Why the Tories lost according to Tory members and the wider public – politicalbetting.com

System · September 12

Why the Tories lost according to Tory members and the wider public – politicalbetting.com

What do Tory members think is the single biggest reason they lost in 2024?1. Party disunity: 16%2. Failure on immigration: 12%3. Failure to deliver on promises: 10%4. In power too long/public want change: 7%5. Not upholding conservative values: 6%Members answered in their… pic.twitter.com/vBlxsSkvW3

Read the full story here

LostPassword · September 12

Well now.

OldKingCole · September 12

Slightly o/t but had Rishi held on a bit longer he'd have the riots to deal with as well.

Nigelb · September 12

Did anyone ask the Tory members how they felt about Farage's support for PR ?

LostPassword · September 12

This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.

williamglenn · September 12

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.

It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%

david_herdson · September 12

Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

Dopermean · September 12

OldKingCole said:
Slightly o/t but had Rishi held on a bit longer he'd have the riots to deal with as well.

You think that the people behind the convected social media outrage would have done the same if the Conservatives had still been in power?

Stark_Dawning · September 12

OldKingCole said:
Slightly o/t but had Rishi held on a bit longer he'd have the riots to deal with as well.

Possibly. But were they in part a counter-revolutionary act, instigated by the arrival of woke Sir Keir and Labour?

rottenborough · September 12

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785

NickPalmer · September 12

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

Interesting - I'd missed that. Are you happy with them?

Dopermean · September 12

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.

I think that's obvious, members are to right of MPs (allegedly).
Reckon it'll be Jenrick, having beaten C/T, disappointing on the upside to be replaced in 18 months by Kemi.

viewcode · September 12

FPT

Pagan2 said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fishing said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
That's a very interesting question.

I'd say probably a combination of reasons.

Firstly they believe the fantasy of "green growth", "green jobs", etc., peddled by Miliband and others - the idea that jobs lost by massively increasing regulatory burdens will somehow be outweighed by jobs created in elsewhere in the economy to implement growth. Whereas, of course, the opposite has been and will continue to be the case - our industry is shafted with the highest energy costs in the world, while most of the "green" manufacturing jobs, such as they are, have gone overseas.

Secondly, neither Starmer nor his Chancellor have ever earned a penny from business or been involved in supply side economic policy. Reeves' only experience was as a tea girl in the Bank of England, which deals with demand side policy, not supply side, whereas the obstacles to growth in this country are all on the supply side. This lack of experience means they simply don't understand the importance, and fragility, of business confidence and light regulation in economic growth.

Thirdly, Starmer in particular is a technocrat, and like all technocrats of both parties - Heseltine, Gordon Brown, Ted Heath, etc. - completely overestimates the ability of the government to promote economic growth by meddling with the market. They think that government can create good and viable businesses (rather than union-dominated obsolete wrecks) and that a subsidy here or there will make business more effective, rather than just encouraging business to seek more subsidies as that's much easier than increasing sales and cutting costs.

Fourthly, related, Starmer is a lawyer, and like all lawyers has a tendency to assume that if the government issues a law, it will happen, and the law, being issued by him, must be good and so will never have negative side-effects. Whereas, in fact, all laws have negative side-effects, which very often outweigh whatever good comes of them (see lockdowns as the most egregious recent example).

Fifthly, he may have believed his own propaganda that leaving the Single Market had a massive negative effect on the UK economy, and that if he turned up smiling in Brussels they would fall over themselves to give him an amazing deal which would get things back to the Nirvana of 2015.

Finally, of course, there is the electoral reason. The electorate realises, however dimly, that the economy hasn't done well over the last decade and a half and he needs to pretend he has some answers.
Seventh, growth is the natural state of the economy.
Yep. And I'd edit to say 'low' growth is the natural state of the economy.
I'd argue that growth is the natural state of the economy, and the state intervenes to stop this happening.
Often justifiably, because a lot of the things that the state does to hinder growth are things which we want like clean rivers or less carbon in the atmosphere. Yay the state, up to a point. But we can't pretend that this doesn't have an impact on growth.

I'd also argue, slightly separately, that growth, or otherwise, is massively driven by demographics to an extent which we discuss puzzlingly seldom. Indeed, pretty much everything is driven by demographics. (Including, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion, demographics itself. Why are so many countries with wildly different internal characteristics falling so far short of replacement levels? I would argue that the one thing they have in common is a lot of old people. The more top-heavy the pyramid, the more resources the society has to put into looking after its elderly, so the less it can put into raising the next generation. A topic for a research paper of some sort...)
Smaller families are largely correlated with female emancipation and education

...and the movement of populations from farms to cities. Per Zeihan, a child on a farm is free labour and an asset, a child in the city is expensive furniture and a cost. So people are having smaller families by necessity.

viewcode · September 12

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.

cougcoughIhaveafiveronKemicoughcough

Alanbrooke · September 12

I see Labour's growth plan has hit Grangemouth

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/12/grangemouth-oil-refinery-close-by-end-of-june-500-jobs-at-risk-petroineos-scotland

Pagan2 · September 12

viewcode said:
FPT

Pagan2 said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fishing said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
That's a very interesting question.

I'd say probably a combination of reasons.

Firstly they believe the fantasy of "green growth", "green jobs", etc., peddled by Miliband and others - the idea that jobs lost by massively increasing regulatory burdens will somehow be outweighed by jobs created in elsewhere in the economy to implement growth. Whereas, of course, the opposite has been and will continue to be the case - our industry is shafted with the highest energy costs in the world, while most of the "green" manufacturing jobs, such as they are, have gone overseas.

Secondly, neither Starmer nor his Chancellor have ever earned a penny from business or been involved in supply side economic policy. Reeves' only experience was as a tea girl in the Bank of England, which deals with demand side policy, not supply side, whereas the obstacles to growth in this country are all on the supply side. This lack of experience means they simply don't understand the importance, and fragility, of business confidence and light regulation in economic growth.

Thirdly, Starmer in particular is a technocrat, and like all technocrats of both parties - Heseltine, Gordon Brown, Ted Heath, etc. - completely overestimates the ability of the government to promote economic growth by meddling with the market. They think that government can create good and viable businesses (rather than union-dominated obsolete wrecks) and that a subsidy here or there will make business more effective, rather than just encouraging business to seek more subsidies as that's much easier than increasing sales and cutting costs.

Fourthly, related, Starmer is a lawyer, and like all lawyers has a tendency to assume that if the government issues a law, it will happen, and the law, being issued by him, must be good and so will never have negative side-effects. Whereas, in fact, all laws have negative side-effects, which very often outweigh whatever good comes of them (see lockdowns as the most egregious recent example).

Fifthly, he may have believed his own propaganda that leaving the Single Market had a massive negative effect on the UK economy, and that if he turned up smiling in Brussels they would fall over themselves to give him an amazing deal which would get things back to the Nirvana of 2015.

Finally, of course, there is the electoral reason. The electorate realises, however dimly, that the economy hasn't done well over the last decade and a half and he needs to pretend he has some answers.
Seventh, growth is the natural state of the economy.
Yep. And I'd edit to say 'low' growth is the natural state of the economy.
I'd argue that growth is the natural state of the economy, and the state intervenes to stop this happening.
Often justifiably, because a lot of the things that the state does to hinder growth are things which we want like clean rivers or less carbon in the atmosphere. Yay the state, up to a point. But we can't pretend that this doesn't have an impact on growth.

I'd also argue, slightly separately, that growth, or otherwise, is massively driven by demographics to an extent which we discuss puzzlingly seldom. Indeed, pretty much everything is driven by demographics. (Including, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion, demographics itself. Why are so many countries with wildly different internal characteristics falling so far short of replacement levels? I would argue that the one thing they have in common is a lot of old people. The more top-heavy the pyramid, the more resources the society has to put into looking after its elderly, so the less it can put into raising the next generation. A topic for a research paper of some sort...)
Smaller families are largely correlated with female emancipation and education
...and the movement of populations from farms to cities. Per Zeihan, a child on a farm is free labour and an asset, a child in the city is expensive furniture and a cost. So people are having smaller families by necessity.

Yes that too

LostPassword · September 12

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%

All I said is that the choice of leader isn't going to be something that helps the Tories win the next election. Reform voters are sufficiently different to Tory voters that it will be hard to simply win them back in the simplistic way imagined.

Obviously there are other factors that will affect the next election, including Labour unpopularity.

OldKingCole · September 12

Stark_Dawning said:

OldKingCole said:
Slightly o/t but had Rishi held on a bit longer he'd have the riots to deal with as well.

Possibly. But were they in part a counter-revolutionary act, instigated by the arrival of woke Sir Keir and Labour?

I may be wrong but I doubt, from what I have seen, that they give such matters much thought.
I could be maligning them, though.

OldKingCole · September 12

viewcode said:
FPT

Pagan2 said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fishing said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
That's a very interesting question.

I'd say probably a combination of reasons.

Firstly they believe the fantasy of "green growth", "green jobs", etc., peddled by Miliband and others - the idea that jobs lost by massively increasing regulatory burdens will somehow be outweighed by jobs created in elsewhere in the economy to implement growth. Whereas, of course, the opposite has been and will continue to be the case - our industry is shafted with the highest energy costs in the world, while most of the "green" manufacturing jobs, such as they are, have gone overseas.

Secondly, neither Starmer nor his Chancellor have ever earned a penny from business or been involved in supply side economic policy. Reeves' only experience was as a tea girl in the Bank of England, which deals with demand side policy, not supply side, whereas the obstacles to growth in this country are all on the supply side. This lack of experience means they simply don't understand the importance, and fragility, of business confidence and light regulation in economic growth.

Thirdly, Starmer in particular is a technocrat, and like all technocrats of both parties - Heseltine, Gordon Brown, Ted Heath, etc. - completely overestimates the ability of the government to promote economic growth by meddling with the market. They think that government can create good and viable businesses (rather than union-dominated obsolete wrecks) and that a subsidy here or there will make business more effective, rather than just encouraging business to seek more subsidies as that's much easier than increasing sales and cutting costs.

Fourthly, related, Starmer is a lawyer, and like all lawyers has a tendency to assume that if the government issues a law, it will happen, and the law, being issued by him, must be good and so will never have negative side-effects. Whereas, in fact, all laws have negative side-effects, which very often outweigh whatever good comes of them (see lockdowns as the most egregious recent example).

Fifthly, he may have believed his own propaganda that leaving the Single Market had a massive negative effect on the UK economy, and that if he turned up smiling in Brussels they would fall over themselves to give him an amazing deal which would get things back to the Nirvana of 2015.

Finally, of course, there is the electoral reason. The electorate realises, however dimly, that the economy hasn't done well over the last decade and a half and he needs to pretend he has some answers.
Seventh, growth is the natural state of the economy.
Yep. And I'd edit to say 'low' growth is the natural state of the economy.
I'd argue that growth is the natural state of the economy, and the state intervenes to stop this happening.
Often justifiably, because a lot of the things that the state does to hinder growth are things which we want like clean rivers or less carbon in the atmosphere. Yay the state, up to a point. But we can't pretend that this doesn't have an impact on growth.

I'd also argue, slightly separately, that growth, or otherwise, is massively driven by demographics to an extent which we discuss puzzlingly seldom. Indeed, pretty much everything is driven by demographics. (Including, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion, demographics itself. Why are so many countries with wildly different internal characteristics falling so far short of replacement levels? I would argue that the one thing they have in common is a lot of old people. The more top-heavy the pyramid, the more resources the society has to put into looking after its elderly, so the less it can put into raising the next generation. A topic for a research paper of some sort...)
Smaller families are largely correlated with female emancipation and education
...and the movement of populations from farms to cities. Per Zeihan, a child on a farm is free labour and an asset, a child in the city is expensive furniture and a cost. So people are having smaller families by necessity.

My father used to say that his father-in-law, a man with eleven children, preferred to have sons working for him, rather than Ag Labs.
Somewhat unfair, as my uncles seemed very soon to have farms of their own.

kjh · September 12

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.

CatMan · September 12

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

The difference between Tory and Reform voters can be summarised by the fact that Reform voters are pro Trump in a way Tories aren't.

kinabalu · September 12

How I'd answer:

Why the Cons lost - #3 - in power too long, country wanted change

Why they were hammered - #4 - abject failure to deliver

kjh · September 12

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.

Sorry if that sounded rude. It was meant to be a compliment. I was thinking along the lines of my brother-in-law. A sensible but dyed in the wool Tory but who couldn't bring himself to vote Tory this time so was going to abstain. My sister said he should vote, so he did. We have no idea how he voted but it was in a constituency that went from Tory to LD. We all think that he was worried that if he put a cross next to the LD the pencil would self combust.

I hope the LDs have given you a great welcome.

david_herdson · September 12

NickPalmer said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Interesting - I'd missed that. Are you happy with them?

First time I've announced it.

No party is perfect but ideologically it's where I'm closest and winning elections matters if you want to get things done in the short term - and politics is sufficiently acute now that the short term matters.

The LDs is actually the first party I joined (albeit for only a year), and where I would have gone in 2019 were it not for their Revoke policy at the time, which I felt was undemocratic.

carnforth · September 12

Another thing "anti-trans nutters" were "harping on about" for years turned out to be true:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynyky7kj9o

"Rape survivors are no longer being referred to a support service in Edinburgh after a review found it failed to protect women-only spaces.

The reviewer's report, external said that Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre had not put survivors first or adhered to national service standards.

The report also stated that centre's chief executive officer – a trans woman – failed to behave professionally and did not understand the limits of her authority."

david_herdson · September 12

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.

I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.

IanB2 · September 12

TLDR: Mostly about behaviour and competence and integrity; not so much about policy.

david_herdson · September 12

By the way, when did the comments go upside down? Is there any way to flip them back round (or, less likely, I'm sure, to drop the comments box to the bottom)? It's a bit irritating to have to ping to the bottom to read and then back to the top to post.

kamski · September 12

Fysics_Teacher said:

kamski said:

Pagan2 said:

LostPassword said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
Well yes - it's something of a mystery. It's a pretty remarkable turnaround from 'vote for us - we'll try really hard to grow the economy' to 'let's ramp up taxes, discourage investment and scare all the capital away' in 2 months or so.

Granted we haven't had the budget yet and it might turn out to be totally different from the mood music.
It could be that the policies we see over the next few years are not "anti-growth", they are just not the sort of economics favoured by the right. That's where my money would be. This is a Labour government after all. We had the Cons for 14 years and now we have Labour.

Course we don't know how we'll do on growth in this parliament yet. If it turns out it's poor Labour will have a hell of a job getting re-elected. They know this better than anyone. Which is why, succeed or fail, we can be pretty sure their policies will on the whole be intended to boost growth not depress it.
Your last paragraph, could, logically be applied to government by any party. I look forward to this discussion again in five or ten or fifteen years time when government of another party is in and you can also assure us that their policies will necessarily be pro-growth

Of my many reservations about Labour, my biggest is that they seem unable to see that economic policies have consequences: if you increase a tax on x, the behaviour of people who do x changes, and less of x gets done. You don't just rake in the tax. So: people move from the private sector to the state sector in education; or billionaires move elsewhere in the world, or businesses stop hiring, or people stop investing in pensions. I had hoped that Rachel Reeves would not be like this, but early signs are not promising.

At the same time, are we actually investing the sorts of things that create growth, like infrastructure and education? Again, maybe we will. But early signs are not promising.
Well the intention of big economic policy (both parties) usually is pro growth. The one serious exception to this that comes to mind in recent years is Brexit. That was a policy to damage growth. A rare bird.

Re Reeves, she's bound to upset some people with her choices (eg WFA) given the parlous state of the public finances. I promise you I'll have a moan myself if she does something I think is either wrongheaded or gratuitously nasty.
Well not that rare! Lockdown, for example, was the most economically catastrophic policy of my lifetime by a country mile. Done for arguably valid reasons (I would argue erroneously, but I'm in a minority), but economically negative nonetheless. And there are countless others. The triple lock. Net zero. DEI legilsation. And so on. There are dozens of areas in which policy is made where the negative impact on growth is deemed a price worth paying for whatever the reason for the policy is.

Some of us, of course, deem Brexit more likely to be an economic plus! But I know you're not in that camp, and more importantly for the purpose of this argument nor was treasury.

You can prioritise growth, or you can prioritise other things, and there will be valid reasons for either. You either prioritise the nation getting richer at the expense of nice things today like clean streets and working public toilets, or you prioritise nice things today at the expense of the speed of getting rich. Where we sit on the continuum of how much growth we sacrifice in order to pay for the nice things today probably isn't that far apart.
But even though my expectations of Rachel Reeves were modest in this regard, I've been slightly disappointed at the extent to which she has prioritised things which are not growing the economy.

I have no complaints at all about the WFA. That was an anti growth gimmick introduced by Gordon Brown and its abolition is a step in the right direction. (Personally, I would have rolled it into the overall state pension but then changed the pension to a single lock rather than a triple lock - i.e. it grows with median wages.) But meanwhile there have been too many steps in the wrong direction which will make us poorer.
Ok - but I was talking about the thrust of macro-economic policy. That tends to be aimed at promoting growth. It's just that people differ on what best does this. I'd allude to skinning and cats if I didn't have a cat.

I'm a 'going for growth' sceptic. I think how we do on growth depends mainly on things which are nothing to do with government. I'd rather government concentrate on redistribution/equality, public services and social engineering.
That's a reasonable position to take. I'd argue that there's lots that governments can do, both positive and negative, to 'go for growth' - a local example being the RoI, which has gone for growth in a big way over the last 40 years (#1 by low business rates).
But there are 99 reasons why the UK <> RoI, and economics is complex, and CoE isn't my job. So my opinion on this is just that: an opinion.
The low business taxes are symbolic, but there's so much more to it than that.

Mostly it's an attitude difference. Ireland knows that businesses don't have to base themselves in Ireland, but that Ireland will be dirt poor if it can't persuade them to do so.

People in Britain don't seem to realise that businesses have choices and choices have consequences. It's not an inevitable feature of reality that Britain will continue to be a wealthy advanced economy. Arguably it has already declined some way towards the middle of the pack.

Attitudes like kinabalu's are incredibly complacent.
Its like his view that private schools should be abolished. People point out it will have knock on consequences such as the catchement area's of good schools being made untenable for the poorer in society as they are snapped up by the richer people. He just airily declares it won't happen
Just make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas with the poorest pupils.
How? If you do manage to create a very good school in a "poor" area (not easy without spending a lot of money on staffing) then the house prices in the catchment areas will rise, pricing out the poorer families.

Unless you make sure that places are allocated by something other than distance to the school of course. Possibly some sort of test done by the pupils when they are about 11...

Actually schools in poorer areas get significantly more funding due to the Pupil Premium.

Pupil premium is only 335 quid a year. It's not a serious attempt to make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas.

Yes, maybe rich people will move into the poorest areas, which isn't a bad thing - and it will take a while to price out the poorer families who already live there. At which point the school won't get the support to be one of the best schools any more.

It's actually a perfectly solvable problem, but people don't want to solve it.

Flatlander · September 12

[FPT]

Fysics_Teacher said:

kamski said:

Pagan2 said:

LostPassword said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
Well yes - it's something of a mystery. It's a pretty remarkable turnaround from 'vote for us - we'll try really hard to grow the economy' to 'let's ramp up taxes, discourage investment and scare all the capital away' in 2 months or so.

Granted we haven't had the budget yet and it might turn out to be totally different from the mood music.
It could be that the policies we see over the next few years are not "anti-growth", they are just not the sort of economics favoured by the right. That's where my money would be. This is a Labour government after all. We had the Cons for 14 years and now we have Labour.

Course we don't know how we'll do on growth in this parliament yet. If it turns out it's poor Labour will have a hell of a job getting re-elected. They know this better than anyone. Which is why, succeed or fail, we can be pretty sure their policies will on the whole be intended to boost growth not depress it.
Your last paragraph, could, logically be applied to government by any party. I look forward to this discussion again in five or ten or fifteen years time when government of another party is in and you can also assure us that their policies will necessarily be pro-growth

Of my many reservations about Labour, my biggest is that they seem unable to see that economic policies have consequences: if you increase a tax on x, the behaviour of people who do x changes, and less of x gets done. You don't just rake in the tax. So: people move from the private sector to the state sector in education; or billionaires move elsewhere in the world, or businesses stop hiring, or people stop investing in pensions. I had hoped that Rachel Reeves would not be like this, but early signs are not promising.

At the same time, are we actually investing the sorts of things that create growth, like infrastructure and education? Again, maybe we will. But early signs are not promising.
Well the intention of big economic policy (both parties) usually is pro growth. The one serious exception to this that comes to mind in recent years is Brexit. That was a policy to damage growth. A rare bird.

Re Reeves, she's bound to upset some people with her choices (eg WFA) given the parlous state of the public finances. I promise you I'll have a moan myself if she does something I think is either wrongheaded or gratuitously nasty.
Well not that rare! Lockdown, for example, was the most economically catastrophic policy of my lifetime by a country mile. Done for arguably valid reasons (I would argue erroneously, but I'm in a minority), but economically negative nonetheless. And there are countless others. The triple lock. Net zero. DEI legilsation. And so on. There are dozens of areas in which policy is made where the negative impact on growth is deemed a price worth paying for whatever the reason for the policy is.

Some of us, of course, deem Brexit more likely to be an economic plus! But I know you're not in that camp, and more importantly for the purpose of this argument nor was treasury.

You can prioritise growth, or you can prioritise other things, and there will be valid reasons for either. You either prioritise the nation getting richer at the expense of nice things today like clean streets and working public toilets, or you prioritise nice things today at the expense of the speed of getting rich. Where we sit on the continuum of how much growth we sacrifice in order to pay for the nice things today probably isn't that far apart.
But even though my expectations of Rachel Reeves were modest in this regard, I've been slightly disappointed at the extent to which she has prioritised things which are not growing the economy.

I have no complaints at all about the WFA. That was an anti growth gimmick introduced by Gordon Brown and its abolition is a step in the right direction. (Personally, I would have rolled it into the overall state pension but then changed the pension to a single lock rather than a triple lock - i.e. it grows with median wages.) But meanwhile there have been too many steps in the wrong direction which will make us poorer.
Ok - but I was talking about the thrust of macro-economic policy. That tends to be aimed at promoting growth. It's just that people differ on what best does this. I'd allude to skinning and cats if I didn't have a cat.

I'm a 'going for growth' sceptic. I think how we do on growth depends mainly on things which are nothing to do with government. I'd rather government concentrate on redistribution/equality, public services and social engineering.
That's a reasonable position to take. I'd argue that there's lots that governments can do, both positive and negative, to 'go for growth' - a local example being the RoI, which has gone for growth in a big way over the last 40 years (#1 by low business rates).
But there are 99 reasons why the UK <> RoI, and economics is complex, and CoE isn't my job. So my opinion on this is just that: an opinion.
The low business taxes are symbolic, but there's so much more to it than that.

Mostly it's an attitude difference. Ireland knows that businesses don't have to base themselves in Ireland, but that Ireland will be dirt poor if it can't persuade them to do so.

People in Britain don't seem to realise that businesses have choices and choices have consequences. It's not an inevitable feature of reality that Britain will continue to be a wealthy advanced economy. Arguably it has already declined some way towards the middle of the pack.

Attitudes like kinabalu's are incredibly complacent.
Its like his view that private schools should be abolished. People point out it will have knock on consequences such as the catchement area's of good schools being made untenable for the poorer in society as they are snapped up by the richer people. He just airily declares it won't happen
Just make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas with the poorest pupils.
How? If you do manage to create a very good school in a "poor" area (not easy without spending a lot of money on staffing) then the house prices in the catchment areas will rise, pricing out the poorer families.

Unless you make sure that places are allocated by something other than distance to the school of course. Possibly some sort of test done by the pupils when they are about 11...

Actually schools in poorer areas get significantly more funding due to the Pupil Premium.

In some areas it wouldn't matter if you brought in the world's best teachers. The results would still be mediocre.

My mother used to teach in a primary school in a sink estate. The tales she could tell...

...like the school playground fight that had to be broken up, and when an enquiry was made as to what it was about, the answer was - "his Dad shot my Dad"

[Use a Scouse accent for this if you like]

IanB2 · September 12

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

It’s an interesting question whether the loss of so many blue wall seats is a flash in the pan or some sort of lasting political realignment. That you are now a LibDem (despite advancing in age) is encouraging as to the latter.

There was a long radio piece on NPR yesterday about East Kentucky, which used to be a Democrat stronghold but is now solidly Republican. Various locals were interviewed about how this all came about - the themes there seemed to be: the decline of the coal mining industry and the perception that since Obama the Dems are ‘waging war on coal’ because of climate change, and the replacement of the socially conservative Dems, many drawn from the labor unions, with more modern, liberal candidates seen as out of touch with rural ‘redneck’ values. Coupled with the GOP having moved in the opposite direction.

One could make a similar case for the Tories’ Brexit, pandering to illiberal politics and neglect of business and working age people more generally, having lost them their heartlands. It’s not obvious that any of the leadership candidates, Tuggyhat possibly excepted, are focusing on how to turn this around?

Cookie · September 12

david_herdson said:
By the way, when did the comments go upside down? Is there any way to flip them back round (or, less likely, I'm sure, to drop the comments box to the bottom)? It's a bit irritating to have to ping to the bottom to read and then back to the top to post.

It's a fault with vanilla, and Robert has raised it.

Your best bet is to read the comments on vanilla. They're still upside down but less cumbersome to get to the most recent.

IanB2 · September 12

Dopermean said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
I think that's obvious, members are to right of MPs (allegedly).
Reckon it'll be Jenrick, having beaten C/T, disappointing on the upside to be replaced in 18 months by Kemi.

Jenrick - a man so unlikeable he lost a student union election in which he was the only candidate!

IanB2 · September 12

kjh said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
Sorry if that sounded rude. It was meant to be a compliment. I was thinking along the lines of my brother-in-law. A sensible but dyed in the wool Tory but who couldn't bring himself to vote Tory this time so was going to abstain. My sister said he should vote, so he did. We have no idea how he voted but it was in a constituency that went from Tory to LD. We all think that he was worried that if he put a cross next to the LD the pencil would self combust.

I hope the LDs have given you a great welcome.

It’s remarkable that in the US what you call the sensible Conservatives are essentially in hiding (the Cheneys honourably excepted), hoping that the political weather will change but doing next to nothing to bring it about.

TheScreamingEagles · September 12

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.

It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.

Sandpit · September 12

kamski said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kamski said:

Pagan2 said:

LostPassword said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
Well yes - it's something of a mystery. It's a pretty remarkable turnaround from 'vote for us - we'll try really hard to grow the economy' to 'let's ramp up taxes, discourage investment and scare all the capital away' in 2 months or so.

Granted we haven't had the budget yet and it might turn out to be totally different from the mood music.
It could be that the policies we see over the next few years are not "anti-growth", they are just not the sort of economics favoured by the right. That's where my money would be. This is a Labour government after all. We had the Cons for 14 years and now we have Labour.

Course we don't know how we'll do on growth in this parliament yet. If it turns out it's poor Labour will have a hell of a job getting re-elected. They know this better than anyone. Which is why, succeed or fail, we can be pretty sure their policies will on the whole be intended to boost growth not depress it.
Your last paragraph, could, logically be applied to government by any party. I look forward to this discussion again in five or ten or fifteen years time when government of another party is in and you can also assure us that their policies will necessarily be pro-growth

Of my many reservations about Labour, my biggest is that they seem unable to see that economic policies have consequences: if you increase a tax on x, the behaviour of people who do x changes, and less of x gets done. You don't just rake in the tax. So: people move from the private sector to the state sector in education; or billionaires move elsewhere in the world, or businesses stop hiring, or people stop investing in pensions. I had hoped that Rachel Reeves would not be like this, but early signs are not promising.

At the same time, are we actually investing the sorts of things that create growth, like infrastructure and education? Again, maybe we will. But early signs are not promising.
Well the intention of big economic policy (both parties) usually is pro growth. The one serious exception to this that comes to mind in recent years is Brexit. That was a policy to damage growth. A rare bird.

Re Reeves, she's bound to upset some people with her choices (eg WFA) given the parlous state of the public finances. I promise you I'll have a moan myself if she does something I think is either wrongheaded or gratuitously nasty.
Well not that rare! Lockdown, for example, was the most economically catastrophic policy of my lifetime by a country mile. Done for arguably valid reasons (I would argue erroneously, but I'm in a minority), but economically negative nonetheless. And there are countless others. The triple lock. Net zero. DEI legilsation. And so on. There are dozens of areas in which policy is made where the negative impact on growth is deemed a price worth paying for whatever the reason for the policy is.

Some of us, of course, deem Brexit more likely to be an economic plus! But I know you're not in that camp, and more importantly for the purpose of this argument nor was treasury.

You can prioritise growth, or you can prioritise other things, and there will be valid reasons for either. You either prioritise the nation getting richer at the expense of nice things today like clean streets and working public toilets, or you prioritise nice things today at the expense of the speed of getting rich. Where we sit on the continuum of how much growth we sacrifice in order to pay for the nice things today probably isn't that far apart.
But even though my expectations of Rachel Reeves were modest in this regard, I've been slightly disappointed at the extent to which she has prioritised things which are not growing the economy.

I have no complaints at all about the WFA. That was an anti growth gimmick introduced by Gordon Brown and its abolition is a step in the right direction. (Personally, I would have rolled it into the overall state pension but then changed the pension to a single lock rather than a triple lock - i.e. it grows with median wages.) But meanwhile there have been too many steps in the wrong direction which will make us poorer.
Ok - but I was talking about the thrust of macro-economic policy. That tends to be aimed at promoting growth. It's just that people differ on what best does this. I'd allude to skinning and cats if I didn't have a cat.

I'm a 'going for growth' sceptic. I think how we do on growth depends mainly on things which are nothing to do with government. I'd rather government concentrate on redistribution/equality, public services and social engineering.
That's a reasonable position to take. I'd argue that there's lots that governments can do, both positive and negative, to 'go for growth' - a local example being the RoI, which has gone for growth in a big way over the last 40 years (#1 by low business rates).
But there are 99 reasons why the UK <> RoI, and economics is complex, and CoE isn't my job. So my opinion on this is just that: an opinion.
The low business taxes are symbolic, but there's so much more to it than that.

Mostly it's an attitude difference. Ireland knows that businesses don't have to base themselves in Ireland, but that Ireland will be dirt poor if it can't persuade them to do so.

People in Britain don't seem to realise that businesses have choices and choices have consequences. It's not an inevitable feature of reality that Britain will continue to be a wealthy advanced economy. Arguably it has already declined some way towards the middle of the pack.

Attitudes like kinabalu's are incredibly complacent.
Its like his view that private schools should be abolished. People point out it will have knock on consequences such as the catchement area's of good schools being made untenable for the poorer in society as they are snapped up by the richer people. He just airily declares it won't happen
Just make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas with the poorest pupils.
How? If you do manage to create a very good school in a "poor" area (not easy without spending a lot of money on staffing) then the house prices in the catchment areas will rise, pricing out the poorer families.

Unless you make sure that places are allocated by something other than distance to the school of course. Possibly some sort of test done by the pupils when they are about 11...

Actually schools in poorer areas get significantly more funding due to the Pupil Premium.
Pupil premium is only 335 quid a year. It's not a serious attempt to make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas.

Yes, maybe rich people will move into the poorest areas, which isn't a bad thing - and it will take a while to price out the poorer families who already live there. At which point the school won't get the support to be one of the best schools any more.

It's actually a perfectly solvable problem, but people don't want to solve it.

Ask Katherine Birbalsingh how to set up an outstanding school in a very poor area, and replicate it around the country.

TheScreamingEagles · September 12

Well.

Asian man used fake ‘Chris Nolan’ user name on Telegram to stir up racial hatred during riots

Ehsan Hussain admitted posting messages encouraging ‘p--- bashing’ to more than 12,000 members of the ‘Southport Wake up’ chat group

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/12/asian-ehsan-hussain-fake-name-telegram-riots-race-hate/

Cookie · September 12

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.

If the last eight years have been you defending the Tories, god help them when you start attacking them.

Richard_Tyndall · September 12

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.

I entirely understand about Jenrick but why Badenoch? She is no where near as extreme as Jenrick, Patel or Braverman. If it were a matter of competence I might see your point but you seem to be targetting extremism specifically. Not sure why you consider Badenoch to be on a par with the other extremists on that score.

TheScreamingEagles · September 12

Richard_Tyndall said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
I entirely understand about Jenrick but why Badenoch? She is no where near as extreme as Jenrick, Patel or Braverman. If it were a matter of competence I might see your point but you seem to be targetting extremism specifically. Not sure why you consider Badenoch to be on a par with the other extremists on that score.

She’s a hypocrite and there’s not a (culture war) bandwagon she’s not jumped aboard.

Her stuff about kids and cats was just utter bollocks.

Her comments about the riots was utter mince too, such as not all lumping all protestors as racists then calling anybody who is concerned about Palestinians as antisemites in the same article.

She’s also lucky to not have a criminal record.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/09/bafflement-over-tory-mps-admission-she-hacked-harriet-harmans-website

williamglenn · September 12

https://x.com/iapolls2022/status/1834260585808089135

MICHIGAN GE: @InsiderPolling

🟥 Trump: 49%
🟦 Harris: 48%
🟪 Other: 1%

#86 (2.0/3.0) | 800 LV | 9/11-12 | ±3.7%

TheScreamingEagles · September 12

Cookie said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
If the last eight years have been you defending the Tories, god help them when you start attacking them.

For most of the last eight years the Tories have been most unTory.

Fuck business, breaking international law, delivering most of Michael Foot’s manifesto.

mercator · September 12

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/12/springfield-ohio-haitians-eating-pets-immigration-problem/

Sorry can't get the paywall dodging "archive" sites to work. Springfield contains a uge Amazon sort and distribution centre which is why everyone flocks there. Photo of neo Nazi march with swastika flag from a few weeks ago

Separately a comment on the wiki page about all this points out that Haitians are in the main active practitioners of vodou (voodoo) which requires a large number of sacrifices of animals to the lesser gods the lwa or loa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax

kinabalu · September 12

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%

Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.

maxh · September 12

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.

I don't know. This assumes tomorrow will be like today. It may well be, but there's also a plausible scenario that far right leaders make gains across Europe and Trump gets back in such that the next election is against a very different global backdrop. Add in the eminent possibility that Reeves and Starmer don't create much growth and I could see there being a very different political landscape in UK in five years' time - much angrier, more willing to vote for the simplistic nonsense of the far right.

noneoftheabove · September 12

mercator said:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/12/springfield-ohio-haitians-eating-pets-immigration-problem/

Sorry can't get the paywall dodging "archive" sites to work. Springfield contains a uge Amazon sort and distribution centre which is why everyone flocks there. Photo of neo Nazi march with swastika flag from a few weeks ago

Separately a comment on the wiki page about all this points out that Haitians are in the main active practitioners of vodou (voodoo) which requires a large number of sacrifices of animals to the lesser gods the lwa or loa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax

Maybe it all started when a Republican official overhead his wife saying how much their Haitian gardener liked eating pussy.

david_herdson · September 12

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.

The core problem for the is that they were incompetent in office. Competence is the sine qua non for Tory governments: lose that and it's over. Yes, they were also corrupt, and at times liars who took the public for fools but they screwed up on the economy and on public services. There was no coming back from that.

The overlap is that it's pretty much impossible to be both populist and competent (if populism actually worked, more governments would do it, what with it being superficially popular and all that) - and Reform voters are attracted by populism.

Or are they? Some certainly are but more, I think, are protest voters who feel they have a legitimate grudge about some failure in the country, and there's plenty to gripe about.

Problem for the Tories is that they can't now correct their record in opposition; only give out the impression that they'd do so, which means winning back a lot of trust. A degree of humility will be needed first there. I'll not hold my breath.

Pagan2 · September 12

Hmmm game companies about to do an apple in the eu?

https://www.beuc.eu/game-over

Roger · September 12

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785

My first day at work. It was 8AM. I'd walked to the studio on king Rd and there was a very well known model who I'd only seen on covers before. She said 'Hi I'm Maudie I'm working here today" I said 'Hi I'm Roger Elizabeth's assistant and this is my first day" She said "go and put some music on..... "Anything"'. So I went to the record player and this was the first track..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQyoTIQOOM

Luckyguy1983 · September 12

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.

After 14 years of Tory misrule, the social democrat centrist Labour Party managed to get an underwhelming 33.7% of the vote, and their polling is rapidly heading South. Why exactly do you think the Tories should be going for a slice of that pie?

Eabhal · September 12

noneoftheabove said:

mercator said:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/12/springfield-ohio-haitians-eating-pets-immigration-problem/

Sorry can't get the paywall dodging "archive" sites to work. Springfield contains a uge Amazon sort and distribution centre which is why everyone flocks there. Photo of neo Nazi march with swastika flag from a few weeks ago

Separately a comment on the wiki page about all this points out that Haitians are in the main active practitioners of vodou (voodoo) which requires a large number of sacrifices of animals to the lesser gods the lwa or loa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax
Maybe it all started when a Republican official overhead his wife saying how much their Haitian gardener liked eating pussy.

Always knew this was a TSE alt account

Luckyguy1983 · September 12

Cookie said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
If the last eight years have been you defending the Tories, god help them when you start attacking them.

With friends like these, who needs enemas?

williamglenn · September 12

Roger said:

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785
My first day at work. It was 8AM. I'd walked to the studio on king Rd and there was a very well known model who I'd only seen on covers before. She said 'Hi I'm Maudie I'm working here today" I said 'Hi I'm Roger Elizabeth's assistant and this is my first day" She said "go and put some music on..... "Anything"'. So I went to the record player and this was the first track..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQyoTIQOOM

Linda Ronstadt's mariachi singing is impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-k4eEStQa0

Taz · September 12

Alanbrooke said:

I see Labour's growth plan has hit Grangemouth

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/12/grangemouth-oil-refinery-close-by-end-of-june-500-jobs-at-risk-petroineos-scotland

I thought Ed Miliband would be pleased, he seems a little unhappy.

https://x.com/ed_miliband/status/1834175566280278148?s=61

rcs1000 · September 12

david_herdson said:
By the way, when did the comments go upside down? Is there any way to flip them back round (or, less likely, I'm sure, to drop the comments box to the bottom)? It's a bit irritating to have to ping to the bottom to read and then back to the top to post.

It's a Vanilla issue. They've promised a fix shortly

Eabhal · September 12

mercator said:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/12/springfield-ohio-haitians-eating-pets-immigration-problem/

Sorry can't get the paywall dodging "archive" sites to work. Springfield contains a uge Amazon sort and distribution centre which is why everyone flocks there. Photo of neo Nazi march with swastika flag from a few weeks ago

Separately a comment on the wiki page about all this points out that Haitians are in the main active practitioners of vodou (voodoo) which requires a large number of sacrifices of animals to the lesser gods the lwa or loa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax

Trump has done such a good job of persuading us that the Right isn't currently led by a bunch of weirdos.

The campaign so far has consisted of a racist association between Haitians and eating beloved family pets, having sex with living room furniture, and raping and impregnating Taylor Swift because she posted something on instagram.

Andy_JS · September 12

"Sadiq Khan: Prisoners should jump queue for housing

The mayor of London said prioritising those released would help to cut reoffending"

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/sadiq-khan-prisoners-should-jump-queue-for-housing-jq3t7xv5x

rottenborough · September 12

Roger said:

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785
My first day at work. It was 8AM. I'd walked to the studio on king Rd and there was a very well known model who I'd only seen on covers before. She said 'Hi I'm Maudie I'm working here today" I said 'Hi I'm Roger Elizabeth's assistant and this is my first day" She said "go and put some music on..... "Anything"'. So I went to the record player and this was the first track..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQyoTIQOOM

A belter. And much better than Fry and Henley's original version.

kjh · September 12

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.

Welcome again and good luck. I think we have made a very positive gain. I feel quite chuffed we have got you.

kinabalu · September 12

maxh said:

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.
I don't know. This assumes tomorrow will be like today. It may well be, but there's also a plausible scenario that far right leaders make gains across Europe and Trump gets back in such that the next election is against a very different global backdrop. Add in the eminent possibility that Reeves and Starmer don't create much growth and I could see there being a very different political landscape in UK in five years' time - much angrier, more willing to vote for the simplistic nonsense of the far right.

Yes, true. I'd rephrase to say it's about risk reward then. Going that route - hard populist right - is high on both counts. It could, if we truly are on the way to the gutter, pay enormous dividends. But I judge it unlikely. In which case the risk comes in and the Tories could be all over as a major party. So on balance the other option, the hard yards plodding return to being the clear centre right alternative to Labour, with focus on reclaiming the Blue Wall, is imo the way to go.

Sandpit · September 12

rcs1000 said:

david_herdson said:
By the way, when did the comments go upside down? Is there any way to flip them back round (or, less likely, I'm sure, to drop the comments box to the bottom)? It's a bit irritating to have to ping to the bottom to read and then back to the top to post.
It's a Vanilla issue. They've promised a fix shortly

They promised a fix shortly, about three weeks ago.

Gotta love dev timescales in 2024. This *new feature* needs to be out by the end of the week, but this urgent bug fix with outstanding customer tickets (there’s still a setting, it just doesn’t work any more) can be left for a few more scrums.

Andy_JS · September 12

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.

The unhappy party is Labour. Doom and gloom all the way.

mwadams · September 12

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.

A very old friend of mine (whose is now in his mid 60s) finally let his membership lapse. He stuck it out and voted Sunak in the last membership elections, but thinks the current candidates are an unfunny joke. I doubt he'll rejoin again.

Stuartinromford · September 12

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.

Counterpoint is that those Blue Wallers are going to be damn difficult to win back. As long as the Lib Dems are in opposition, why should voters flip their alleigence from one opposition party to another? That wasn't the case for the Red Wall- they flipped because they wanted a Conservative government and largely flipped back when it failed to deliver the goods. See also Scotland- many voters were happy to block Labour by voting SNP until the failings of their government were impossible to ignore.

It's a difficult problem. It's an important one, sure- I find it hard to see how the Conservatives get a majority without those 70-odd seats in affluent "nice Britain". It would have blocked Boris in 2019, and Maggie would have been in deep trouble in 1983 and 1987. But the difficulty, even before we consider the Lib Dem ground game, makes it understandable that even thoughful Tories are shying away from the question.

It doesn't help that drawing maps of imaginary armies to win Operation Reunite The Right is more fun.

kinabalu · September 12

Roger said:

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785
My first day at work. It was 8AM. I'd walked to the studio on king Rd and there was a very well known model who I'd only seen on covers before. She said 'Hi I'm Maudie I'm working here today" I said 'Hi I'm Roger Elizabeth's assistant and this is my first day" She said "go and put some music on..... "Anything"'. So I went to the record player and this was the first track..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQyoTIQOOM

Fab.

Andy_JS · September 12

"Thousands of burglars and shoplifters should be spared jail, the Liberal Democrats have said.

A motion at the party’s annual conference in Brighton next week will urge Sir Keir Starmer to scrap most sentences of less than a year. Rishi Sunak’s government had drafted similar plans to ditch the majority of jail terms under 12 months to ease the prisons overcrowding crisis.

Under the Liberal Democrat proposals, offenders including burglars, shoplifters and thieves would walk free on the condition that they carry out unpaid community work."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/12/liberal-democrat-conference-alistair-carmichael-sentences/

Mexicanpete · September 12

What a guy! What a party!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m0mnrnlrno

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

Taz said:

Alanbrooke said:

I see Labour's growth plan has hit Grangemouth

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/12/grangemouth-oil-refinery-close-by-end-of-june-500-jobs-at-risk-petroineos-scotland
I thought Ed Miliband would be pleased, he seems a little unhappy.

https://x.com/ed_miliband/status/1834175566280278148?s=61

2,500 jobs gone in Port Talbot and now 500 in Grangemouth

I thought Miliband was promising a green revolution of jobs, but he lost 3,000 this week alone

Nunu5 · September 12

Alanbrooke said:

I see Labour's growth plan has hit Grangemouth

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/12/grangemouth-oil-refinery-close-by-end-of-june-500-jobs-at-risk-petroineos-scotland

The result of policies by both main parties (and the SNP). But they will blame the cmpany instead.

tlg86 · September 12

Short formation and no driver out of Waterloo tonight. One passenger remarked “didn’t we just give them a ten grand pay rise?” I believe that is called “cut-through”

kinabalu · September 12

Stuartinromford said:

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.
Counterpoint is that those Blue Wallers are going to be damn difficult to win back. As long as the Lib Dems are in opposition, why should voters flip their alleigence from one opposition party to another? That wasn't the case for the Red Wall- they flipped because they wanted a Conservative government and largely flipped back when it failed to deliver the goods. See also Scotland- many voters were happy to block Labour by voting SNP until the failings of their government were impossible to ignore.

It's a difficult problem. It's an important one, sure- I find it hard to see how the Conservatives get a majority without those 70-odd seats in affluent "nice Britain". It would have blocked Boris in 2019, and Maggie would have been in deep trouble in 1983 and 1987. But the difficulty, even before we consider the Lib Dem ground game, makes it understandable that even thoughful Tories are shying away from the question.

It doesn't help that drawing maps of imaginary armies to win Operation Reunite The Right is more fun.

And if (witness here) lots of 'non populist' centre righters have given up on them that kind of forces them in a Farage direction, I suppose.

Flatlander · September 12

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.

Whilst I can't disagree with the sentiment, aren't political parties usually unhappy with the world as it is?

They all promise to change it...

Pagan2 · September 12

Andy_JS said:
"Thousands of burglars and shoplifters should be spared jail, the Liberal Democrats have said.

A motion at the party’s annual conference in Brighton next week will urge Sir Keir Starmer to scrap most sentences of less than a year. Rishi Sunak’s government had drafted similar plans to ditch the majority of jail terms under 12 months to ease the prisons overcrowding crisis.

Under the Liberal Democrat proposals, offenders including burglars, shoplifters and thieves would walk free on the condition that they carry out unpaid community work."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/12/liberal-democrat-conference-alistair-carmichael-sentences/

And when they don't bother turning up for community service which a large percentage will?

viewcode · September 12

The Narcissist's Prayer

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

logical_song · September 12

IanB2 said:

kjh said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
Sorry if that sounded rude. It was meant to be a compliment. I was thinking along the lines of my brother-in-law. A sensible but dyed in the wool Tory but who couldn't bring himself to vote Tory this time so was going to abstain. My sister said he should vote, so he did. We have no idea how he voted but it was in a constituency that went from Tory to LD. We all think that he was worried that if he put a cross next to the LD the pencil would self combust.

I hope the LDs have given you a great welcome.
It’s remarkable that in the US what you call the sensible Conservatives are essentially in hiding (the Cheneys honourably excepted), hoping that the political weather will change but doing next to nothing to bring it about.

Hopefully we will find out what happens when Trump loses and starts to have to pay for his misdeeds. It will be interesting to see what direction the Republican Party takes.

Taz · September 12

rottenborough said:

Roger said:

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him “bringing his hate show” to the city where she was born and lived half her life.

Bonus fact—Ronstadt Hall holds 2300; guess they couldn’t fill the 8900-seat arena next door.

https://x.com/KBAndersen/status/1834235120171028785
My first day at work. It was 8AM. I'd walked to the studio on king Rd and there was a very well known model who I'd only seen on covers before. She said 'Hi I'm Maudie I'm working here today" I said 'Hi I'm Roger Elizabeth's assistant and this is my first day" She said "go and put some music on..... "Anything"'. So I went to the record player and this was the first track..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQyoTIQOOM

A belter. And much better than Fry and Henley's original version.

It really isn’t but it is perfectly good.

Sunil_Prasannan · September 12

Flatlander said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
Whilst I can't disagree with the sentiment, aren't political parties usually unhappy with the world as it is?

They all promise to change it...

You can't change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world

logical_song · September 12

Andy_JS said:
"Thousands of burglars and shoplifters should be spared jail, the Liberal Democrats have said.

A motion at the party’s annual conference in Brighton next week will urge Sir Keir Starmer to scrap most sentences of less than a year. Rishi Sunak’s government had drafted similar plans to ditch the majority of jail terms under 12 months to ease the prisons overcrowding crisis.

Under the Liberal Democrat proposals, offenders including burglars, shoplifters and thieves would walk free on the condition that they carry out unpaid community work."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/12/liberal-democrat-conference-alistair-carmichael-sentences/

Aren't community sentences already used for some crimes?
Those sentences aren't exactly 'walking free' and it gets some graffiti cleaned up too.

Stuartinromford · September 12

Flatlander said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
Whilst I can't disagree with the sentiment, aren't political parties usually unhappy with the world as it is?

They all promise to change it...

Though as the Serenity Prayer puts it,

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Part of the art of politics is knowing what can be changed now, and what needs some ground preparation first. And what things are unchangeable within the limits of human nature, arithmetic and so on.

Maggie was sometimes genius level at the first two. Pragmatic when necessary, visionary when possible. Though not always- the ambition to create a nation of philanthropists through tax cuts didn't happen, for example.

Barnesian · September 12

New Ipsos poll taken after the debate shows Kamala 5 points ahead.

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

kinabalu said:

Stuartinromford said:

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

LostPassword said:
This provides a pretty clear steer on the winner of the Tory leadership contest - it will be the rightmost of the final two - and what that will do for the Tories' prospects at the next election - not much good.
It ain't necessarily so, especially if Labour continue to become unpopular in office.

GE result:

Labour 33.7%
Tory 23.7%
Reform 14.3%
Seats are more important though. IMO the Cons should take a leaf from Keir Starmer in order to plot their way back. The core of his strategy was reclaiming the Red Wall. Anything else was a nice to have. The need to win those seats informed almost everything he did as Labour leader.

The Tories equivalent is the Blue Wall. The LDs smashed them there. They gained a shedload of seats and the Cons have to get most of those back as the basis for a revival. This means no lurch to the populist right chasing RUK voters. Lots of the members might want that but it's not a smart move.
Counterpoint is that those Blue Wallers are going to be damn difficult to win back. As long as the Lib Dems are in opposition, why should voters flip their alleigence from one opposition party to another? That wasn't the case for the Red Wall- they flipped because they wanted a Conservative government and largely flipped back when it failed to deliver the goods. See also Scotland- many voters were happy to block Labour by voting SNP until the failings of their government were impossible to ignore.

It's a difficult problem. It's an important one, sure- I find it hard to see how the Conservatives get a majority without those 70-odd seats in affluent "nice Britain". It would have blocked Boris in 2019, and Maggie would have been in deep trouble in 1983 and 1987. But the difficulty, even before we consider the Lib Dem ground game, makes it understandable that even thoughful Tories are shying away from the question.

It doesn't help that drawing maps of imaginary armies to win Operation Reunite The Right is more fun.
And if (witness here) lots of 'non populist' centre righters have given up on them that kind of forces them in a Farage direction, I suppose.

I have no interest in the conservative leader campaign and await the election of the leader which by the way is taking far too long

I would just say the following

It is far too early to suggest labour will lose the next election, but their doom and gloom is depressing as a19% approval rating must be for them

It is also far too early to give the last rights to the conservative party which, no matter who the leader is, has a mountain to climb but it certainly is possible to recover in the 5 years it faces in opposition

The Lib Dems did well, but it is a sobering thought that Farage achieved 14% of the vote with 5 seats, and the Lib Dems 12% gaining 72 which is a strange quirk of the electoral system

I am not convinced Farage will be a force as time passes, and I do expect some Reform voters to return to the conservatives but again no idea how many and when

What this does show is it is a mugs game to try to predict the outcome of the next GE so early in the parliament

kjh · September 12

@Big_G_NorthWales I have just read the Telegraph article talking about limiting the tax free pension element of 25% to £100,000 which you suggested and I said would be unlikely. I notice they talk about transitional relief. Now if they did that it would be possible, depending upon what the relief is. It is difficult though because you would have to give that relief to at least everyone over 55 and arguably before that so there would be little gain for decades. A £100,000 limit would not spook the markets I'm guessing, particularly if there is transitional relief, but I assume it brings in little. But if no relief, myself and my wife would both withdraw a considerable sum from our pensions to ensure we didn't get caught out by our fund growing and the tax free element exceeding £100,000 in the future. It is a minefield.

And what about DB pensions over which you have no control of the tax free element. People planning for their retirement are going to be truly miffed if there is no transitional relief and you plan to retire next year.

Tres · September 12

Sandpit said:

kamski said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kamski said:

Pagan2 said:

LostPassword said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Taz said:

kjh said:

rottenborough said:
"On her record so far, Reeves is quickly turning out to be the worst Chancellor of modern times – and it won’t be long before there is talk about replacing her."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/11/rachel-reeves-is-the-most-incompetent-chancellor-in-decades/
Says the Telegraph. Let's wait until she does cockups which inevitably will happen. You have a budget in a month. Honestly the impatience of people to show Labour are failing is laughable. There are 4 to 5 years to go. Can we not wait a few more months until something really happens.
I voted Labour and have a bit of Buyers remorse at the moment but it is far too early to castigate Rachel Reeves.

I agree with the WFA cut, I do not see that she has done anything wrong so far apart from, possibly, the way it was handled.

TBH I get why the Tories and their supporters cannot wait to try to show labour is failing us. If would be no different if the boot was on the other foot.
The Tory press is doing exactly what you’d expect it to do, and it’s perfectly within its rights to do so. Of course the Telegraph is going to say things like Reeves is the worse chancellor in history. It may well be working: Labour have lost the spin battles since July.

Equally it makes sense for supporters of Labour to position this as desperate bleating by a right wing press in denial. Which might also work a bit.
I don't have a great sense of spin battles being either lost or won atm.
Labour will dip a fair bit in the polls and Tories will claim success. Tories have forgotten how to govern. Year 1, clear the decks, announce anything bad. Year 4 spread the jam.
That of course supposes that there is any jam in Year 4, which given Labour's extraordinary anti-growth policies on tax, Net Zero, regulation, well everything except a bit on housing, is very unlikely. And that's assuming there aren't any large external shocks.

Also it's by no means even certain, as the Conservatives found out in 1997, that the electorate will thank you for good economic news. If the narrative has set in that you're crap, it's incredibly difficult to shift.
Why do you think they've made growth politically totemic if their policies are anti growth?
Well yes - it's something of a mystery. It's a pretty remarkable turnaround from 'vote for us - we'll try really hard to grow the economy' to 'let's ramp up taxes, discourage investment and scare all the capital away' in 2 months or so.

Granted we haven't had the budget yet and it might turn out to be totally different from the mood music.
It could be that the policies we see over the next few years are not "anti-growth", they are just not the sort of economics favoured by the right. That's where my money would be. This is a Labour government after all. We had the Cons for 14 years and now we have Labour.

Course we don't know how we'll do on growth in this parliament yet. If it turns out it's poor Labour will have a hell of a job getting re-elected. They know this better than anyone. Which is why, succeed or fail, we can be pretty sure their policies will on the whole be intended to boost growth not depress it.
Your last paragraph, could, logically be applied to government by any party. I look forward to this discussion again in five or ten or fifteen years time when government of another party is in and you can also assure us that their policies will necessarily be pro-growth

Of my many reservations about Labour, my biggest is that they seem unable to see that economic policies have consequences: if you increase a tax on x, the behaviour of people who do x changes, and less of x gets done. You don't just rake in the tax. So: people move from the private sector to the state sector in education; or billionaires move elsewhere in the world, or businesses stop hiring, or people stop investing in pensions. I had hoped that Rachel Reeves would not be like this, but early signs are not promising.

At the same time, are we actually investing the sorts of things that create growth, like infrastructure and education? Again, maybe we will. But early signs are not promising.
Well the intention of big economic policy (both parties) usually is pro growth. The one serious exception to this that comes to mind in recent years is Brexit. That was a policy to damage growth. A rare bird.

Re Reeves, she's bound to upset some people with her choices (eg WFA) given the parlous state of the public finances. I promise you I'll have a moan myself if she does something I think is either wrongheaded or gratuitously nasty.
Well not that rare! Lockdown, for example, was the most economically catastrophic policy of my lifetime by a country mile. Done for arguably valid reasons (I would argue erroneously, but I'm in a minority), but economically negative nonetheless. And there are countless others. The triple lock. Net zero. DEI legilsation. And so on. There are dozens of areas in which policy is made where the negative impact on growth is deemed a price worth paying for whatever the reason for the policy is.

Some of us, of course, deem Brexit more likely to be an economic plus! But I know you're not in that camp, and more importantly for the purpose of this argument nor was treasury.

You can prioritise growth, or you can prioritise other things, and there will be valid reasons for either. You either prioritise the nation getting richer at the expense of nice things today like clean streets and working public toilets, or you prioritise nice things today at the expense of the speed of getting rich. Where we sit on the continuum of how much growth we sacrifice in order to pay for the nice things today probably isn't that far apart.
But even though my expectations of Rachel Reeves were modest in this regard, I've been slightly disappointed at the extent to which she has prioritised things which are not growing the economy.

I have no complaints at all about the WFA. That was an anti growth gimmick introduced by Gordon Brown and its abolition is a step in the right direction. (Personally, I would have rolled it into the overall state pension but then changed the pension to a single lock rather than a triple lock - i.e. it grows with median wages.) But meanwhile there have been too many steps in the wrong direction which will make us poorer.
Ok - but I was talking about the thrust of macro-economic policy. That tends to be aimed at promoting growth. It's just that people differ on what best does this. I'd allude to skinning and cats if I didn't have a cat.

I'm a 'going for growth' sceptic. I think how we do on growth depends mainly on things which are nothing to do with government. I'd rather government concentrate on redistribution/equality, public services and social engineering.
That's a reasonable position to take. I'd argue that there's lots that governments can do, both positive and negative, to 'go for growth' - a local example being the RoI, which has gone for growth in a big way over the last 40 years (#1 by low business rates).
But there are 99 reasons why the UK <> RoI, and economics is complex, and CoE isn't my job. So my opinion on this is just that: an opinion.
The low business taxes are symbolic, but there's so much more to it than that.

Mostly it's an attitude difference. Ireland knows that businesses don't have to base themselves in Ireland, but that Ireland will be dirt poor if it can't persuade them to do so.

People in Britain don't seem to realise that businesses have choices and choices have consequences. It's not an inevitable feature of reality that Britain will continue to be a wealthy advanced economy. Arguably it has already declined some way towards the middle of the pack.

Attitudes like kinabalu's are incredibly complacent.
Its like his view that private schools should be abolished. People point out it will have knock on consequences such as the catchement area's of good schools being made untenable for the poorer in society as they are snapped up by the richer people. He just airily declares it won't happen
Just make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas with the poorest pupils.
How? If you do manage to create a very good school in a "poor" area (not easy without spending a lot of money on staffing) then the house prices in the catchment areas will rise, pricing out the poorer families.

Unless you make sure that places are allocated by something other than distance to the school of course. Possibly some sort of test done by the pupils when they are about 11...

Actually schools in poorer areas get significantly more funding due to the Pupil Premium.
Pupil premium is only 335 quid a year. It's not a serious attempt to make sure the best schools are in the poorest areas.

Yes, maybe rich people will move into the poorest areas, which isn't a bad thing - and it will take a while to price out the poorer families who already live there. At which point the school won't get the support to be one of the best schools any more.

It's actually a perfectly solvable problem, but people don't want to solve it.
Ask Katherine Birbalsingh how to set up an outstanding school in a very poor area, and replicate it around the country.

She did it by being able to choose the pupils.

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

Stuartinromford said:

Flatlander said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

kjh said:

david_herdson said:
Entirely predictable. Parties nearly always lurch to the extreme after a long time in government before tacking back to the centre after a defeat - and this time there's the added electoral challenge of Reform making that option oh so enticing.

But it'll fail because it will so strongly reinforce the tactical voting against them, even if they somehow manage to reuinite the right - which itself is unlikely because Reform and Tory voters are actually quite different political beasts and don't sit very naturally together.

Take me as an unrepresentative sample of one (but maybe not *that* unrepresentative). Long-time Tory member, activist, official and briefly councillor. Offered the chance to return having resigned five years ago. Instead joined the Lib Dems.
Like Nick I did not know you had joined the LDs - You are very welcome. Are you very active? Are you enjoying the change?

I agree with most of what you post, but I am still surprised we have gained you. I always considered you a very sensible Tory, but a Tory nonetheless.
I'm not active yet - I literally only joined this month, having reached a point where I could withdraw from my Yorkshire Party responsibilities without causing undue disruption, but I expect to become active soon. Wakefield has all-out elections in 20 months, which is an interesting opportunity.
It’s a struggle for people like us to keep on defending the Tories.

I shall also leave the party forever if Jenrick or Badenoch lead the party.

We’re not so much the nasty party these days as we are the angry party, unhappy with the world as it is.
Whilst I can't disagree with the sentiment, aren't political parties usually unhappy with the world as it is?

They all promise to change it...
Though as the Serenity Prayer puts it,

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Part of the art of politics is knowing what can be changed now, and what needs some ground preparation first. And what things are unchangeable within the limits of human nature, arithmetic and so on.

Maggie was sometimes genius level at the first two. Pragmatic when necessary, visionary when possible. Though not always- the ambition to create a nation of philanthropists through tax cuts didn't happen, for example.

This is the serenity prayer

“O God and Heavenly Father, grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.”

williamglenn · September 12

Barnesian said:
New Ipsos poll taken after the debate shows Kamala 5 points ahead.

How many dogs and cats are in their sample?

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

kjh said:
@Big_G_NorthWales I have just read the Telegraph article talking about limiting the tax free pension element of 25% to £100,000 which you suggested and I said would be unlikely. I notice they talk about transitional relief. Now if they did that it would be possible, depending upon what the relief is. It is difficult though because you would have to give that relief to at least everyone over 55 and arguably before that so there would be little gain for decades. A £100,000 limit would not spook the markets I'm guessing, particularly if there is transitional relief, but I assume it brings in little. But if no relief, myself and my wife would both withdraw a considerable sum from our pensions to ensure we didn't get caught out by our fund growing and the tax free element exceeding £100,000 in the future. It is a minefield.

And what about DB pensions over which you have no control of the tax free element.

Thank you for commenting on this, and I have read the proposal in several papers and do understand a 25% rate would assist the narrative of helping the 'working class', whatever that means, but it is an absolute minefield once you start messing around with pensions, not least because many people will have to review their portfolios and whole trajectory and no doubt make changes that the treasury may well not benefit from

Stuartinromford · September 12

williamglenn said:

Barnesian said:
New Ipsos poll taken after the debate shows Kamala 5 points ahead.

How many dogs and cats are in their sample?

None. They've all been eaten, we just don't know who to blame yet.

rottenborough · September 12

Bluster?

Or time to brace?

Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
·
31m
Putin said that the permission for long-range strikes against Russia "will mean that NATO countries are directly at war with Russia."

And he called it "war."

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1834282641153294772

Malmesbury · September 12

Stuartinromford said:

williamglenn said:

Barnesian said:
New Ipsos poll taken after the debate shows Kamala 5 points ahead.

How many dogs and cats are in their sample?
None. They've all been eaten, we just don't know who to blame yet.

It was the Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AIs. As always.

MikeL · September 12

Labour renters bill looks like a charter for tenants to run rings round landlords:

- Have to be 3 months in arrears before landlord can take action
- Can go 2 months in arrears repeatedly without landlord being able to do anything
- Four weeks notice once landlord takes action

So all that means tenant can have their last 4 months rent free.

And of course if landlord does take action, how long will it take to get a Court date, then eviction notice, then wait for bailiffs?

I look after one single rental property for a relative who lives overseas (she inherited it). It's already on the market for sale but with all this I'll call her tomorrow morning to say she must evict the tenants immediately.

The risk of hassle is just not worth it.

Malmesbury · September 12

rottenborough said:
Bluster?

Or time to brace?

Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
·
31m
Putin said that the permission for long-range strikes against Russia "will mean that NATO countries are directly at war with Russia."

And he called it "war."

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1834282641153294772

Its another Russian Red Line

There are so many that have been passed without being noticed that you could weave MacGregor Tartan for the rest of time, from them.

kinabalu · September 12

Barnesian said:
New Ipsos poll taken after the debate shows Kamala 5 points ahead.

That's what I'm wanting and cautiously expecting. A lead of at least 5 pts by end of this month.

Fysics_Teacher · September 12

Completely off topic: I’ve been watching Somerset play Surrey in the county championship. Good start by Somerset but heading fo a draw after rain today, so I switched to something else. Just seen that they won with Archie Vaughan getting 12 wickets. Serves me right for giving up too early: I missed seven wickets in about an hour.

kjh · September 12

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:
@Big_G_NorthWales I have just read the Telegraph article talking about limiting the tax free pension element of 25% to £100,000 which you suggested and I said would be unlikely. I notice they talk about transitional relief. Now if they did that it would be possible, depending upon what the relief is. It is difficult though because you would have to give that relief to at least everyone over 55 and arguably before that so there would be little gain for decades. A £100,000 limit would not spook the markets I'm guessing, particularly if there is transitional relief, but I assume it brings in little. But if no relief, myself and my wife would both withdraw a considerable sum from our pensions to ensure we didn't get caught out by our fund growing and the tax free element exceeding £100,000 in the future. It is a minefield.

And what about DB pensions over which you have no control of the tax free element.
Thank you for commenting on this, and I have read the proposal in several papers and do understand a 25% rate would assist the narrative of helping the 'working class', whatever that means, but it is an absolute minefield once you start messing around with pensions, not least because many people will have to review their portfolios and whole trajectory and no doubt make changes that the treasury may well not benefit from

Giving someone 25% relief when they only pay 20% tax is a good incentive, while taking away the 40%+ relief which isn't justified is a revenue earner for the treasury. So a win win I'm my book for fairness. No idea if positive or negative for the treasury.

GIN1138 · September 12

Oh, Andrea Jenkyns... 😭

rottenborough · September 12

MikeL said:
Labour renters bill looks like a charter for tenants to run rings round landlords:

- Have to be 3 months in arrears before landlord can take action
- Can go 2 months in arrears repeatedly without landlord being able to do anything
- Four weeks notice once landlord takes action

So all that means tenant can have their last 4 months rent free.

And of course if landlord does take action, how long will it take to get a Court date, then eviction notice, then wait for bailiffs?

I look after one single rental property for a relative who lives overseas (she inherited it). It's already on the market for sale but with all this I'll call her tomorrow morning to say she must evict the tenants immediately.

The risk of hassle is just not worth it.

The Act wont take effect until next summer I think.

If you are already in the sales process seems unlikely anything it says will matter to you.

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

MikeL said:
Labour renters bill looks like a charter for tenants to run rings round landlords:

- Have to be 3 months in arrears before landlord can take action
- Can go 2 months in arrears repeatedly without landlord being able to do anything
- Four weeks notice once landlord takes action

So all that means tenant can have their last 4 months rent free.

And of course if landlord does take action, how long will it take to get a Court date, then eviction notice, then wait for bailiffs?

I look after one single rental property for a relative who lives overseas (she inherited it). It's already on the market for sale but with all this I'll call her tomorrow morning to say she must evict the tenants immediately.

The risk of hassle is just not worth it.

I expect an exodus of a large number of landlords

Nigelb · September 12

rottenborough said:

Kurt Andersen
@KBAndersen

Trump’s having a rally today in Tucson at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Here’s her statement about him ...

"You're no good.
You're no good.
You're no good..."

rottenborough · September 12

Why are the only adverts I now see on Twitter for extra wide shoes?

I get dozens a day, every day for several weeks now.

Does Elon's bollx AI think it knows something about my feet.

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

kjh said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

kjh said:
@Big_G_NorthWales I have just read the Telegraph article talking about limiting the tax free pension element of 25% to £100,000 which you suggested and I said would be unlikely. I notice they talk about transitional relief. Now if they did that it would be possible, depending upon what the relief is. It is difficult though because you would have to give that relief to at least everyone over 55 and arguably before that so there would be little gain for decades. A £100,000 limit would not spook the markets I'm guessing, particularly if there is transitional relief, but I assume it brings in little. But if no relief, myself and my wife would both withdraw a considerable sum from our pensions to ensure we didn't get caught out by our fund growing and the tax free element exceeding £100,000 in the future. It is a minefield.

And what about DB pensions over which you have no control of the tax free element.
Thank you for commenting on this, and I have read the proposal in several papers and do understand a 25% rate would assist the narrative of helping the 'working class', whatever that means, but it is an absolute minefield once you start messing around with pensions, not least because many people will have to review their portfolios and whole trajectory and no doubt make changes that the treasury may well not benefit from
Giving someone 25% relief when they only pay 20% tax is a good incentive, while taking away the 40%+ relief which isn't justified is a revenue earner for the treasury. So a win win I'm my book for fairness. No idea if positive or negative for the treasury.

I think it is sensible

Big_G_NorthWales · September 12

GIN1138 said:
Oh, Andrea Jenkyns... 😭

What she done now ?

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