Canadian trip complete. What an absolute fucking blast
I've always fancied going to Canada. Maybe next year... 🙏
I can't recommend it highly enough. Leon isn't over-hyping it. I haven't been since before COVID now, I really need to get out there again myself.
Where would you recommend?
I am a mad man who has driven Canada basically coast to coast, twice....
I would say British Columbia / Alberta is hard to beat. The East side of Canada is good too, with the Great Lakes etc, but the classic Vancouver, up into the mountains, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise, etc is just epic. Vancouver Island is another amazing (and different) place.
If you want to go "bigger" you can also do a massive loop that takes you down into the US and do Glacier National Park, come back via North Casades, Seattle, San Juan Islands,
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
He held some meetings there? Wow. I mean, the monetary value of that must get into... what? Four figures?
Yeah... this one is pretty weak sauce.
I’d be embarrassed to post it. But it’s BillieGlenn…
I mean Boba, for the next five years you are going to downplay every story about the oh-so pius master of "probity and ethics" , Sir Keith Starmar... and even as the tide rises in over his head and slowly submerges him towards Election 29, you'll be telling us there's nothing to see here.
Canadian trip complete. What an absolute fucking blast
I've always fancied going to Canada. Maybe next year... 🙏
I can't recommend it highly enough. Leon isn't over-hyping it. I haven't been since before COVID now, I really need to get out there again myself.
Where would you recommend?
I am a mad man who has driven Canada basically coast to coast, twice....
I would say British Columbia / Alberta is hard to beat. The East side of Canada is good too, with the Great Lakes etc, but the classic Vancouver, up into the mountains, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise, etc is just epic. Vancouver Island is another amazing (and different) place.
If you want to go "bigger" you can also do a massive loop that takes you down into the US and do Glacier National Park, come back via North Casades, Seattle, San Juan Islands,
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
But YES in places - especially Vancouver and Okanagan - it is expensive. My hotel is £300 a night and it’s only 4 star
(Thankyou, the Canadian taxpayer)
F##k me the hotel prices are crazy. I stayed in Sheraton Wall Centre in a room with one of the most magical views (both of Grouse Mountain and the Ocean) 10 years ago and I don't think it cost more than £150 in September. Checks booking.com, £400 big ones for a bog standard room, £600 for the one I stayed in. Other than the potential view, it isn't "high end".
Never been to western Canada. Sounds expensive. We did a trip round the cities of eastern Canada in the summer of 1997, and I also spent 3 days in Toronto in 2015 while the election campaign that brought the current PM to power was taking place. That's it as far as Canada is concerned for me.
Never been to western Canada. Sounds expensive. We did a trip round the cities of eastern Canada in the summer of 1997, and I also spent 3 days in Toronto in 2015 while the election campaign that brought the current PM to power was taking place. That's it as far as Canada is concerned for me.
I’ve “done” eastern Canada (at least Montreal and Ontario)
It’s ok. It’s quite meh to be honest. The weather is too cruel
"Kemi Badenoch: I went from middle class to working class after McDonald’s job
The Conservative Party leadership contender claimed serving burgers and cleaning toilets alongside single parents at the fast-food chain gave her ‘humility’"
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
We got an unexpected email from leadership yesterday saying no pay rises, no promotions and no bonuses this year, and that's after one last month indicating everyone would get at least 2%.
It hasn't gone down well, to put it mildly.
Good job we've all got higher taxes to pay train drivers more shortly, though.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
The £160k includes the MP salary, so he’s not on a quarter of a million a year.
Yes, you're right. It's even worse than I thought.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
The £160k includes the MP salary, so he’s not on a quarter of a million a year.
Yes, you're right. It's even worse than I thought.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Brown reduced it by £50k just before 2010 GE as trap / spite for Cameron. It was £200k for Brown.
The context in the article isn't quite the same as the headline.
"Genoa is a wonderful place – my new favourite Italian city – surprisingly unscathed by tourists. We didn’t hear an English or American voice the whole weekend. We were all but alone in most of the galleries and churches we visited."
The point its a nice place which hasn't been discovered by loads of tourists at the moment, not "great no Dave's on stag do so its my new fav"...
(Russian) Bomb/fertilizer ship RUBY look like she has lost propulsion. She broadcasts "Not under command" on AIS.
She is right outside Bergen, home to important naval base Haakonsvern and a large part of Norway's oil/marine/fishing industry. Very convenient... https://x.com/auonsson/status/1836448139689001015
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
The £160k includes the MP salary, so he’s not on a quarter of a million a year.
Yes, you're right. It's even worse than I thought.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Brown reduced it by £50k just before 2010 GE as trap / spite for Cameron. It was £200k for Brown.
Inflation linked it should now be £300k.
Cameron had made a big thing of how he was going to reduce his own salary and was miffed to find Gordon Brown had done it for him, but it's not like Cameron was out of pocket.
A bigger problem was Mrs Thatcher starting a fashion for wage freezes, which was easy for her since the Thatchers were already millionaires.
At the start of the 20th Century, the Prime Minister got £10,000 a year, equivalent to about half a million now. Backbench MPs were unpaid, of course.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
The £160k includes the MP salary, so he’s not on a quarter of a million a year.
Yes, you're right. It's even worse than I thought.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Brown reduced it by £50k just before 2010 GE as trap / spite for Cameron. It was £200k for Brown.
Inflation linked it should now be £300k.
Cameron had made a big thing of how he was going to reduce his own salary and was miffed to find Gordon Brown had done it for him, but it's not like Cameron was out of pocket.
A bigger problem was Mrs Thatcher starting a fashion for wage freezes, which was easy for her since the Thatchers were already millionaires.
At the start of the 20th Century, the Prime Minister got £10,000 a year, equivalent to about half a million now. Backbench MPs were unpaid, of course.
I don't really have a problem with a PM getting that kind of money if no freebies etc. At the very least this tradition of PM getting his hols for free etc is soft corruption.
Government ministers, investments in blind trust, no freebies, donations can only go to central party and shouldn't be doing the auction of insert tennis, golf, etc with PM.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
The £160k includes the MP salary, so he’s not on a quarter of a million a year.
Yes, you're right. It's even worse than I thought.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Brown reduced it by £50k just before 2010 GE as trap / spite for Cameron. It was £200k for Brown.
Inflation linked it should now be £300k.
Cameron had made a big thing of how he was going to reduce his own salary and was miffed to find Gordon Brown had done it for him, but it's not like Cameron was out of pocket.
A bigger problem was Mrs Thatcher starting a fashion for wage freezes, which was easy for her since the Thatchers were already millionaires.
At the start of the 20th Century, the Prime Minister got £10,000 a year, equivalent to about half a million now. Backbench MPs were unpaid, of course.
I don't really have a problem with a PM getting that kind of money if no freebies etc. At the very least this tradition of PM getting his hols for free etc is soft corruption.
Government ministers, investments in blind trust, no freebies, donations can only go to central party and shouldn't be doing the auction of insert tennis, golf, etc with PM.
The public declaration of gifts and the like is supposed to take much of the heat out of this sort of thing.
Except Starmer - who is supposed to be the adult in the room - fails to declare them in time. Repeatedly.
At best, that's stupid. At middling, it's holding the system - and us - in contempt. At worst, corruption.
Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store. The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted them - including rape.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
It would fit.
I did stress that there was a big risk that SKS wouldn't see out the term.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
I tried. I failed. It is indeed monumentally awful.
And yet, since it's clearly clickbait, it's also monumentally successful.
The guardian must be desperate for clicks if it is willing to publish articles that make everyone hate everything it stands for. The contempt on social media is significant
However, looking at the guardian’s dire financial situation maybe they ARE that desperate. I note they are selling the observer for pennies
Add in their fierce attacks on Starmer and something weird is happening at groaniad towers
Given the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which has an £850 million trust fund specifically to keep it publishing left liberal articles it can survive even if massive losses and poor journalism from time to time
I’m not so sure anymore. The fact they are selling the observer is quite startling
The terms of the Scott Trust are quite clear that its close to a billion pounds worth is only to be used to keep the Guardian publishing left liberal articles whether the public want to read them in significant numbers or not. It is therefore immune to market forces whatever happens to its sister paper the Observer.
The Guardian editor is basically effectively a trust fund heir to a vast fortune who doesn't need to work or sell a product people actually want to buy as long as he complies with the term of his trust and gets his inheritance
I thought you were in favour of inheritance so people don't have to work for a living so long as they vote Tory?
The hypocrisy of the guardian on aggressive tax planning really sticks in the craw though
Meanwhile, in "the electorate is always right, even when they are wrong, but sometimes they are very wrong" news,
Just 12% of people expect net migration to fall over the first twelve months of the new government; 50% expect it to rise further. (But the 12% are right: immigration is now falling, so net migration will approximately halve this year)
We asked respondents to estimate the proportion of UK immigration in each of these categories [By giving them 100 points to split between 4 categories]
Meanwhile, in "the electorate is always right, even when they are wrong, but sometimes they are very wrong" news,
Just 12% of people expect net migration to fall over the first twelve months of the new government; 50% expect it to rise further. (But the 12% are right: immigration is now falling, so net migration will approximately halve this year)
We asked respondents to estimate the proportion of UK immigration in each of these categories [By giving them 100 points to split between 4 categories]
Such is the legacy of the Conservative Party’s decision to go on and on about these areas of immigration, giving the public a distorted view, at which point lots voted Reform UK and the Tories sunk to a historic electoral defeat. Imagine if the Tories had chosen to focus on an area they were doing better on, like the economy.
The context in the article isn't quite the same as the headline.
"Genoa is a wonderful place – my new favourite Italian city – surprisingly unscathed by tourists. We didn’t hear an English or American voice the whole weekend. We were all but alone in most of the galleries and churches we visited."
The point its a nice place which hasn't been discovered by loads of tourists at the moment, not "great no Dave's on stag do so its my new fav"...
A group of us Inter-railers went to Genoa over forty years, ago after Florence.
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
I tried. I failed. It is indeed monumentally awful.
And yet, since it's clearly clickbait, it's also monumentally successful.
The guardian must be desperate for clicks if it is willing to publish articles that make everyone hate everything it stands for. The contempt on social media is significant
However, looking at the guardian’s dire financial situation maybe they ARE that desperate. I note they are selling the observer for pennies
Add in their fierce attacks on Starmer and something weird is happening at groaniad towers
Given the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which has an £850 million trust fund specifically to keep it publishing left liberal articles it can survive even if massive losses and poor journalism from time to time
I’m not so sure anymore. The fact they are selling the observer is quite startling
I'm half with Leon on this, though the Scott Trust Endowment fund value is worth more than he states - ~£1.25bn according to the recent report*. AFAICS that is not much higher than the value around 2012, despite the 50% of Autotrader which was sold for around £620m in the interim. If I am reading it correctly, it was down at about £750m around 2015.
(Someone may know the detail of this better than me - I'm not sure if the value of Autotrader was in the previous number.)
That's a lot of things, but "long-term stable" is not one of them for a few more years yet - it was all restructured in 2008 as a Company not a Trust.
The G is in a stronger position than 10-15 years ago, when it was a bloodbath; it was losing 10s of millions a year.
The important one is that they now have ~£90m a year coming in from 'voluntary subscriptions', from about a million donors. That's from £260m total revenue, and is far more significant day to day or year to year than the Endowment Fund.
Meanwhile, in "the electorate is always right, even when they are wrong, but sometimes they are very wrong" news,
Just 12% of people expect net migration to fall over the first twelve months of the new government; 50% expect it to rise further. (But the 12% are right: immigration is now falling, so net migration will approximately halve this year)
We asked respondents to estimate the proportion of UK immigration in each of these categories [By giving them 100 points to split between 4 categories]
To be honest I am slightly surprised that asylum claims are as high as 7%. I suspect that this includes claims by "late stayers" who were here for work or study.
I am also surprised that family is as low as 6%. I suspect this will increase now that the loopholes of students being able to bring their families with them has largely been closed. It is also likely to increase over time as the size of the immigrant community grows.
What these figures actually show is that the figures the public are given are seriously distorted by work and study, most (if not all) of whom are not immigrants at all in the real world but here for a relatively short term purpose. My son's girlfriend, a Canadian, also studying at Oxford will be amongst that group but once she has her degree and any post graduate qualification it is very unlikely she will stay in the UK. The perception given by the media is that our population is growing by the amount of these short stayers. Once the distortions of Covid are worked through the net effect of these numbers should diminish although I wonder how good we are at recording leavers.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
I tried. I failed. It is indeed monumentally awful.
And yet, since it's clearly clickbait, it's also monumentally successful.
The guardian must be desperate for clicks if it is willing to publish articles that make everyone hate everything it stands for. The contempt on social media is significant
However, looking at the guardian’s dire financial situation maybe they ARE that desperate. I note they are selling the observer for pennies
Add in their fierce attacks on Starmer and something weird is happening at groaniad towers
Given the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which has an £850 million trust fund specifically to keep it publishing left liberal articles it can survive even if massive losses and poor journalism from time to time
I’m not so sure anymore. The fact they are selling the observer is quite startling
I'm half with Leon on this, though the Scott Trust Endowment fund value is worth more than he states - ~£1.25bn according to the recent report*. AFAICS that is not much higher than the value around 2012, despite the 50% of Autotrader which was sold for around £620m in the interim. If I am reading it correctly, it was down at about £750m around 2015.
(Someone may know the detail of this better than me - I'm not sure if the value of Autotrader was in the previous number.)
That's a lot of things, but "long-term stable" is not one of them for a few more years yet - it was all restructured in 2008 as a Company not a Trust.
The G is in a stronger position than 10-15 years ago, when it was a bloodbath; it was losing 10s of millions a year.
The important one is that they now have ~£90m a year coming in from 'voluntary subscriptions', from about a million donors. That's from £260m total revenue, and is far more significant day to day or year to year than the Endowment Fund.
On the G and the Observer, I still regard them as different having grown up with family reading the Observer. The Observer was imo more liberal / reflective and less preachy. Compare Alan Watkins and Polly Toynbee?
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
I mean, it doesn't have to be Simon Case...
Any of a number of aggrieved Labour staffers.
BBC political correspondent said there's an awful lot of unhappy people contacting him over it.
So can Sir Freebie do a full term ? On the one hand he will have a growing number of dissatisfied MPs with time on their hands and wobbly majorities. On the other hand It's Labour and the sheep are afraid to step out of line even as they head for the abattoir.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
I mean, it doesn't have to be Simon Case...
Any of a number of aggrieved Labour staffers.
BBC political correspondent said there's an awful lot of unhappy people contacting him over it.
So can Sir Freebie do a full term ? On the one hand he will have a growing number of dissatisfied MPs with time on their hands and wobbly majorities. On the other hand It's Labour and the sheep are afraid to step out of line even as they head for the abattoir.
Probably, yes.
Labour have yet to display Tory levels of skill at self immolation.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
I mean, it doesn't have to be Simon Case...
In the article, it says multiple people contacted him (who knew the salary) and why they felt able to run the story as they have multiple sources for the correct amount.
Meanwhile, in "the electorate is always right, even when they are wrong, but sometimes they are very wrong" news,
Just 12% of people expect net migration to fall over the first twelve months of the new government; 50% expect it to rise further. (But the 12% are right: immigration is now falling, so net migration will approximately halve this year)
We asked respondents to estimate the proportion of UK immigration in each of these categories [By giving them 100 points to split between 4 categories]
Two points on this - first, Labour will get some benefit just by carrying on as they are now, when the falling numbers become headlines.
Secondly, it's an illustration of how disastrously managed was the asylum policy. The numbers are small in relation to the immigration total, and yet keeping those people effectively detained, in a state of enforced economic inactivity, costs us many billions every year. Sorting that out ought to be a political and economic imperative.
I wonder how many people under a certain age asked today "What's a walkie talkie?"
Or, indeed, "What's a pager?"
I used to drink in a pub across the road from a hospital. Several times each evening a bleeper would go off, whereupon the owner would stand up, down his pint, and stagger across to deal with whatever emergency required his presence. All too often he'd reappear after half an hour covered in blood.
(I made up that last sentence.)
My mum had a bleeper in the 70s because she was working in a hospital at the time. Must have seemed very high-tech at the time.
We had them as field engineers at the time, when they went off you had to go to a phone box at your leisure and find out if important. Always ignored on friday afternoons as we were have several lemonades after a hard week
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
The Gray stuff stinks as well. She did a good job for Labour, and the Labour government are amply rewarding her.
It's Shami Chakrabarti all over again...
Sue Gray did not do “a good job for Labour”. I presume you are referring to her Partygate report, which she had finished before she talked to Labour about her later role. That report, if anything, was overly protective of Johnson’s government, opting to not even investigate some events.
Partygate was the fault of Boris Johnson. Don’t blame the messenger!
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
It reminds me that I shall have to make plans for the Crimble holibobs.
Surely ban hammer?
C word in mid September??
My local Sainsbury’s, sorry “Sainy B”, is selling mince pies
I love eating mince pies and Christmas stuff now as it feels illicit, like watching a dodgy screening of a new movie. Generally though I feel like those of us who like a spiced flavour profile are persecuted for two thirds of the year as cinnamonny things are associated with Christmas. If you were wealthy in the Medieval period you would have just chucked cinnamon and cloves into everything all of the time
Never been to western Canada. Sounds expensive. We did a trip round the cities of eastern Canada in the summer of 1997, and I also spent 3 days in Toronto in 2015 while the election campaign that brought the current PM to power was taking place. That's it as far as Canada is concerned for me.
I only managed Toronto with side visits to Niagra Falls and Arlington for the Arlington Million, days when a million dollars was big money
I think the more interesting fact is not the money, but clearly there is bad blood already, that people are leaking out damaging stories to journos. And journos love nothing more than this high school drama stuff.
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Question is- who leaked it and why? We don't know if it's lots of unhappy people (definitely a real problem) or one furious person (awkward, but not a problem.)
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
The Gray stuff stinks as well. She did a good job for Labour, and the Labour government are amply rewarding her.
It's Shami Chakrabarti all over again...
Sue Gray did not do “a good job for Labour”. I presume you are referring to her Partygate report, which she had finished before she talked to Labour about her later role. That report, if anything, was overly protective of Johnson’s government, opting to not even investigate some events.
Partygate was the fault of Boris Johnson. Don’t blame the messenger!
I refer you to the Shami Chakrabarti affair. Labour have form for helping people who give them the 'right' results...
*he’s still attending No10 meetings despite having pass removed *close relationship with Sue Gray makes him ever-present figure *he’s donated more than £575,000 to Labour politicians in 4 years *intimate donor dinners at his Mayfair home *lavish late night pool parties with Cabinet ministers at his Kent mansion *he’s the donor to go to when Labour politicians need a suit, loan or birthday party paid for *£14,000 for ‘events’ for Bridget Phillipson shortly before her 40th bday
How can Labour be THIS venal, greedy and stupid? It beggars belief. And then Labour would steal belief from the beggar anyway
Corbyn wouldn't do it!
Unless it was from Hezbollah, in which case he'd make an exception.
Corbyn accepted only one bit of hospitality during his tenure as leader: tickets for Glastonbury. Miliband accepted some tickets for the Olympics, and Brown accepted nothing. Blair accepted quite a bit, but, incredibly, Starmer has accepted more hospitality than his four predecessors combined. And his tenure includes a period when no-one was allowed to do anything.
I suspect Starmer is going to end up hated more bitterly than any PM in modern history. He is already dislikeable - now it turns out he’s greedy and corrupt. And he’s clueless and disapproving and tin-eared. And he has an annoying voice. And little squinty eyes as he frowns at you through his free £20k designer specs, for eating a pie without his permission as he steals your granny’s last lump of coal
That caught my attention, but I see you are being Leonine.
Mr Starmer has swapped his £500 specs for a £220 version. Both are frame prices.
I spend about £400-500 a year on specs if I want two pairs (one without reacting lenses for indoors) at Specsavers, which goes on lenses and necessary options, because I have an interesting prescription. That's with a fair amount of discounts and freebies, which at Specsavers are horribly complicated.
If it was a £500 frame I would be having them re-lensed for the next year.
I don't see the point of paying £500 for an ordinary looking frame, so count me as baffled on thsi one.
How much! I've worn fairly potent glasses since I was 3 years old, thanks to being pretty severely short sighted, but I think the most I've spent on a pair was £80 for some safety space ones with toughened lenses...
I think there's fair comment there, and also this from @carnforth
I have a severe astigmatism, and pay about £450 for two pairs (thinnest possible lenses).
That's about once every five years or so, though. How are you going through a set of lenses in a year? A changing prescription, or wear and tear?
There are several points there.
I've had glasses since the age of about 7, and an astigmatism heavy enough that I cannot use online or "select from a range" options. Also, becoming Type I Diabetic in my early 30s - wrong sort of stomach infection - means that my eyes continue to change as I age 25 years on with retinopathy beginning to appear a little. It also means I place a high value on service from a long-term optician relationship. Both are just a part of the diabetes overhead.
For glasses, my normal options over "basic" are multiway bend-and-recover hinges (I read books and fall asleep and bend normal flimsy ones), thin lenses due to heavy prescription (one from thinnest usually), reactions lenses (I have read too many reports of "but I didn't see him because of the bright sun when I ran him down at 30mph, so it wasn't my fault"), and 'one from the top' varifocals. All those cost more, subject to offers.
That puts me on ~£100-£130 frames, and by the time I have a second non-light reacting set for indoors in a slightly cheaper frame, and the normal offers on a second pair (one or other feature would be free one one or both pairs), a list price total of £~600-650 will come down to £400-500.
The "every year" is driven partly by the prescription change, and me wanting "as good as possible" eyesight. But also because I fund via a Healthcare Cash Plan - institutions basically left over from before the NHS, which is in my case pay £~30 a month and get £200 for dental and £220 for optical once a year each, and lots of other useful grants if you need them, eg I get £40 a day when I am an in-patient or day-patient, payments for therapists, health checks and so on. The best known such plan is Westfield. I was on one which paid £200 for 50% of glasses (so £400+ makes sense), but I've changed to one which pays 100%, so in fact it may work to change my pattern if the changing eyes will work.
The Teamsters will not endorse any candidate for president ahead of November's election, the major US labour union announced on Wednesday, an unusual move for the group.
"After reviewing six months of nationwide member polling and wrapping up nearly a year of rank-and-file roundtable interviews with all major candidates for the presidency, the union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris—and found no definitive support among members for either party’s nominee," the union said in a statement.
No definite support....60/40 in US terms is about as definite as things get.
For all his faults, Joe Biden was always seen as a Union man.
Kamala Harris is seen as a West Coast Liberal, former prosecutor etc.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
Free Gear Keir
Well, Two Tier Keir completely flopped, so his critics might as well try something else.
Do you remember Gordon Brittas? That was the classic of the genre.
Comments
I would say British Columbia / Alberta is hard to beat. The East side of Canada is good too, with the Great Lakes etc, but the classic Vancouver, up into the mountains, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise, etc is just epic. Vancouver Island is another amazing (and different) place.
If you want to go "bigger" you can also do a massive loop that takes you down into the US and do Glacier National Park, come back via North Casades, Seattle, San Juan Islands,
What fun we're going have! 😂
I wonder how many people in government have access to Sue Gray's salary figure?
Thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded, I'm paid £100k more than Sue Gray to relay gossip to you.
And that matters.
Because otherwise you wouldn't know.
And that is why you should be grateful."
BC is epic. Early Sept is a good time of year as well. Stil sunny and warm - very warm in Okanagan - but the crowds have gone
If I had more time I’d do Vancouver island or maybe the glacier park USA
Or haida gwaiiiiii
I’m almost tempted to delay my return now. But no. Things to do in london and then more travel…
(Thankyou, the Canadian taxpayer)
Vita brevis
It’s ok. It’s quite meh to be honest. The weather is too cruel
BC is a different world and vastly superior
It hasn't gone down well, to put it mildly.
Good job we've all got higher taxes to pay train drivers more shortly, though.
I had a strong muscle memory of the PM salary for the role being the full £160k
Inflation linked it should now be £300k.
"Jonathan Ray
Why Genoa is my new favourite city
We didn’t hear a single English accent"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-genoa-is-my-new-favourite-city/
"Genoa is a wonderful place – my new favourite Italian city – surprisingly unscathed by tourists. We didn’t hear an English or American voice the whole weekend. We were all but alone in most of the galleries and churches we visited."
The point its a nice place which hasn't been discovered by loads of tourists at the moment, not "great no Dave's on stag do so its my new fav"...
(Russian) Bomb/fertilizer ship RUBY look like she has lost propulsion. She broadcasts "Not under command" on AIS.
She is right outside Bergen, home to important naval base Haakonsvern and a large part of Norway's oil/marine/fishing industry. Very convenient...
https://x.com/auonsson/status/1836448139689001015
https://x.com/d_feldman/status/1836561458337059319
Generative AI has completely polluted the data.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e8755xv01o
Government are going to have to open the chequebook again...
A bigger problem was Mrs Thatcher starting a fashion for wage freezes, which was easy for her since the Thatchers were already millionaires.
At the start of the 20th Century, the Prime Minister got £10,000 a year, equivalent to about half a million now. Backbench MPs were unpaid, of course.
Tory corruption bad, Labour corruption good.
Brazil, Uraguay, Argentina and Chile all looked good in the one finished last night too.
Government ministers, investments in blind trust, no freebies, donations can only go to central party and shouldn't be doing the auction of insert tennis, golf, etc with PM.
Except Starmer - who is supposed to be the adult in the room - fails to declare them in time. Repeatedly.
At best, that's stupid. At middling, it's holding the system - and us - in contempt. At worst, corruption.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6x635wpjxo
The simplest answer to the means/motive/opportunity triad is someone very senior, who doesn't like Gray and/or is closer to the old regime than the new one.
I mean, it doesn't have to be Simon Case...
I did stress that there was a big risk that SKS wouldn't see out the term.
Just 12% of people expect net migration to fall over the first twelve months of the new government; 50% expect it to rise further. (But the 12% are right: immigration is now falling, so net migration will approximately halve this year)
We asked respondents to estimate the proportion of UK immigration in each of these categories [By giving them 100 points to split between 4 categories]
Asylum: estimate 37% (actual: 7%)
Family: estimate 17% (actual 6%)
Work: estimate 26% (actual 40%)
Study: estimate 19% (actual 38%)
Quarter of the public with most liberal views estimate 19% of UK immig is asylum (actual 7%)
Quarter with most migration sceptic views estimate 47% of immigration is asylum (vs actual 7%)
Four in ten Reform voters (39%) + 31% of Cons think that more than half of UK immigration is to claim asylum
https://bsky.app/profile/sundersays.bsky.social/post/3l4ho4aatin22
Nobody there spoke English.
(Someone may know the detail of this better than me - I'm not sure if the value of Autotrader was in the previous number.)
That's a lot of things, but "long-term stable" is not one of them for a few more years yet - it was all restructured in 2008 as a Company not a Trust.
The G is in a stronger position than 10-15 years ago, when it was a bloodbath; it was losing 10s of millions a year.
The important one is that they now have ~£90m a year coming in from 'voluntary subscriptions', from about a million donors. That's from £260m total revenue, and is far more significant day to day or year to year than the Endowment Fund.
* https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2023/07/25/Scott_Trust_endowment_report_2023.pdf
I am also surprised that family is as low as 6%. I suspect this will increase now that the loopholes of students being able to bring their families with them has largely been closed. It is also likely to increase over time as the size of the immigrant community grows.
What these figures actually show is that the figures the public are given are seriously distorted by work and study, most (if not all) of whom are not immigrants at all in the real world but here for a relatively short term purpose. My son's girlfriend, a Canadian, also studying at Oxford will be amongst that group but once she has her degree and any post graduate qualification it is very unlikely she will stay in the UK. The perception given by the media is that our population is growing by the amount of these short stayers. Once the distortions of Covid are worked through the net effect of these numbers should diminish although I wonder how good we are at recording leavers.
BBC political correspondent said there's an awful lot of unhappy people contacting him over it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxgdgkew81o
Mind you, he's on £260k.
https://x.com/GamingDrudge/status/1836167596858601639
Labour have yet to display Tory levels of skill at self immolation.
It's Shami Chakrabarti all over again...
NEW THREAD
Secondly, it's an illustration of how disastrously managed was the asylum policy.
The numbers are small in relation to the immigration total, and yet keeping those people effectively detained, in a state of enforced economic inactivity, costs us many billions every year.
Sorting that out ought to be a political and economic imperative.
Partygate was the fault of Boris Johnson. Don’t blame the messenger!
I have a severe astigmatism, and pay about £450 for two pairs (thinnest possible lenses).
That's about once every five years or so, though. How are you going through a set of lenses in a year? A changing prescription, or wear and tear?
There are several points there.
I've had glasses since the age of about 7, and an astigmatism heavy enough that I cannot use online or "select from a range" options. Also, becoming Type I Diabetic in my early 30s - wrong sort of stomach infection - means that my eyes continue to change as I age 25 years on with retinopathy beginning to appear a little. It also means I place a high value on service from a long-term optician relationship. Both are just a part of the diabetes overhead.
For glasses, my normal options over "basic" are multiway bend-and-recover hinges (I read books and fall asleep and bend normal flimsy ones), thin lenses due to heavy prescription (one from thinnest usually), reactions lenses (I have read too many reports of "but I didn't see him because of the bright sun when I ran him down at 30mph, so it wasn't my fault"), and 'one from the top' varifocals. All those cost more, subject to offers.
That puts me on ~£100-£130 frames, and by the time I have a second non-light reacting set for indoors in a slightly cheaper frame, and the normal offers on a second pair (one or other feature would be free one one or both pairs), a list price total of £~600-650 will come down to £400-500.
The "every year" is driven partly by the prescription change, and me wanting "as good as possible" eyesight. But also because I fund via a Healthcare Cash Plan - institutions basically left over from before the NHS, which is in my case pay £~30 a month and get £200 for dental and £220 for optical once a year each, and lots of other useful grants if you need them, eg I get £40 a day when I am an in-patient or day-patient, payments for therapists, health checks and so on. The best known such plan is Westfield. I was on one which paid £200 for 50% of glasses (so £400+ makes sense), but I've changed to one which pays 100%, so in fact it may work to change my pattern if the changing eyes will work.
Kamala Harris is seen as a West Coast Liberal, former prosecutor etc.
Trump at least gives the impression of standing up for the average working-class person, even if you don’t agree with him on everything.
Gifts, Accommodation, Office Space, Access… looks like an unhealthy dependence