictures I have seen the far right types dont have the numbers that are filling the screen. They have nowhere near that many people
It's all very recognisable - the alpha leaders and their slightly less alpha followers, drinking and snorting and then getting violent: mods and rockers; punks and skins; football hooliganism etc etc.
Tommy Robinson was a leading light in the MIGS, Luton towns so-called "firm", the EDL was born from soccer hooligans.
Many people who go to these things are not bothered with politics and labels of right or left. They just like a piss up and a ruck and in having a row with Coppers they are simply reliving the time before football hooliganism died off due to everyone being loved up on Acid during the Acid house time.
And football grounds being festooned with CCTV cameras so they couldn't get away with it if they evaded capture in the act.
Which is why they started meeting up in town centres, industrial estates and parks.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.
To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him. & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.
And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
It is, as others have said, the classic example of ”tax those other people, but I don’t deserve to be taxed.”
Frank Skinner’s children obviously need a leg up but no one else’s do.
“I’m hard working and working class”
- Bloke standing by giant fireplace in mansion that has multiple postcodes
The corollary of his argument is that if you’re posh but poor you should be subject to a supertax. Special surcharge for anyone who frittered away the family silver.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
Because the topic is controversial, I should add that Obama's two permanent Energy Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, agree with Shellenberger (and me) that we should expand nuclear power in the US.
As far as I know, Chu and Moniz are both considered competent scientists,
This rubbing the Right's nose in diversity is going well
Some pissed up, coked up thugs doing what they have been doing for decades is just a long-established aspect of indigenous British culture reasserting itself once more, surely.
There certainly is some of that, but from the TV pictures I have seen the far right types dont have the numbers that are filling the screen. They have nowhere near that many people
It's all very recognisable - the alpha leaders and their slightly less alpha followers, drinking and snorting and then getting violent: mods and rockers; punks and skins; football hooliganism etc etc.
Tommy Robinson was a leading light in the MIGS, Luton towns so-called "firm", the EDL was born from soccer hooligans.
Many people who go to these things are not bothered with politics and labels of right or left. They just like a piss up and a ruck and in having a row with Coppers they are simply reliving the time before football hooliganism died off due to everyone being loved up on Acid during the Acid house time.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
Everyone always thinks .... someone else should pay! That someone else is you.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.
To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him. & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.
And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
That does feel very unfortunate, and it is the very rare outliers who are where the complexities come in when sports naturally try to mark out firm dividing lines, whereas most conversations on the topic relate to people beyond that range, and whilst there are some synergies of arguments to be had the case for inclusion or exclusion is not the same but get lumped together, crowding out the details of those rarer individuals.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
'Black Women are Manly' is a racist trope in the States.
Yes, and Mark Steel is British, so he probably didn't realise that he'd made a bad choice.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
Doing iHT planning may be a part of it - he's 67 with a 12 year old child.
Yes, good numbers for Cleverly and Tugendhat with Tory voters and not bad for Jenrick either.
Poor for Stride and very bad for Patel though given these were voters who still voted Tory even on 4th July
Amongst all voters Tugendhat does best net, followed by Stride and Jenrick. Patel does worst net but has the highest favourable numbers.
% of Britons with a favourable/unfavourable view of...
Priti Patel: ✅16% / ❌67% James Cleverly: ✅15% / ❌41% Tom Tugendhat: ✅13% / ❌24% Kemi Badenoch: ✅11% / ❌37% Robert Jenrick: ✅8% / ❌27% Mel Stride: ✅4% / ❌18% https://x.com/YouGov/status/1819299524847804694
That’s a name recognition contest. Almost no-one among the general public has heard of any of them bar Patel and Badenoch.
I also think people might be good, or bad, or invisible, even in relatively prominent roles, but when they move to a new position they can transform things quickly, especially if it is as leader and they are setting the direction.
It's probably not the case, but Patel could transform many of those unfavourables as Patel the minister would be a very different person, perhaps, from Patel the Leader.
Edit: Also, I forget who Stride is about 5 minutes after seeing his name, it happens every time. Maybe he could harness that forgetability somehow.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Twitter and Faceook are beyond saving, lost to the low information userbase.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.
Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
Could be, though it would be more subtly put than most comedians aim for, so well done if so.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
Because the topic is controversial, I should add that Obama's two permanent Energy Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, agree with Shellenberger (and me) that we should expand nuclear power in the US.
As far as I know, Chu and Moniz are both considered competent scientists,
Is it particularly controversial ? (Other than the actual economics of nuclear power, which are much contested.)
The biggest arguments over it in the UK are about why we take so long to make decisions, and why we're so bad at getting stuff built at a reasonable price.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
I don’t think he is.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
I don’t think he is.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
Or indeed just end the base cost step up on inheritance which currently applies.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
Because the topic is controversial, I should add that Obama's two permanent Energy Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, agree with Shellenberger (and me) that we should expand nuclear power in the US.
As far as I know, Chu and Moniz are both considered competent scientists,
Is it particularly controversial ? (Other than the actual economics of nuclear power, which are much contested.)
The biggest arguments over it in the UK are about why we take so long to make decisions, and why we're so bad at getting stuff built at a reasonable price.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.
Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
Cricket is a sport where men and women can play against each other without it being too one-sided. For example this is the England women's team playing against the Royal Air Force senior team in 2012.
Hm - probably not at elite level though. Women bowl significantly less fast and hit significantly less hard. Finger in the air, but I'd say Lancashire Second XI would comfortably beat the women's England team.
OTOH, at a social level, absolutely, and no-one's going to be put at any risk in the way that they would in other sports. I reckon if I cloned myself 10 times and my 12 year old daughter 10 times and had a dads vs daughters match it would be pretty close, whereas the dads team would still win in more physical sports like football.
Youngest's cricket club has two ladies teams who play on Sunday. The Men's sides, who play Saturday, each have two or three females at Second to Fourth XI levels.
That’s very cool. I’d never have put cricket up there with long-distance running, as an event in which high-level women can compete with club-level men.
Because the topic is controversial, I should add that Obama's two permanent Energy Secretaries, Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, agree with Shellenberger (and me) that we should expand nuclear power in the US.
As far as I know, Chu and Moniz are both considered competent scientists,
Is it particularly controversial ? (Other than the actual economics of nuclear power, which are much contested.)
The biggest arguments over it in the UK are about why we take so long to make decisions, and why we're so bad at getting stuff built at a reasonable price.
I don't think we argue about that. We all know why it is.
That's not the Guardian: it's Ian McMillan saying that.
Note, lower down: ...The row comes as grammarians prepare for International Apostrophe Day on 15 August, an event created by the former Guardian journalist David Marsh...
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
I don’t think he is.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
That is the other tax imperative - Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.
Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
Why hasn’t he hired a decent tax adviser?
He probably has - who has explained all the estate planning his should do.
And massively offended him by suggesting that his millions are the same as Rees-Mogg millions.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
The person competing yesterday was more of a Caster Semanya, but they had already been disqualified from the boxing world championships for failing to meet the biological standard to compete in the women’s events.
They have always been seen as female culturally and legally. A really difficult edge case, as opposed to a transgender who is a woman because they say they are a woman, but who was always a boy as a child.
That the actual fight looked like Mike Tyson vs Marvis Frazier really didn’t help.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
I don’t think he is.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
That is the other tax imperative - Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
Indeed. IHT is a perfect example of a tax where the headline rate is too high and the amount collected too low, and which would benefit hugely from simplification and streamlining.
My first base cost example was tongue in cheek, but there is a strong argument to overhaul the way IHT and CGT interact on succession.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
The person competing yesterday was more of a Caster Semanya, but they had already been disqualified from the boxing world championships for failing to meet the biological standard to compete in the women’s events.
They have always been seen as female culturally and legally. A really difficult edge case, as opposed to a transgender who is a woman because they say they are a woman, but who was always a boy as a child.
That the actual fight looked like Mike Tyson vs Marvis Frazier really didn’t help.
And she represents a conservative Muslim country where gender transitioning is illegal.
The next fight will be interesting. Her opponent has promised to fight to victory.
Cricket is a sport where men and women can play against each other without it being too one-sided. For example this is the England women's team playing against the Royal Air Force senior team in 2012.
Hm - probably not at elite level though. Women bowl significantly less fast and hit significantly less hard. Finger in the air, but I'd say Lancashire Second XI would comfortably beat the women's England team.
OTOH, at a social level, absolutely, and no-one's going to be put at any risk in the way that they would in other sports. I reckon if I cloned myself 10 times and my 12 year old daughter 10 times and had a dads vs daughters match it would be pretty close, whereas the dads team would still win in more physical sports like football.
Youngest's cricket club has two ladies teams who play on Sunday. The Men's sides, who play Saturday, each have two or three females at Second to Fourth XI levels.
That’s very cool. I’d never have put cricket up there with long-distance running, as an event in which high-level women can compete with club-level men.
To link together two different discussions, the quidditch (quadball) teams I see playing in the park near me are mixed sex.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
The person competing yesterday was more of a Caster Semanya, but they had already been disqualified from the boxing world championships for failing to meet the biological standard to compete in the women’s events.
They have always been seen as female culturally and legally. A really difficult edge case, as opposed to a transgender who is a woman because they say they are a woman, but who was always a boy as a child.
That the actual fight looked like Mike Tyson vs Marvis Frazier really didn’t help.
The 9 women who beat Khelif in previous bouts must have been superhuman. Or were they really men?!!
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.
On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.
Harris played a small part in that: "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."
Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.
And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office." (pp. 215-216)
The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.
From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.
(There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)
Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
I don’t think he is.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
That is the other tax imperative - Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
Indeed. IHT is a perfect example of a tax where the headline rate is too high and the amount collected too low, and which would benefit hugely from simplification and streamlining.
My first base cost example was tongue in cheek, but there is a strong argument to overhaul the way IHT and CGT interact on succession.
Labour could usefully reform CGT on those principles; they could certainly do with the extra revenue. Though sadly their instincts are likely to mitigate against cutting the headline rate.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.
How did I miss this TV drama from earlier this year?
"The Way is a three-part British television series, created by James Graham, Michael Sheen and Adam Curtis, with Sheen directing from a Graham script. The series is set in the 2020s and follows the Driscoll family as they attempt to flee the United Kingdom, which has descended into anti-Welsh civil conflict following riots in Port Talbot. The series received mixed reviews from critics."
How did I miss this TV drama from earlier this year?
"The Way is a three-part British television series, created by James Graham, Michael Sheen and Adam Curtis, with Sheen directing from a Graham script. The series is set in the 2020s and follows the Driscoll family as they attempt to flee the United Kingdom, which has descended into anti-Welsh civil conflict following riots in Port Talbot. The series received mixed reviews from critics."
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.
To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him. & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.
And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
Whilst that's a bit sad for them, surely it's only a different application of the genetic lottery which means I (like 99.99% of the planet's population) have little chance of competing at the Olympics in anything. Which is a bit sad for me, but I'm realistic enough not to wander around shouting "that's not fair" about it.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.
To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him. & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.
And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
One thing that’s been suggested is to have a Paralympic category for those of ambiguous gender, which might work from a competition point of view, if not from a social media point of view.
No-one generally points and jeers or laughs at the Paralympics.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Sorry I don't think this is a labour or tory issue or even a lib dem issues....its the civil service that pushes tracking over and over....they were behind blairs id cards plans for instance....civil servants in the home office are cupids and no matter the colour of governement they push their orwellian panoptican schemes
"Net support for nuclear energy is up 21 points since summer 2021
New YouGov tracker data reveals that Britons are increasingly supportive of nuclear energy, even though perceptions of its safety remain unchanged.
From late 2019 to summer 2021, Britons were divided on using nuclear power. Around four in ten over that time period supported doing so, while a similar number opposed it.
Since then, support has been on the rise. Almost half (48%) of Britons now back the use of nuclear energy, compared to 31% who are opposed."
The number of Labour voters with a favourable opinion of Keir Starmer has fallen 8pts since the general election - meanwhile his popularity has increased 7pts among Tory voters
Blair by contrast had a massively high net favourable rating in early August 1997
Starmer realises the clock is ticking though and him and Reeves are going to use political capital to get things done more quickly than Blair did.
They will get things done that fit with their ideology; it's already becoming clear they kept their powder dry during the campaign.
I don't think they have the political capital to do it. Just seat count.
Not inconceivable this is a one-term government.
You are, unfortunately, assuming that the British people will dislike an authoritarian government. I'm not sure that they will, and I am sure that some will enthusiastically approve of it
On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.
Harris played a small part in that: "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."
Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.
And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office." (pp. 215-216)
The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.
From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.
(There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)
Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.
President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.
This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.
They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?
One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
That’s rather close to whataboutry
The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.
The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.
As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
When has it worked?
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.
Five Just Stop Oil activists who conspired to cause gridlock on the M25 have been jailed by a judge, who told them it was easy to be dismissive when it was “not your life that’s being disrupted”.
George Simonson and Theresa Higginson were each sentenced to two years, Paul Bell was sentenced to 22 months, and Gaie Delap and Paul Sousek were sentenced to 20 months for their part in the protests in November 2022.
A sixth defendant, Daniel Johnson, was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.
The five, aged 24 to 77, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance after they caused mass disruption by climbing gantries on the M25 on November 9, 2022.
Sentencing the activists at Basildon crown court, Judge Shane Collery KC said: “It’s easy to be blasé and dismissive when it’s not your life that’s being disrupted. He added: “Many people suffered hours of delay [and] your actions were disproportionate to your aims.”
"Net support for nuclear energy is up 21 points since summer 2021
New YouGov tracker data reveals that Britons are increasingly supportive of nuclear energy, even though perceptions of its safety remain unchanged.
From late 2019 to summer 2021, Britons were divided on using nuclear power. Around four in ten over that time period supported doing so, while a similar number opposed it.
Since then, support has been on the rise. Almost half (48%) of Britons now back the use of nuclear energy, compared to 31% who are opposed."
I posted a link to their tracker upthread. It provides pretty strong evidence that cost (and possibly reliability) of power supplies, rather than anything else, tends to shift opinions.
On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.
Harris played a small part in that: "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."
Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.
And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office." (pp. 215-216)
The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.
From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.
(There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)
Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.
President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
The Russian Federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
@mrmarksteel I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.
But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.
I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
The person competing yesterday was more of a Caster Semanya, but they had already been disqualified from the boxing world championships for failing to meet the biological standard to compete in the women’s events.
They have always been seen as female culturally and legally. A really difficult edge case, as opposed to a transgender who is a woman because they say they are a woman, but who was always a boy as a child.
That the actual fight looked like Mike Tyson vs Marvis Frazier really didn’t help.
"but they had already been disqualified from the boxing world championships for failing to meet the biological standard to compete in the women’s events."
The question is whether the tests were accurate and impartial. There's a lot of politics - and not just gender politics - going on in all of this. Most notably the disagreements between the IBA and the IOC.
AIUI, the tests were performed by the IBA, who failed her and another boxer. The IBA have apparently not given any details of the tests, aside from the failure. The IBA are now based in Russia, have links with Putin, and support the invasion of Ukraine. Although given Russia's long history of drug and other abuses in sports, you could argue that they're in a perfect position to detect cheating in others...
IMV and from what we currently know, she is intersex, not transgender, and was recorded as female at birth. I do not trust the IBA's pronouncements on this.
@axios SCOOP: Trump didn't want to be fact-checked live at NABJ and was refusing to go on stage — a stalemate so prolonged that NABJ president Ken Lemon was prepping a statement to explain why Trump wouldn't show.
Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’
“When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.
“I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”
Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”
Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.
Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
He is a comedian. Is he just taking the piss ?
What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.
Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
Either he’s being a comedian and trying to be ironic, or he’s seriously taking the piss. He comes across as thinking that because he came up from nothing his kids shouldn’t be subject to inheritance tax, but someone else who had a good start in life but also made money should be. Well Mr Skinner, your kids are going to start life with a nice house and likely aspire to send their kids to the private school, they’ll grow up to be just like those you now despise.
Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.
Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.
It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
Boris Johnson moved explicitly to take powers from Westminster and hand them to Ministers and Whitehall - key powers of scrutiny and accountability were signed away in the name of "good governance". I'll cheerfully concede I see no sign of Starmer seeking to repatriate those powers.
You were one of those who argued rightly for the supremacy of Parliament and the repatriation of powers from Brussels after we left the EU but we can't simply take those powers and hand them over from the legislature to the executive.
Promises of devolution to local councils and mayors came to little and have even frustrated such dangerous socialists such as Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council.
On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.
Harris played a small part in that: "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."
Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.
And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office." (pp. 215-216)
The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.
From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.
(There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)
Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.
President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
The Russian federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
You are comparing 12 years (Obama and Biden) against 4 (Trump). You also ignore that Russia's military was rebuilding its capabilities from its decline in the 1990s and 2000s, and had learned hard lessons from Ukraine 2014. They were not ready to launch an invasion before 2021 or 2022.
In fact, thankfully events show they were not ready in 2022, either.
Comments
I don't disagree with you that government needs a coherent opposition - and I note you welcomed the re admission of Gauke. So you're on board what at least part of what's necessary to that.
We're all on that journey, and hoping to still be on the side that is at least occasionally apposite.
As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.
Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.
We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.
Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
The administration she's currently part of appears more in favour than most if its recent predecessors.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-6081/biden-launches-nuclear-power-projects-working-group-in-push-to-deployment/
Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.
Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/mark-adams-official-ioc-olympics-boxing-row-starmer-friend/ (£££)
Peak Daily Telegraph?
And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
Because that's from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Is he just taking the piss ?
As far as I know, Chu and Moniz are both considered competent scientists,
I'd probably read that one.
They can get in the fucking sea.
‘Yorkshire apostrophe’ row raises bigger question: do we even need them?
Yorkshire Dialect Society wants apology from council for anti-litter poster that should have read ‘Gerrit in t’bin’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/02/yorkshire-apostrophe-row-raises-bigger-question-do-we-even-need-them
Mark Adams, spokesman for the IOC who warned against a ‘witch hunt’ towards Imane Khelif, has known the PM since school"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/mark-adams-official-ioc-olympics-boxing-row-starmer-friend/
It's probably not the case, but Patel could transform many of those unfavourables as Patel the minister would be a very different person, perhaps, from Patel the Leader.
Edit: Also, I forget who Stride is about 5 minutes after seeing his name, it happens every time. Maybe he could harness that forgetability somehow.
Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)
Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
(Other than the actual economics of nuclear power, which are much contested.)
The biggest arguments over it in the UK are about why we take so long to make decisions, and why we're so bad at getting stuff built at a reasonable price.
There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.
Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.
So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
'My boyfriend has been making terrible plant puns all day. I told him if he didn't stop, he was dumped.
He said he hoped we could still be fronds.'
The reason I noticed it is she and the boyfriend in question are getting married tomorrow...
We complain about it, yes.
Note, lower down:
...The row comes as grammarians prepare for International Apostrophe Day on 15 August, an event created by the former Guardian journalist David Marsh...
No.
Edit Did I say 'no?' Sorry, typing error.
I did of course mean 'yes...'
Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
In the US, it certainly has been. It is only in recent years that a majority of Americans have come to favor it, again.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/
What do the polls on the subject in the UK say?
And massively offended him by suggesting that his millions are the same as Rees-Mogg millions.
They have always been seen as female culturally and legally. A really difficult edge case, as opposed to a transgender who is a woman because they say they are a woman, but who was always a boy as a child.
That the actual fight looked like Mike Tyson vs Marvis Frazier really didn’t help.
My first base cost example was tongue in cheek, but there is a strong argument to overhaul the way IHT and CGT interact on succession.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cbb/e218ed66f13cb9c588351b99cc4ab7f5015b.pdf is an example of the research showing good moderation works.
And unsurprisingly, opposition to it dropped sharply when the Ukraine invasion put up the cost of gas.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/support-for-nuclear-power
The next fight will be interesting. Her opponent has promised to fight to victory.
*sets up next online loonball theory*
The problem is with (a) how disinformation is amplified on social media and (b) with the fucktards.
No idea what was causing Hammond and Bancroft to have go-slow but it's put formidable pressure on the middle order.
"The Way is a three-part British television series, created by James Graham, Michael Sheen and Adam Curtis, with Sheen directing from a Graham script. The series is set in the 2020s and follows the Driscoll family as they attempt to flee the United Kingdom, which has descended into anti-Welsh civil conflict following riots in Port Talbot. The series received mixed reviews from critics."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_(TV_series)
No-one generally points and jeers or laughs at the Paralympics.
July Payrolls 114K, Exp. 175K
Very very good news for rates.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/43941-britons-are-becoming-more-positive-towards-nuclear
"Net support for nuclear energy is up 21 points since summer 2021
New YouGov tracker data reveals that Britons are increasingly supportive of nuclear energy, even though perceptions of its safety remain unchanged.
From late 2019 to summer 2021, Britons were divided on using nuclear power. Around four in ten over that time period supported doing so, while a similar number opposed it.
Since then, support has been on the rise. Almost half (48%) of Britons now back the use of nuclear energy, compared to 31% who are opposed."
President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1819346627536039940
George Simonson and Theresa Higginson were each sentenced to two years, Paul Bell was sentenced to 22 months, and Gaie Delap and Paul Sousek were sentenced to 20 months for their part in the protests in November 2022.
A sixth defendant, Daniel Johnson, was given a 21-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.
The five, aged 24 to 77, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance after they caused mass disruption by climbing gantries on the M25 on November 9, 2022.
Sentencing the activists at Basildon crown court, Judge Shane Collery KC said: “It’s easy to be blasé and dismissive when it’s not your life that’s being disrupted. He added: “Many people suffered hours of delay [and] your actions were disproportionate to your aims.”
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/judge-tells-jso-easy-to-be-blase-when-its-not-your-life-disrupted-rrzhf7q7g
It provides pretty strong evidence that cost (and possibly reliability) of power supplies, rather than anything else, tends to shift opinions.
The question is whether the tests were accurate and impartial. There's a lot of politics - and not just gender politics - going on in all of this. Most notably the disagreements between the IBA and the IOC.
AIUI, the tests were performed by the IBA, who failed her and another boxer. The IBA have apparently not given any details of the tests, aside from the failure. The IBA are now based in Russia, have links with Putin, and support the invasion of Ukraine. Although given Russia's long history of drug and other abuses in sports, you could argue that they're in a perfect position to detect cheating in others...
IMV and from what we currently know, she is intersex, not transgender, and was recorded as female at birth. I do not trust the IBA's pronouncements on this.
@axios
SCOOP: Trump didn't want to be fact-checked live at NABJ and was refusing to go on stage — a stalemate so prolonged that NABJ president Ken Lemon was prepping a statement to explain why Trump wouldn't show.
As Lemon was prepping it, Trump walked on stage.
https://x.com/axios/status/1819341448484901353
It would be heading towards Peak Guardian if it had been in that newspaper rather than the Telegraph, but as we learned yesterday which way that newspaper is heading… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/uk-best-wild-swimming-spots/
You were one of those who argued rightly for the supremacy of Parliament and the repatriation of powers from Brussels after we left the EU but we can't simply take those powers and hand them over from the legislature to the executive.
Promises of devolution to local councils and mayors came to little and have even frustrated such dangerous socialists such as Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council.
In fact, thankfully events show they were not ready in 2022, either.