The quality of scandals in this country has dropped alarmingly. There was a time when a front-page "VIP escort" story didn't involve a police motorcade...
I blame that Starmer.
I don't think scandals of the sex variety are really allowed to happen any more. Post-Leveson, not only do the papers have to stand things up (rightly) a judge has to agree that they are in the public interest. It's very unhealthy, and part of the reason the UK is waaay down the list of free countries with some rather unsavoury friends these days.
Not just politicians are happy about this, footballers are over the moon....every Sunday used to be I shagged a married footballer, read my story on page 2,3,4,5,6,7,8...
It appears now they can't even name footballers when they alleged done drugs.
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.
(There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)
I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".
It doesn't pass the sniff test. If underground cables were cheaper they would do it that way every time and pylons wouldn't be considered. This "data" comes from a lobby group whose argument really is our view is more important than your electricity but lack the confidence that their argument will prevail. Hence the spurious cost benefit case picked up by the Telegraph and the Conservatives who will latch onto anything anti-government regardless of whether it's true or not.
One thing that puzzles me is that your positive model for masculinity is not, in my opinion, any different from the default 'approved' model that applies across today's society. It is definitely a long way away from the model of masculinity that was prevalent when I was growing up as boy back in the 1960s - none of your three sub-bullets would have been widely accepted then.
So yes, your model is great, but not radical. I think it's the rebellion against the kind of model you are propounding that drives the popularity of Trump, Tate, etc. amongst disaffected males. I've not read Bola's book but that sounds like the outlier to me - which is probably why he can get it published.
Notwithstanding the above, your header was really thought-provoking. Thanks.
You're kind in your comments but I think your central point rather skewers my article in a way I agree with.
I struggled to formulate that positive model in a way that kept to 600 words or so (I rarely read headers longer than that so try to keep mine short). As I sent it to TSE I had a nagging feeling it was lacking something - you've clarified for me what I think it lacks.
To expand a bit more, my issue with JJ Bola's book is that it seemed to want to deny masculinity rather than offer a model that the majority of boys growing up could identify with. I
think in some senses society as a whole does this to many boys at the moment - boys can't see a space for their expression of masculinity (and so are vulnerable to Trump, Tate etc).
In part as a result of insightful comments here, if I was to rewrite it I'd focus more on the structures of society (eg primary school) and how they can bettercreate space for different healthy expressions of masculinity.
It's what I love about PB - I've learnt lots this morning.
It's an excellent, thought provoking header Max, thank you. It's wider than Primary though. The whole education system needs tearing down and rebuilding from first principles.
It’s a fascinating area caught up with political reactions to the Industrial Revolution and the technological revolution. The history of the last 500 years or so has seen a shift from men and women largely being in a complementary relationship to one where they are encouraged to compete with each other. This is having effects for good and ill on both sides, and is arguably only working to the advantage of a small minority of either group. When you couple this with the hyper individualism that has become the dominant approach to society it appears to be a toxic brew that exacerbates and reconfigures underlying economic disparities.
We need to find a way to get back to a more complementary approach and a more community based society because setting everyone up as in a fee for all race is something only a few can win and most will lose even if they don’t recognise that they are losing.
Your last paragraph reminds me of the conclusion to that classic work "the Triumph of the Meritocracy", which is very much a warning of where we are now. We need a society with an honorable place for everybody, not just those that the fickle finger of fate has decided who have merit.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
On the flipside though the internet has allowed many young people with unusual interests to find a community. When I was young I liked stamps and classical music (which might explain my issue with the concept of masculinity) but I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my interests. Maybe there was a local stamp collecting club but I never saw one. One of the great things about the modern world is that you can chat to like minded people regardless of how niche your interests are. PB is a testament to this point.
Interesting article, with which I agree with more than I disagree. Particularly the firsf and final bullets. I think an important distinction to make is that it's not that young men are voting right out of enthusiasm for some sort of Andrew Tate vision of masculinity, but voting AGAINST a left which continues to demonise them and prioritise women over them.
It's very hard to vote for a candidate who appears to dislike you. And many on the left and in the centre appear by their language to dislike men.
And then they post idiotic things that men better shape up and get with the programme or they will stay single.
There's a certain type of radical feminist or Lib who thinks the answer to women being second-class citizens in society in the past is that it's now the turn of men to have a go.
and there's a certain type of man who thinks the answer to a woman telling people about her experience and suggestions is to tell her she's doing it wrong
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Considerable less so. I find it remarkable most of us made it out of the 60s alive or at least not seriously maimed when I consider what we got up to eg fireworks, building sites, bomb sites, etc.
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.
(There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)
I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".
It doesn't pass the sniff test. If underground cables were cheaper they would do it that way every time and pylons wouldn't be considered. This "data" comes from a lobby group whose argument really is our view is more important than your electricity but lack the confidence that their argument will prevail. Hence the spurious cost benefit case picked up by the Telegraph and the Conservatives who will latch onto anything anti-government regardless of whether it's true or not.
I would have imagined that the maintenance / repair costs of buried cable network is much higher than pylons. If there is a problem in an area, you send up a bloke in climbing gear, inspect, find the problem and repair. If it is buried cables, you got to dig up a shit load before you even find the issue (that is one of the complications with water pipe leakage).
It’s a fascinating area caught up with political reactions to the Industrial Revolution and the technological revolution. The history of the last 500 years or so has seen a shift from men and women largely being in a complementary relationship to one where they are encouraged to compete with each other. This is having effects for good and ill on both sides, and is arguably only working to the advantage of a small minority of either group. When you couple this with the hyper individualism that has become the dominant approach to society it appears to be a toxic brew that exacerbates and reconfigures underlying economic disparities.
We need to find a way to get back to a more complementary approach and a more community based society because setting everyone up as in a fee for all race is something only a few can win and most will lose even if they don’t recognise that they are losing.
Your last paragraph reminds me of the conclusion to that classic work "the Triumph of the Meritocracy", which is very much a warning of where we are now. We need a society with an honorable place for everybody, not just those that the fickle finger of fate has decided who have merit.
And that takes us back to the central mystery.
If we are a society that has the accumulation of all of humanity's wisdom available to it, that is consuming resources is a way that isn't entirely sustainable, that has a lot of advantages...
... why are we all so grumpy most of the time? And how do we fix that?
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.
(There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)
I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".
Pylons look like shit though especially for poor sods who have to live near or under
There was a bungalow for sale recently in Southampton, IIRC, that had a pylon on the front lawn !
Before I bought Castell Pete I looked at a new build in Talbot Green (taste and youth are incompatible). In the back garden was one foot of a buzzing electricity pylon. I declined, but I could have saved myself a fortune in jungle gym climbing equipment through the subsequent years.
At least that’s only one foot. This place had all four !
I guess it’s attraction was it was cheaper than the other homes.
I’m quite happy with my modest home which overlooks the other side of the road and the local woods.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
On the flipside though the internet has allowed many young people with unusual interests to find a community. When I was young I liked stamps and classical music (which might explain my issue with the concept of masculinity) but I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my interests. Maybe there was a local stamp collecting club but I never saw one. One of the great things about the modern world is that you can chat to like minded people regardless of how niche your interests are. PB is a testament to this point.
Quite a few of my (male) school friends in the early 50's collected stamps. Don't recall it being a female activity. Likewise transporting although personally I couldn't see any fun in it.
I think many young men have an identity problem. I certainly think young men need better role models than Andrew Tate and by extension Donald Trump. They just make the issues worse.
I also think many young men negotiate the new, and I think ultimately better world, very successfully. We just need more of them.
I think many young men have an identity problem. I certainly think young men need better role models than Andrew Tate and by extension Donald Trump. They just make the issues worse.
I also think many young men negotiate the new, and I think ultimately better world, very successfully. We just need more of them.
I think Chris Williamson is a better role model for that generation and he has become very popular since COVID (without any nonsense of buy my course, join the Hustler university, etc).
Two films I watched on consecutive nights both relevant to Max's header. The first a German film 'Teacher's Lounge' which I thought was excellent. About a minor theft at a school which got out of hand and ends up creating dilemmas impossible to navigate. A really classy piece of work by a director I hadn't heard of.
And 'Hello God It's me Margaret' a strange puffball American comedy directed by a woman (and which could ONLY be directed by a woman) about four eleven year old girls coming of age. Not in the same league as the German one but still engaging and slightly unusual in it's explicit storytelling.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
Cars are probably a lot of it. I've recently had a couple of "can X go to Y unaccompanied" conversations involving my kids, and a large part of them did boil down to the road safety thing. As more roads get more congested, the distance you can go before hitting something fundamentally unsafe shrinks.
Not so sure about the perverts thing, though that's often cited. Jimmy Saville didn't need the internet.
True, but Huw Edwards did. I think Malc is right on that as a wider point.
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
If you'll forgive my bluntness, imo that East Anglia PYLONS! story is standard Telegraph shit-shovelling, which imo defines them as a paper now. Link to the full article below.
Their headline mentions a "report", but they provide no supporting link in the article. The article includes, for example, a diagram showing an Electricity Pylon as being 623ft high. I think I've found it, if anyone wants to factcheck their "underground is cheaper" claim.
In reality there are only 2x623ft high pylons in the UK - either side of the Thames at Tilbury by the QE Bridge, because it is 1300ft wide and it has a 75m+ clearance for ships.
In reality I'd say the pylons the article is about are more likely to be a quarter of that height.
I'm not exactly clear how to assess the writers - either they know exactly what they are doing, or the Telegraph has a Cyberman-style brain extraction facility on the staff entrance.
Thanks Max, great piece. I've been watching Get Back, 6 hours of the Beatles in a room working on stuff in 1969. It's fascinating to see the dynamics of the band at this end stage of their career. Paul still driven, John tuned out, George argumentative and frustrated, Ringo detached, polite.
There's another dynamic too, a more overarching one. which is men in the fray, women in support. This isn't noticed or commented upon in any of the reviews because it's the norm. Can something so deeply embedded (men are more important than women) be overturned without great difficulty and unpleasantness? Probably not.
One thing that puzzles me is that your positive model for masculinity is not, in my opinion, any different from the default 'approved' model that applies across today's society. It is definitely a long way away from the model of masculinity that was prevalent when I was growing up as boy back in the 1960s - none of your three sub-bullets would have been widely accepted then.
So yes, your model is great, but not radical. I think it's the rebellion against the kind of model you are propounding that drives the popularity of Trump, Tate, etc. amongst disaffected males. I've not read Bola's book but that sounds like the outlier to me - which is probably why he can get it published.
Notwithstanding the above, your header was really thought-provoking. Thanks.
You're kind in your comments but I think your central point rather skewers my article in a way I agree with.
I struggled to formulate that positive model in a way that kept to 600 words or so (I rarely read headers longer than that so try to keep mine short). As I sent it to TSE I had a nagging feeling it was lacking something - you've clarified for me what I think it lacks.
To expand a bit more, my issue with JJ Bola's book is that it seemed to want to deny masculinity rather than offer a model that the majority of boys growing up could identify with. I think in some senses society as a whole does this to many boys at the moment - boys can't see a space for their expression of masculinity (and so are vulnerable to Trump, Tate etc).
In part as a result of insightful comments here, if I was to rewrite it I'd focus more on the structures of society (eg primary school) and how they can better create space for different healthy expressions of masculinity.
It's what I love about PB - I've learnt lots this morning.
Great piece of discussion following your header. I arrived pretty late to this. I found the header slightly irritating because of the time spent on the ridiculous Bola, but that seems to have been a good spark for discussion, rather than a flaw. The best headers are those where the writer sticks around to engage.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
On the flipside though the internet has allowed many young people with unusual interests to find a community. When I was young I liked stamps and classical music (which might explain my issue with the concept of masculinity) but I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my interests. Maybe there was a local stamp collecting club but I never saw one. One of the great things about the modern world is that you can chat to like minded people regardless of how niche your interests are. PB is a testament to this point.
Quite a few of my (male) school friends in the early 50's collected stamps. Don't recall it being a female activity. Likewise transporting although personally I couldn't see any fun in it.
Aged 9, I collected cigarette packets along with my friends. No girls involved.
Interesting header. It's nobody's fault, but the debate on here suffers from the absence of female perspectives on these issues, and as such is inevitably partial. A pity.
Interesting detail in the podcast on the polling in Pennsylvania. Some seriously dodgy stuff from Republican-aligned pollsters, including excluding 90% of the voters from Democrat-favouring Philadelphia in their samples.
A cynical person might just think that the Republicans are flooding the state with dodgy polls that pump up the Republicans by nefarious means, in order to allow Trump to wail on November 6th that he was robbed. Again.
Talking of Pennsylvania the early signs look encouraging for Harris .
Dems are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than the GOP . Recently polled House seats look good when compared to Biden 2020 showing Harris a few points up on his result .
In terms of the GOP biased polls , nearly half of all recent polling released has been from GOP biased pollsters . 538 do factor that bias but they still go into his model . Silver seems to have missed the point entirely that even though they might only nudge the model slightly in favour of Trump with enough flooding you can get a larger change .
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
Cars are probably a lot of it. I've recently had a couple of "can X go to Y unaccompanied" conversations involving my kids, and a large part of them did boil down to the road safety thing. As more roads get more congested, the distance you can go before hitting something fundamentally unsafe shrinks.
Not so sure about the perverts thing, though that's often cited. Jimmy Saville didn't need the internet.
True, but Huw Edwards did. I think Malc is right on that as a wider point.
Huw Edwards spiritual grandfather used to hang about in pubs and try and chat to much younger men.
Knocked on a door last week was told by the normally conservative voting lady that she was voting for the woman candidate because, she is a woman. Does that make her an incel?
Seems to me many “models for masculinity” seem to be an effort to try and turn men into women. “Wouldn’t it be easier if men were more like women”. I’m not other people’s keepers and I’m not going to call out someone else for whatever is -phobia of the week. I don’t want to cry more often, I don’t want to “let it all out” or share with friends.
I agree about efforts to try to 'squash' masculinity - that's what I feel Mask Off was trying to do. Men (who want to be) should be men, in whatever way they want to be as long as it doesn't harm others.
It would just be quite nice if they didn't feel the need to riot and/or vote for a narcissist that is offering them an opportunity to turn back the clock on the subjugation of women.
I'm not sure about this argument to be honest. I think the points you make in your post are well meant but you're defining masculinity in a particular way which is as alien to as many men as it embraces. I wasn't anywhere close to a traditional model of masculinity at school and feel lucky to have grown up in an era where that was tolerated. I think we'd be better off trying to ensure that this tolerance runs the gamut of personalities rather than implicitly trying to re-establish a slightly updated version of what a 'normal' man should be like.
Very fair challenge, thanks.
I'm not intending to create an exclusive definition but an inclusive one - to answer your point directly I think we should be tolerant of the full gamut of personalities other than those who seek their own validation by harming others.
Thanks for the response and I know that you're not trying to create an exclusive definition of masculinity and your piece has generated some brilliant discussion. I just think that framing the discussion in terms of masculinity does that by default because it's a binary concept. If you're not masculine then what are you? I think the problem is real but as others have said the cause has more to do with educational and employment opportunities than it does identity. Unscrupulous internet celebrities and politicians make it about identity because it's easier to exploit
Again, really useful challenge, thanks. As I've just written in another comment I think the debate this.morning is pushing my thinking on lots (not least your comments - thanks).
In a way that I couldn't necessarily have articulated when I wrote the piece I agree that focusing on identity obscures the real issues, and can see that it can exclude even when I'm not meaning it too.
Very interesting article, thank you Max.
I grew up in Denmark, where there seemed to be less emphasis than in Britain on gender as a key factor - broadly men and women were seen as equally able to do most things and it was up to the individual what (s)he chose. We knew a Supreme Court judge whose daughter opted to be a ship's engineer - he didn't seem in the least bothered by her decision, To my English eyes that was as much a class thing as a gender thing, but it seemed positive either way that she was free to do whatever she wanted. Conversely my male friends seemed pretty relaxed about being whatever they wanted, and uninterested in defining it by gender.
Interesting detail in the podcast on the polling in Pennsylvania. Some seriously dodgy stuff from Republican-aligned pollsters, including excluding 90% of the voters from Democrat-favouring Philadelphia in their samples.
A cynical person might just think that the Republicans are flooding the state with dodgy polls that pump up the Republicans by nefarious means, in order to allow Trump to wail on November 6th that he was robbed. Again.
Talking of Pennsylvania the early signs look encouraging for Harris .
Dems are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than the GOP . Recently polled House seats look good when compared to Biden 2020 showing Harris a few points up on his result .
In terms of the GOP biased polls , nearly half of all recent polling released has been from GOP biased pollsters . 538 do factor that bias but they still go into his model . Silver seems to have missed the point entirely that even though they might only nudge the model slightly in favour of Trump with enough flooding you can get a larger change .
Henry Porter in Observer today says there is evidence that GOP are planning a run of dodgy polls before polling day showing them ahead so that it does indeed look like something 'odd' has happened if Harris then wins.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
On the flipside though the internet has allowed many young people with unusual interests to find a community. When I was young I liked stamps and classical music (which might explain my issue with the concept of masculinity) but I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my interests. Maybe there was a local stamp collecting club but I never saw one. One of the great things about the modern world is that you can chat to like minded people regardless of how niche your interests are. PB is a testament to this point.
Quite a few of my (male) school friends in the early 50's collected stamps. Don't recall it being a female activity. Likewise transporting although personally I couldn't see any fun in it.
Aged 9, I collected cigarette packets along with my friends. No girls involved.
This was in the early 90s. Everyone I knew was collecting football stickers. I wasn't saying it was a feminine activity but you couldn't have described it as a typical boy thing to be interested in at the time.
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.
(There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)
I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".
It doesn't pass the sniff test. If underground cables were cheaper they would do it that way every time and pylons wouldn't be considered. This "data" comes from a lobby group whose argument really is our view is more important than your electricity but lack the confidence that their argument will prevail. Hence the spurious cost benefit case picked up by the Telegraph and the Conservatives who will latch onto anything anti-government regardless of whether it's true or not.
I would have imagined that the maintenance / repair costs of buried cable network is much higher than pylons. If there is a problem in an area, you send up a bloke in climbing gear, inspect, find the problem and repair. If it is buried cables, you got to dig up a shit load before you even find the issue (that is one of the complications with water pipe leakage).
Also the problems of heating and insulation (solved by lots of air, which doesn't cost anything, for overhead cables).
It sounds a load of balls to me too. Everything I've read on the topic suggests underground high voltage cables are much more expensive.
Interesting detail in the podcast on the polling in Pennsylvania. Some seriously dodgy stuff from Republican-aligned pollsters, including excluding 90% of the voters from Democrat-favouring Philadelphia in their samples.
A cynical person might just think that the Republicans are flooding the state with dodgy polls that pump up the Republicans by nefarious means, in order to allow Trump to wail on November 6th that he was robbed. Again.
Talking of Pennsylvania the early signs look encouraging for Harris .
Dems are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than the GOP . Recently polled House seats look good when compared to Biden 2020 showing Harris a few points up on his result .
In terms of the GOP biased polls , nearly half of all recent polling released has been from GOP biased pollsters . 538 do factor that bias but they still go into his model . Silver seems to have missed the point entirely that even though they might only nudge the model slightly in favour of Trump with enough flooding you can get a larger change .
Henry Porter in Observer today says there is evidence that GOP are planning a run of dodgy polls before polling day showing them ahead so that it does indeed look like something 'odd' has happened if Harris then wins.
No surprise there . Putting out dodgy polls seeks to allow the “ stop the steal “ narrative . It can also seek to deflate the Dems on the ground . The US media also often fail to point out that there’s a flood of GOP biased polls . And there’s no counterweight because there are few obvious Dem biased polls doing the same .
My generation, in their 60s now, were brought up in a very male dominated world. My mother had a variety of jobs but they tended to be low paid and part time. No one would have questioned that my father was the major wage earner and that is the way it was supposed to be. This economic dominance, as many feminists have pointed out, resulted in a patrimonial power that the mother or wives' larger role in the house did nothing to offset.
This tied women to violent men. They had nowhere else to go. They had little alternatives to "taking it" , often deluding themselves this was for the good of their children as they tried to hold onto some self respect. Men, in contrast, felt the right to act with impunity. They had the right to sex when they wanted it and on their terms for their benefit.
Over my life time the balance has changed markedly. It became much easier for an abused wife to leave and get alternative accommodation. Job opportunities and equal pay have reduced male economic dominance, driven in part by the superior performance of girls in education. These are undoubtedly good things but men have lost that economic power and, without it, have found women a lot less tolerant of their bad behaviour. Its not that these things are gone, if they had I would be out of a job, but they are much less prevalent than before. At the same time many of the "masculine" jobs involving hard physical labour, whether in a mine, in the docks, emptying bins or working in warehouses have either disappeared or had their physical element massively reduced.
Men growing up today and in the last 20 years find themselves in a society that doesn't particularly appreciate their strength and less inclined to pay extra for it. They find their partners having at least as good opportunities to earn as themselves. Having taken them, those partners are less inclined to accept that all of the house work or child care should fall on them. They are also less inclined to accept sex as an obligation and more inclined to ask what is in it for me.
Women, not surprisingly as they are the main beneficiaries of these changes, have adapted to them easily. Men, having lost out have not and hark back to a world where women knew "their place" and they had unearned entitlements.
What we need is for men to learn the benefits of modern society, the delight in interacting with young children, with having a partner that has their own interesting thoughts and who can be an enthusiastic partner if they take the time and effort for gentle wooing. We need to shape their expectations in positive directions. Its a challenge but it is not an insuperable one. Harking back to a misogynistic past, like Tate and his ilk, is not an answer that is either possible or even desirable.
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
The conventional (AC pylons) solution is cheaper if we do it to a 2030 deadline, rather than holding it back to 2034. Which is what makes the underground setup look competitive, and is pretty much the opposite of the Telegraph spin.
(There are other limits on the DC underground setup- harder to upgrade, supply challenges and the AC/DC converters being not nice things to be by.)
I'm going with "cherry-picking statistics like a drunk bloke using a lamppost".
It doesn't pass the sniff test. If underground cables were cheaper they would do it that way every time and pylons wouldn't be considered. This "data" comes from a lobby group whose argument really is our view is more important than your electricity but lack the confidence that their argument will prevail. Hence the spurious cost benefit case picked up by the Telegraph and the Conservatives who will latch onto anything anti-government regardless of whether it's true or not.
I would have imagined that the maintenance / repair costs of buried cable network is much higher than pylons. If there is a problem in an area, you send up a bloke in climbing gear, inspect, find the problem and repair. If it is buried cables, you got to dig up a shit load before you even find the issue (that is one of the complications with water pipe leakage).
Also the problems of heating and insulation (solved by lots of air, which doesn't cost anything, for overhead cables).
It sounds a load of balls to me too. Everything I've read on the topic suggests underground high voltage cables are much more expensive.
I should have read the previous comments. The report's talking about long distance high voltage DC transmission, which unlike AC doesn't have the same heating/transmission loss problem.
My generation, in their 60s now, were brought up in a very male dominated world. My mother had a variety of jobs but they tended to be low paid and part time. No one would have questioned that my father was the major wage earner and that is the way it was supposed to be. This economic dominance, as many feminists have pointed out, resulted in a patrimonial power that the mother or wives' larger role in the house did nothing to offset.
This tied women to violent men. They had nowhere else to go. They had little alternatives to "taking it" , often deluding themselves this was for the good of their children as they tried to hold onto some self respect. Men, in contrast, felt the right to act with impunity. They had the right to sex when they wanted it and on their terms for their benefit.
Over my life time the balance has changed markedly. It became much easier for an abused wife to leave and get alternative accommodation. Job opportunities and equal pay have reduced male economic dominance, driven in part by the superior performance of girls in education. These are undoubtedly good things but men have lost that economic power and, without it, have found women a lot less tolerant of their bad behaviour. Its not that these things are gone, if they had I would be out of a job, but they are much less prevalent than before. At the same time many of the "masculine" jobs involving hard physical labour, whether in a mine, in the docks, emptying bins or working in warehouses have either disappeared or had their physical element massively reduced.
Men growing up today and in the last 20 years find themselves in a society that doesn't particularly appreciate their strength and less inclined to pay extra for it. They find their partners having at least as good opportunities to earn as themselves. Having taken them, those partners are less inclined to accept that all of the house work or child care should fall on them. They are also less inclined to accept sex as an obligation and more inclined to ask what is in it for me.
Women, not surprisingly as they are the main beneficiaries of these changes, have adapted to them easily. Men, having lost out have not and hark back to a world where women knew "their place" and they had unearned entitlements.
What we need is for men to learn the benefits of modern society, the delight in interacting with young children, with having a partner that has their own interesting thoughts and who can be an enthusiastic partner if they take the time and effort for gentle wooing. We need to shape their expectations in positive directions. Its a challenge but it is not an insuperable one. Harking back to a misogynistic past, like Tate and his ilk, is not an answer that is either possible or even desirable.
Interesting detail in the podcast on the polling in Pennsylvania. Some seriously dodgy stuff from Republican-aligned pollsters, including excluding 90% of the voters from Democrat-favouring Philadelphia in their samples.
A cynical person might just think that the Republicans are flooding the state with dodgy polls that pump up the Republicans by nefarious means, in order to allow Trump to wail on November 6th that he was robbed. Again.
Talking of Pennsylvania the early signs look encouraging for Harris .
Dems are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than the GOP . Recently polled House seats look good when compared to Biden 2020 showing Harris a few points up on his result .
In terms of the GOP biased polls , nearly half of all recent polling released has been from GOP biased pollsters . 538 do factor that bias but they still go into his model . Silver seems to have missed the point entirely that even though they might only nudge the model slightly in favour of Trump with enough flooding you can get a larger change .
Henry Porter in Observer today says there is evidence that GOP are planning a run of dodgy polls before polling day showing them ahead so that it does indeed look like something 'odd' has happened if Harris then wins.
No surprise there . Putting out dodgy polls seeks to allow the “ stop the steal “ narrative . It can also seek to deflate the Dems on the ground . The US media also often fail to point out that there’s a flood of GOP biased polls . And there’s no counterweight because there are few obvious Dem biased polls doing the same .
I was reading this morning that 12 out of the last 15 national polls have been from GOP biased organisations. Most, but not all, of these are being ignored by the likes of 538 but being swallowed greedily by RCP. They are what are making the race seem ever closer.
Is there any truth in it? The early voting figures are encouraging for the Democrats but this might simply reflect one of the best run campaigns that the US has seen, even better than Obama's. I remain cautiously hopeful.
Thanks for the threader; it is thought -provoking.
I've been out for a bit this morning, and haven't been able to catch up with the comments, but there's a slightly connected thing I'd add.
We all - men, woman, or whatever - need something that makes us happy. Something we can do that is good for either mental or physical health. It can be a hobby or hobbies, work, or something.
A problem is that the traditional gendered roles and expectations sometimes do not allow this. Why do we think it odd when a woman takes up fishing or railway modelling? Why did I laugh when a friend's youngish husband (a very rugged man) admitted he liked cross-stitching (which he was actually quite good at)?
And it goes for roles as well. Why were my family a little off-put when we told them that I was chucking in my 'career' to be a full-time house-husband and dad, when I've been far happier doing this than I was working (and Mrs J would have gone craz(y/ier) staying at home looking after a child)? Especially as she earned more than me?
You can still be a man - and masculine - and not always do masculine things. Ditto women and femineity. Perhaps people would be a little happier if they did mix things up a little...
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
Thanks for the threader; it is thought -provoking.
I've been out for a bit this morning, and haven't been able to catch up with the comments, but there's a slightly connected thing I'd add.
We all - men, woman, or whatever - need something that makes us happy. Something we can do that is good for either mental or physical health. It can be a hobby or hobbies, work, or something.
A problem is that the traditional gendered roles and expectations sometimes do not allow this. Why do we think it odd when a woman takes up fishing or railway modelling? Why did I laugh when a friend's youngish husband (a very rugged man) admitted he liked cross-stitching (which he was actually quite good at)?
And it goes for roles as well. Why were my family a little off-put when we told them that I was chucking in my 'career' to be a full-time house-husband and dad, when I've been far happier doing this than I was working (and Mrs J would have gone craz(y/ier) staying at home looking after a child)? Especially as she earned more than me?
You can still be a man - and masculine - and not always do masculine things. Ditto women and femineity. Perhaps people would be a little happier if they did mix things up a little...
I think you’re living the dream! Work is good and can be rewarding. It can also be good in a social way too. But, it can also be a bloody pain.
The quality of scandals in this country has dropped alarmingly. There was a time when a front-page "VIP escort" story didn't involve a police motorcade...
I blame that Starmer.
I don't think scandals of the sex variety are really allowed to happen any more. Post-Leveson, not only do the papers have to stand things up (rightly) a judge has to agree that they are in the public interest. It's very unhealthy, and part of the reason the UK is waaay down the list of free countries with some rather unsavoury friends these days.
Consenting adults having sex should not be considered to be a scandal.
If a politician presenting a certain public image, and preaching to the public (and perhaps legislating) accordingly, conducting an extra-marital affair (or several) is a public interest story. In the current environment, John Major's Back to Basics campaign would never have been exposed as hypocrisy - would you have been happy with that situation?
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
Cars are probably a lot of it. I've recently had a couple of "can X go to Y unaccompanied" conversations involving my kids, and a large part of them did boil down to the road safety thing. As more roads get more congested, the distance you can go before hitting something fundamentally unsafe shrinks.
Not so sure about the perverts thing, though that's often cited. Jimmy Saville didn't need the internet.
he was a bit special though. A lot more have warped heads with what they consume online , they would never have gotten that previously
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
Interesting header. It's nobody's fault, but the debate on here suffers from the absence of female perspectives on these issues, and as such is inevitably partial. A pity.
It’s not just female perspectives, working class perspectives are largely absent too. We have, largely, middle class well of white men discussing issues and looking down on those they don’t agree with.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
I'd dispute the bit about being 'as fit as butchers dogs'; chicken pox, measles and whooping cough were rife, and could be fatal.
And, although the trends were there years before, Covid did a lot of harm, with which we have by no means yet fully come to terms.
OKC as a mere stripling I had the vacines/jags for those so first generation to get those
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Considerable less so. I find it remarkable most of us made it out of the 60s alive or at least not seriously maimed when I consider what we got up to eg fireworks, building sites, bomb sites, etc.
And, as some-one who was a teenager in the 1970s, we should be grateful there wasn't the internet and social media around to publicise/remember what we got up to then.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
On the flipside though the internet has allowed many young people with unusual interests to find a community. When I was young I liked stamps and classical music (which might explain my issue with the concept of masculinity) but I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my interests. Maybe there was a local stamp collecting club but I never saw one. One of the great things about the modern world is that you can chat to like minded people regardless of how niche your interests are. PB is a testament to this point.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Considerable less so. I find it remarkable most of us made it out of the 60s alive or at least not seriously maimed when I consider what we got up to eg fireworks, building sites, bomb sites, etc.
And, as some-one who was a teenager in the 1970s, we should be grateful there wasn't the internet and social media around to publicise/remember what we got up to then.
My mother, both before and after she met my father ran her own business. She was a self-employed pharmacist with one of the two pharmacies in a (then) small South Essex town. My father was a teacher, but from the time I was about 2 until I was nearly 7 he was away in the services. After the war he went back to teaching but, as I understand it, he couldn't be a headmaster in a state primary or secondary school because Essex, very short of teachers, were only giving such jobs to candidates from outside the County s so in the very late 40's he became discouraged and went to work for his wife! She didn't want to leave what had become a very successful enterprise, which she would have had to do if he'd got a headship outside Essex. Plenty of people, as I grew up couldn't understand that he wasn't 'the chemist'.
Both my parents voted Tory, being farmers it seemed pretty natural..I never felt my mum simply "followed" my dad in voting that way. But things eventually change even in rural constituencies..North Shropshire now has a Lib Dem MP..🧐
Thanks for the threader; it is thought -provoking.
I've been out for a bit this morning, and haven't been able to catch up with the comments, but there's a slightly connected thing I'd add.
We all - men, woman, or whatever - need something that makes us happy. Something we can do that is good for either mental or physical health. It can be a hobby or hobbies, work, or something.
A problem is that the traditional gendered roles and expectations sometimes do not allow this. Why do we think it odd when a woman takes up fishing or railway modelling? Why did I laugh when a friend's youngish husband (a very rugged man) admitted he liked cross-stitching (which he was actually quite good at)?
And it goes for roles as well. Why were my family a little off-put when we told them that I was chucking in my 'career' to be a full-time house-husband and dad, when I've been far happier doing this than I was working (and Mrs J would have gone craz(y/ier) staying at home looking after a child)? Especially as she earned more than me?
You can still be a man - and masculine - and not always do masculine things. Ditto women and femineity. Perhaps people would be a little happier if they did mix things up a little...
I think you’re living the dream! Work is good and can be rewarding. It can also be good in a social way too. But, it can also be a bloody pain.
The thing is, I'd probably have been happy if I'd kept working and Mrs J had stayed at home. We would have had slightly less income, but as long as I had my hobbies I'd have had something to distract me.
Incidentally, I don't understand people who don't have hobbies. People who don't have something that they can put a little non-work, non-family time into to distract them when they need it. Hobbies are cool. In fact, I think they are necessary.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
Interesting header. It's nobody's fault, but the debate on here suffers from the absence of female perspectives on these issues, and as such is inevitably partial. A pity.
It’s not just female perspectives, working class perspectives are largely absent too. We have, largely, middle class well of white men discussing issues and looking down on those they don’t agree with.
Hey now, some are middle class white but not that well off, or middle class well off non white.
Of course gains for women have come at the expense of men. Men had disproportionate power and influence. As this rebalances, it was inevitable that men would say they were losing.
The challenge is money. So many of the young men now protesting against this “losing” vs women point out that they personally have little or no power. That is class and money, not gender.
Partly it is also about the decline of the traditional family unit
Traditional family units had working class families with kids leaving school at 15 with minimal education, the boys to work in factories or industry, the girls to work in shops and then raise kids with a man. That was the sum total of ambition for whole generations.
You think things are better nowadays?
Overall life is a lot better now for most than when we were kids Malcolm. It's just that we only remember the good bits from our youth.
I wonder Ben, speaking personally I had unlimited freedom , no iphone or computer but we made our own fun , roamed the countryside and had lots of pals, we walked to school , were always outdoors and were as fit as butcher's dogs. All you hear about nowadays is kids sit in their rooms on machines, mental health issues , cannot be allowed out on their own , etc.
Yes, same for me, all true...
But just watch any documentary from the 60s to see how grey and miserable life was for most.
I agree we should give kids much more freedom though - I can't quite work out why we stopped that. The world is not any more dangerous now than it was then.
Two things I can think of are many more cars and opportunity for wrongs un's to get about, access to stuff to encourage their fetishes etc.
Cars are probably a lot of it. I've recently had a couple of "can X go to Y unaccompanied" conversations involving my kids, and a large part of them did boil down to the road safety thing. As more roads get more congested, the distance you can go before hitting something fundamentally unsafe shrinks.
Can I re-recommend the presentation I recommended last week by Chris Boardman.
It's interesting because he started out at Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester, then went to be boss of Active Travel England, and is Active Travel Commissioner for England, now involved in working on policy at a national level.
He reflects on lessons, and on how his approach is evolving. Now he is looking amongst other things at basic policy guidelines underlying Local Highways Authority projects, but also the retail local politics and presentation. Essentially many are nervous of the effect of change, so it is also about "what do YOU need" then "so what do we need to change to achieve that?".
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I've gone with them recently, they did not mention that to me.
Both my parents voted Tory, being farmers it seemed pretty natural..I never felt my mum simply "followed" my dad in voting that way. But things eventually change even in rural constituencies..North Shropshire now has a Lib Dem MP..🧐
All my maternal relations, recent descendants of a prosperous farming/agricultural business family seem to be Tories. At a recent funeral one of my cousins was described as having 'of course' joined the Young Conservatives shortly after leaving school. Mrs C and I exchanged looks!
Thanks for the threader; it is thought -provoking.
I've been out for a bit this morning, and haven't been able to catch up with the comments, but there's a slightly connected thing I'd add.
We all - men, woman, or whatever - need something that makes us happy. Something we can do that is good for either mental or physical health. It can be a hobby or hobbies, work, or something.
A problem is that the traditional gendered roles and expectations sometimes do not allow this. Why do we think it odd when a woman takes up fishing or railway modelling? Why did I laugh when a friend's youngish husband (a very rugged man) admitted he liked cross-stitching (which he was actually quite good at)?
And it goes for roles as well. Why were my family a little off-put when we told them that I was chucking in my 'career' to be a full-time house-husband and dad, when I've been far happier doing this than I was working (and Mrs J would have gone craz(y/ier) staying at home looking after a child)? Especially as she earned more than me?
You can still be a man - and masculine - and not always do masculine things. Ditto women and femineity. Perhaps people would be a little happier if they did mix things up a little...
I think you’re living the dream! Work is good and can be rewarding. It can also be good in a social way too. But, it can also be a bloody pain.
The thing is, I'd probably have been happy if I'd kept working and Mrs J had stayed at home. We would have had slightly less income, but as long as I had my hobbies I'd have had something to distract me.
Incidentally, I don't understand people who don't have hobbies. People who don't have something that they can put a little non-work, non-family time into to distract them when they need it. Hobbies are cool. In fact, I think they are necessary.
I don't know how people fill time with no hobbies. I get some have to work long hours then deal with being a parent etc and be very tired, but there's still some time to fill beyond that and sleep.
Interesting header. It's nobody's fault, but the debate on here suffers from the absence of female perspectives on these issues, and as such is inevitably partial. A pity.
It’s not just female perspectives, working class perspectives are largely absent too. We have, largely, middle class well of white men discussing issues and looking down on those they don’t agree with.
It is interesting to see the number of self described progressives who would subscribe to the following -
De Maynes: Liberty must be rationed among the few with the talent to use it. There's no such thing as equality. Most men are born with the gutter and are only at home there. As for fraternity, a De Maynes is nobody's brother. We stand alone at the head of the table, and if ever our rights are challenged, [taps sword] this is our answer.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
The issue seems to be that burying cables may be cheaper but is also slower.
"Ed Miliband’s reckless 2030 decarbonisation target", I love this government so much, it's just beautiful to watch it in action.
I’m saying it again and again, but miliband will be the ruin of this government if he doesn’t end up changing his plans. Energy will be ruinously expansive for consumers and industry without huge public subsidy, and that assumes that he dkesnt take seriously to end natural gas usage by 2030. Add on top of price it will be unstable and liable to routine brownout.
Of course a pragmatist will be “well we didn’t get there but a bit more renewables wont do any harm”, but he wants the energy revolution. He’s not interested in pragmatism.
Brownouts? We’ve gone past peak risk for that already, surely? We have had a chronic lack of generating capacity thanks to post financial crash decisions. Now that so much more renewable capacity is coming on stream, with battery storage to back it up, we’ll be ok.
I think I have got to a point now where if the Telegraph are running a story on something I largely ignore it. Their “journalism” increasingly consists of unhinged barely factual smears desperately trying to find any issue they can to persuade the Tory members that they are absolutely right to be ramping hard right candidates as their way back to government.
If you'll forgive my bluntness, imo that East Anglia PYLONS! story is standard Telegraph shit-shovelling, which imo defines them as a paper now. Link to the full article below.
Their headline mentions a "report", but they provide no supporting link in the article. The article includes, for example, a diagram showing an Electricity Pylon as being 623ft high. I think I've found it, if anyone wants to factcheck their "underground is cheaper" claim.
In reality there are only 2x623ft high pylons in the UK - either side of the Thames at Tilbury by the QE Bridge, because it is 1300ft wide and it has a 75m+ clearance for ships.
In reality I'd say the pylons the article is about are more likely to be a quarter of that height.
I'm not exactly clear how to assess the writers - either they know exactly what they are doing, or the Telegraph has a Cyberman-style brain extraction facility on the staff entrance.
Reading the report, it's quite a complicated problem. There a huge amount of power due to come on stream in East Anglia, from the new offshore wind developments, which needs connecting into the existing national - and international HVDC interconnect - networks.
The 2030 date isn't about meeting a government target as suggested by the Telegraph. It's about delivering the new network capacity promptly to deal with the additional power. Not doing so will come with big costs, so the costs of the various schemes increase significantly, the longer they take to deliver.
There are a complicated set of constraints - things like the location of existing HVDC interconnects (which are VERY expensive to construct or move), AONBs which must be avoided, etc, and there are delivery risks associated with all of those.
The overhead AC route is least risky, and much easier to modify at a later date as network requirements change. And it is quite likely the cheapest - unless it gets significantly delayed. The risk there is public objections, obviously.
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I've gone with them recently, they did not mention that to me.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
TBF to Luckyguy, just being on a picket line is pretty well definitional for exerting social pressure.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
Hated is a strong word and not so much hated but disappointing and let down maybe
Also the poll today has labour and the conservatives level at 27%
I disagree. To get such an extreme reaction - to drop by FORTY NINE POINTS in 100 days - a point every two days, suggests equally extreme emotions. This isn’t “disappointment” - that would be a gentle declining slope. Starmer has plunged. So this is revulsion, disgust, a shocking and nasty surprise. For some this will be hate
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
The non-political public mood towards Starmer is “Meeeeh”.
His insistence that it was “all legal and therefore almost praiseworthy” seems to have cut through. Several people mentioned duck houses…
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
Hated is a strong word and not so much hated but disappointing and let down maybe
Also the poll today has labour and the conservatives level at 27%
I disagree. To get such an extreme reaction - to drop by FORTY NINE POINTS in 100 days - a point every two days, suggests equally extreme emotions. This isn’t “disappointment” - that would be a gentle declining slope. Starmer has plunged. So this is revulsion, disgust, a shocked and nasty surprise. For some this will be hate
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Not that I can recall. Some PMs, eg Sunak, were never popular but to fall by this much this quickly is extraordinary. Its also not great for our politics. There are going to be an awful lot of disillusioned voters out there who really did believe things were bad because the Tories liked them that way rather than because they were, well, bad. I fear a lot of people are going to become even less politically motivated than before.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
Morning Leon. Any interest in Culinary Culture Wars ? Bit slow to start, but great intro to Korean food and food culture. And I've always wanted to see a Michelin star chef compete with a school dinner lady in a blind tasting.
Leon hating Starmer, (the guy he supposedly voted for) after 100 days ..what a shock..😏 Roll on 4 years and Big G will no doubt be wrestling with his conscience when voting for Jenrick/Jemi..🤨
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Truss ?
She didn’t make it to 100 days. She never won a general election. She never had a landslide majority. She inherited a party in total chaos after 13 increasingly wretched years
You can’t compare them
For a newly elected PM this is indeed utterly unprecedented. The stats show it. No one has plunged this badly this quickly, nowhere near it
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
TBF to Luckyguy, just being on a picket line is pretty well definitional for exerting social pressure.
I recall, here, a discussion of a noted nuclear scientist.
Who was roundly damned by a PB contributor. Who was a contemporary at university with said scientist. Apparently the scientist hasn’t had the decency to discuss his move into nuclear weapons development with said contributor or his friends. All of whom were aggressive nucleomitophobes.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
TBF to Luckyguy, just being on a picket line is pretty well definitional for exerting social pressure.
I wouldn't dispute that at all. My original point was to illustrate how far we'd come since the 1980s, I wouldn't expect a woman to say something like that nowadays. Perhaps my expectation is wrong
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Truss ?
She didn’t make it to 100 days. She never won a general election. She never had a landslide majority. She inherited a party in total chaos after 13 increasingly wretched years
You can’t compare them
For a newly elected PM this is indeed utterly unprecedented. The stats show it. No one has plunged this badly this quickly, nowhere near it
So what, though ? Either he delivers, in which case it doesn't matter, or he doesn't - in which case Labour are screwed anyway.
It cheers you up to realise you have company in feeling slightly foolish having voted for him, I guess ?
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
Pretty much all of them above the most basic models - fitbits etc.
Your average Garmin sports watch will collect data on heart rate, sleep patterns, activity etc, unless you try and stop it.
The Apple Watch is the same.
Work out which metrics are the ones you want - and what do you want to do with the data?
Export it to excel? Set some alarms on the watch to max and min heart rates? Etc
Leon hating Starmer, (the guy he supposedly voted for) after 100 days ..what a shock..😏 Roll on 4 years and Big G will no doubt be wrestling with his conscience when voting for Jenrick/Jemi..🤨
I don’t hate him, I am contemptuous of him, and his politics. I find him personally dislikeable, on TV, but I’ve never actually met him so “hate” would be too strong
However I do know people that say “I hate him” - and seem to believe it. He really irks voters
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
Vance's point was that the unemployment figures aren't an accurate representation of the potential labour force available which seems to stand up.
We have exactly the same debate in this country arising from the increase in the number of people of working age who are not economically active. We debated it on here recently.
And the right, in fairness, have exactly the same answer as Vance gives, if without some of the bile.: if you restrict migration you need to increase the incentives of those who are not economically active to become so. Employers have to try harder, whether that is better pay, more flexible working or whatever. The left...to me are more reluctant to address these issues outside of better health care for those with long term illnesses. But they certainly exist.
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
The Garmin or Apple watches are the market leaders in this. Buy Garmin if you want really detailed fitness data, and 12 days between charges; buy Apple for nicer design and seamless Apple interfacing, but expect to be charging every 2-4 days
A really thought-provoking thread header, thanks. One of the more questions to me about the current drive to rid us of toxic masculinity is whether it is making women and girls happier. It doesn't seem to me to be working that way. I'm not sure that grievance ever works well for the aggrieved. The civil rights movement was moving toward a positive goal. The current grievance politics on race and the fight against 'toxic masculinity' are not. They're saying 'comport yourself differently so I can feel better' - that's a disaster in a number of ways. It is never 'done', the finish line is never reached. It wants some people to have things worse so others can (in theory) have things better, as if wellbeing is a zero sum game. Teach all kids to be polite, respectful, kind, and to value and respect themselves. Leave race and gender out of it.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
He is crap and is proving it constantly as well as being dodgy , money grabbing and lacking principles , a tin ear to boot. A politician he is not, sounds weak , voice is dire , and on and on. A DUD, surrounded by DUDS like Rayner , that clown transport minister , the forgetable no user that is Lammy and again on and on.
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the unemployment rate to back up her claim but was immediately shot down by Vance.
"The unemployment rate does not count labor force participation dropouts.
"This is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society, is it gets us in a mindset of saying, 'we can only build houses with illegal immigrants.'
"We have 7 million men, not even women, just men who have completely dropped out of the labor force.
"Sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, need to get reengaged in American society.
"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris' border policies. I think it's one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who've dropped out of the labor force. Why try to reengage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who's gonna work under the table for poverty wages?
"It is a disgrace and it has led to the evisceration of the American Middle class."
The problem is that the illegal immigrants are not in the areas of country where labor rate participation levels have collapsed. They're not in the broken towns of the Rustbelt, they're in California and Texas and Arizona and Nevada.
According to the stats here, the labor participation rate is lower in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada than in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota.
And is not measuring what you think it is: you would think it was measuring the percent of people in work. It is not; is measuring the percent of people aged 18 and older who report themselves as willing and able to work; i.e., that they are part of the workforce.
It therefore is skewed in two ways: (1) because it's 18+, then places with lots of retirees will appear to have lower labour force participation because retirees are not reporting themselves as willing and able to work (2) by including the unemployed as part of the total, you can see rising employment and falling labour force particpation. (Or put it another way, you will see labour force partipation rise when unemployment rises, because when the husband loses his job, then the stay-at-home wife is now looking for work too.)
Michigan also has a lower unemployment rate than California, so even if you subtract the unemployed from the data, you have a lower employment rate in California than in Michigan. In some ways this is what you would expect given the obvious social malaise in California alongside the wealth.
What an interesting and thought-provoking thread, thanks @maxh
The phenomenon of young men moving sharply to the right, and young women moving sharply to the left, appears to be happening in a number of Western countries, the common thread being perhaps internet and woke culture that has emphasised the differences.
This is especially true of the white working classes, who are somewhat under-represented on forums such as this, but turn up in droves to hear Farage and Trump speak, and follow the likes of Andrew Tate online. The trick is to find good role models for these young men, rather than the likes of the more extremist politicians and activists we see around Europe and the US.
The likes of Chris Williamson and Joe Rogan, while not perfect, at least talk about healthy eating, exercise, outdoor activities, moderation of drink and drugs etc. Dr Jordan Peterson is another one, with his books that start by telling young men to tidy their room and dress well. As a society, we need to be steering the youth towards these more positive characters and away from more extreme and divisive characters.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
I think 'best' depends on the metrics you want.
Much depends on the algorithms used; e.g. there's an interesting video showing how resting heart rate varies between watch brands, as when they measure it varies (e.g. we all have a lower resting heartbeat during sleep, but that is not when it should be measured).
Also, the watches are inaccurate between devices, but generally quite accurate with themselves. Therefore they're not best for comparing between people "My resting heartrate is lower than yours!", but good for saying "As I've got fitter, I've lowered my resting heartrate." as a trend.
Incidentally, I set off my automatic incident report earlier. I had a brisk walk to the local junior parkrun, followed by standing around as a marshal. This triggered the alert, which gave me a few seconds to cancel it.
Work out what you want to have measured, and then look at the watches. A doctor may give you some personal advice on what metrics are best.
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
TBF to Luckyguy, just being on a picket line is pretty well definitional for exerting social pressure.
Isn't Starmer just "continuity technocrat? 🤔 A red tie wearing technocrat as opposed to Sunaks blue one..hard to hate really in that context..more a sense nothing will really change..🧐🤨
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
To be honest I don't think he can even aspire to hate. Trump is hated and feared. Starmer is just coming across as pathetic.
Don't quite get it myself - he's had some early missteps that have rightly earned bad press, but the drop is extraordinary. Has there been anything like it before?
Truss ?
She didn’t make it to 100 days. She never won a general election. She never had a landslide majority. She inherited a party in total chaos after 13 increasingly wretched years
You can’t compare them
For a newly elected PM this is indeed utterly unprecedented. The stats show it. No one has plunged this badly this quickly, nowhere near it
So what, though ? Either he delivers, in which case it doesn't matter, or he doesn't - in which case Labour are screwed anyway.
It cheers you up to realise you have company in feeling slightly foolish having voted for him, I guess ?
“So what”?!
We are a politics website that debates the minutiae of polls down to the last council by election in West Newent. For politics geeks of every stripe what is happening to Starmer (and to a lesser extent Labour) is surely fascinating because we’ve never seen it before. This is entirely unprecedented
Also it points to even greater volatility in the future, which is pretty relevant in a political BETTING forum
Leon hating Starmer, (the guy he supposedly voted for) after 100 days ..what a shock..😏 Roll on 4 years and Big G will no doubt be wrestling with his conscience when voting for Jenrick/Jemi..🤨
Incidentally, I also recall one of @NickPalmer 's previous comments.
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
I remember being on a picket line in a strike over pay in the 1980s and asking a woman who crossed the picket line was she not bothered about the derisory pay offer from management. Her response? "My husband doesn't believe in strikes."
But quite possibly she was acting in accordance with both their views, and her husband being opposed to strikes was a useful support and shield to her. You assume both that she would have struck if it hadn't been for her husband, and that she should have been. You were exerting a form of social pressure on her and you were disappointed that someone else's social pressure won the day.
And I thought I was just asking her a question about something I was curious about, and my perception was that she didn't answer the question. Interesting
TBF to Luckyguy, just being on a picket line is pretty well definitional for exerting social pressure.
I recall, here, a discussion of a noted nuclear scientist.
Who was roundly damned by a PB contributor. Who was a contemporary at university with said scientist. Apparently the scientist hasn’t had the decency to discuss his move into nuclear weapons development with said contributor or his friends. All of whom were aggressive nucleomitophobes.
Well, if we're moving off the issue of patriarchy, which I was illustrating, and onto the peripheral issue of picketing, at the end of the day that woman (or perhaps her husband) was the smart one. She carried on working and getting paid during the strike, while I lost pay due to striking, *and* the got the benefit of the new improved pay offer. We live and learn.
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
The Vitality scheme - private healthcare, with big incentives for exercise, health stats etc - includes (drum roll) massive discounts on smart watches….
I use my Samsung smart watch to monitor my bps, sleep and walking, but not ECG or body mass due to the effect it could have on my pacemaker
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
Can resident experts give guidance on what is best wristwatch for health , sure there are many on here who have them
Leon hating Starmer, (the guy he supposedly voted for) after 100 days ..what a shock..😏 Roll on 4 years and Big G will no doubt be wrestling with his conscience when voting for Jenrick/Jemi..🤨
I don’t hate him, I am contemptuous of him, and his politics. I find him personally dislikeable, on TV, but I’ve never actually met him so “hate” would be too strong
However I do know people that say “I hate him” - and seem to believe it. He really irks voters
It's still early days of course, but I think the WFA cut plus Freebies is a toxic mix for working-class people. If you are going to run on a change narrative, people expect you to mean change for the better.
Comments
It appears now they can't even name footballers when they alleged done drugs.
Identify what's good, and build on that.
If we are a society that has the accumulation of all of humanity's wisdom available to it, that is consuming resources is a way that isn't entirely sustainable, that has a lot of advantages...
... why are we all so grumpy most of the time? And how do we fix that?
Sir Geoffrey Boycott
Root and Brook were magnificent…but I could’ve got runs on that pitch at my age!
I guess it’s attraction was it was cheaper than the other homes.
I’m quite happy with my modest home which overlooks the other side of the road and the local woods.
Likewise transporting although personally I couldn't see any fun in it.
I also think many young men negotiate the new, and I think ultimately better world, very successfully. We just need more of them.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26612950/
And 'Hello God It's me Margaret' a strange puffball American comedy directed by a woman (and which could ONLY be directed by a woman) about four eleven year old girls coming of age. Not in the same league as the German one but still engaging and slightly unusual in it's explicit storytelling.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9185206/
FPT: If you'll forgive my bluntness, imo that East Anglia PYLONS! story is standard Telegraph shit-shovelling, which imo defines them as a paper now. Link to the full article below.
Their headline mentions a "report", but they provide no supporting link in the article. The article includes, for example, a diagram showing an Electricity Pylon as being 623ft high. I think I've found it, if anyone wants to factcheck their "underground is cheaper" claim.
In reality there are only 2x623ft high pylons in the UK - either side of the Thames at Tilbury by the QE Bridge, because it is 1300ft wide and it has a 75m+ clearance for ships.
In reality I'd say the pylons the article is about are more likely to be a quarter of that height.
I'm not exactly clear how to assess the writers - either they know exactly what they are doing, or the Telegraph has a Cyberman-style brain extraction facility on the staff entrance.
I probably choose the former.
Full Article:
https://archive.ph/kLu3o
Report referenced:
https://www.suffolk.gov.uk/asset-library/n2t-the-hiorns-report.pdf
There's another dynamic too, a more overarching one. which is men in the fray, women in support. This isn't noticed or commented upon in any of the reviews because it's the norm. Can something so deeply embedded (men are more important than women) be overturned without great difficulty and unpleasantness? Probably not.
I arrived pretty late to this. I found the header slightly irritating because of the time spent on the ridiculous Bola, but that seems to have been a good spark for discussion, rather than a flaw.
The best headers are those where the writer sticks around to engage.
Dems are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than the GOP . Recently polled House seats look good when compared to Biden 2020 showing Harris a few points up on his result .
In terms of the GOP biased polls , nearly half of all recent polling released has been from GOP biased pollsters . 538 do factor that bias but they still go into his model . Silver seems to have missed the point entirely that even though they might only nudge the model slightly in favour of Trump with enough flooding you can get a larger change .
I grew up in Denmark, where there seemed to be less emphasis than in Britain on gender as a key factor - broadly men and women were seen as equally able to do most things and it was up to the individual what (s)he chose. We knew a Supreme Court judge whose daughter opted to be a ship's engineer - he didn't seem in the least bothered by her decision, To my English eyes that was as much a class thing as a gender thing, but it seemed positive either way that she was free to do whatever she wanted. Conversely my male friends seemed pretty relaxed about being whatever they wanted, and uninterested in defining it by gender.
It sounds a load of balls to me too.
Everything I've read on the topic suggests underground high voltage cables are much more expensive.
IANAE on this but I do have some thoughts.
My generation, in their 60s now, were brought up in a very male dominated world. My mother had a variety of jobs but they tended to be low paid and part time. No one would have questioned that my father was the major wage earner and that is the way it was supposed to be. This economic dominance, as many feminists have pointed out, resulted in a patrimonial power that the mother or wives' larger role in the house did nothing to offset.
This tied women to violent men. They had nowhere else to go. They had little alternatives to "taking it" , often deluding themselves this was for the good of their children as they tried to hold onto some self respect. Men, in contrast, felt the right to act with impunity. They had the right to sex when they wanted it and on their terms for their benefit.
Over my life time the balance has changed markedly. It became much easier for an abused wife to leave and get alternative accommodation. Job opportunities and equal pay have reduced male economic dominance, driven in part by the superior performance of girls in education. These are undoubtedly good things but men have lost that economic power and, without it, have found women a lot less tolerant of their bad behaviour. Its not that these things are gone, if they had I would be out of a job, but they are much less prevalent than before. At the same time many of the "masculine" jobs involving hard physical labour, whether in a mine, in the docks, emptying bins or working in warehouses have either disappeared or had their physical element massively reduced.
Men growing up today and in the last 20 years find themselves in a society that doesn't particularly appreciate their strength and less inclined to pay extra for it. They find their partners having at least as good opportunities to earn as themselves. Having taken them, those partners are less inclined to accept that all of the house work or child care should fall on them. They are also less inclined to accept sex as an obligation and more inclined to ask what is in it for me.
Women, not surprisingly as they are the main beneficiaries of these changes, have adapted to them easily. Men, having lost out have not and hark back to a world where women knew "their place" and they had unearned entitlements.
What we need is for men to learn the benefits of modern society, the delight in interacting with young children, with having a partner that has their own interesting thoughts and who can be an enthusiastic partner if they take the time and effort for gentle wooing. We need to shape their expectations in positive directions. Its a challenge but it is not an insuperable one. Harking back to a misogynistic past, like Tate and his ilk, is not an answer that is either possible or even desirable.
The report's talking about long distance high voltage DC transmission, which unlike AC doesn't have the same heating/transmission loss problem.
Is there any truth in it? The early voting figures are encouraging for the Democrats but this might simply reflect one of the best run campaigns that the US has seen, even better than Obama's. I remain cautiously hopeful.
I've been out for a bit this morning, and haven't been able to catch up with the comments, but there's a slightly connected thing I'd add.
We all - men, woman, or whatever - need something that makes us happy. Something we can do that is good for either mental or physical health. It can be a hobby or hobbies, work, or something.
A problem is that the traditional gendered roles and expectations sometimes do not allow this. Why do we think it odd when a woman takes up fishing or railway modelling? Why did I laugh when a friend's youngish husband (a very rugged man) admitted he liked cross-stitching (which he was actually quite good at)?
And it goes for roles as well. Why were my family a little off-put when we told them that I was chucking in my 'career' to be a full-time house-husband and dad, when I've been far happier doing this than I was working (and Mrs J would have gone craz(y/ier) staying at home looking after a child)? Especially as she earned more than me?
You can still be a man - and masculine - and not always do masculine things. Ditto women and femineity. Perhaps people would be a little happier if they did mix things up a little...
In PA 10 Harris leads Trump by 46% to 41% .
In 2020 Trump won that by 4% .
I have been with the family this weekend so have not posted, but did pick up a discussion on the merits of smart watches
I have always considered men and women should be equals and indeed it is the basis of our 60 years of marriage
I am sure some young men may struggle with their masculinity, but certainly neither Trump of Tate are role models, and finding a way to navigate them to a changed society is the challenge for all parents and teachers
I was saddened to hear of the death of Alex Salmond, who along with Farage, have had a profound impact on Scotland and the UK
Whilst being a Unionist, Alex was the one person who could have persuaded me about Scottish Independence and he will be greatly missed by many.
He died at the relative young age of 69 apparently from a heart attack
It is one year on Monday when I experienced a large dvt medical emergency and in the ultrasound in the hospital it also showed I had an undetected aneurysm of 4cm.
What followed was protracted medical investigations culminating at Christmas in a diagnosis of atrial fibulation requiring an immediate pacemaker operation.
It was ironic that my dvt actually led to two diagnosis on potential life threatening events both of which have been treated and will require a lifetime of monitoring
I am so grateful for everything the medics and my family have given in support and I am very much a champion for regular health checks
It is government policy to provide regular blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level tests, and screening for aneurysm is offered to all men during the year they become 65 and men should take this opportunity
It also follows stopping smoking (or vapping) is the number one best thing anyone can do, followed by weight loss and exercise
I hope that as we go forward Streeting and the devolved administrations continue to promote preventative screening, as in my case I had two life threatening issues I knew nothing about
During canvassing, he has occasionally come across women who go to ask their husbands who they will be voting for. He has never come across a man going to ask his wife (*). That 'power' of a man determining his wife's vote is just one way that the power of men in the home has declined. And that's a good thing, IMV - unless you are a man who expects to control his wife.
And control is much of what this is about: control in the home; control in the bedroom; control over the finances. Slowly, the way men can 'control' women has reduced; women can go out and earn; they can control their own contraception; they can have their own bank accounts, even in marriage. That is a vast amount of change in less than a century.
(*) I hope I recall this correctly. If not, apols.
After the war he went back to teaching but, as I understand it, he couldn't be a headmaster in a state primary or secondary school because Essex, very short of teachers, were only giving such jobs to candidates from outside the County s so in the very late 40's he became discouraged and went to work for his wife! She didn't want to leave what had become a very successful enterprise, which she would have had to do if he'd got a headship outside Essex.
Plenty of people, as I grew up couldn't understand that he wasn't 'the chemist'.
Incidentally, I don't understand people who don't have hobbies. People who don't have something that they can put a little non-work, non-family time into to distract them when they need it. Hobbies are cool. In fact, I think they are necessary.
It's interesting because he started out at Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester, then went to be boss of Active Travel England, and is Active Travel Commissioner for England, now involved in working on policy at a national level.
He reflects on lessons, and on how his approach is evolving. Now he is looking amongst other things at basic policy guidelines underlying Local Highways Authority projects, but also the retail local politics and presentation. Essentially many are nervous of the effect of change, so it is also about "what do YOU need" then "so what do we need to change to achieve that?".
https://youtu.be/MPgi8_rHD9E?t=69
At a recent funeral one of my cousins was described as having 'of course' joined the Young Conservatives shortly after leaving school.
Mrs C and I exchanged looks!
De Maynes: Liberty must be rationed among the few with the talent to use it. There's no such thing as equality. Most men are born with the gutter and are only at home there. As for fraternity, a De Maynes is nobody's brother. We stand alone at the head of the table, and if ever our rights are challenged, [taps sword] this is our answer.
My wife also has one, and it is good we can answer our phones on them and they also are set to call our family if they detect a hard fall
There a huge amount of power due to come on stream in East Anglia, from the new offshore wind developments, which needs connecting into the existing national - and international HVDC interconnect - networks.
The 2030 date isn't about meeting a government target as suggested by the Telegraph. It's about delivering the new network capacity promptly to deal with the additional power. Not doing so will come with big costs, so the costs of the various schemes increase significantly, the longer they take to deliver.
There are a complicated set of constraints - things like the location of existing HVDC interconnects (which are VERY expensive to construct or move), AONBs which must be avoided, etc, and there are delivery risks associated with all of those.
The overhead AC route is least risky, and much easier to modify at a later date as network requirements change. And it is quite likely the cheapest - unless it gets significantly delayed.
The risk there is public objections, obviously.
Also, what the living fuck. This is extraordinary. Look at the gradient. Starmer is HATED
https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/partners/activity-tracking/garmin/
https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/partners/active-rewards/apple-watch/
Also the poll today has labour and the conservatives level at 27%
https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
Vance's point was that the unemployment figures aren't an accurate representation of the potential labour force available which seems to stand up.
His insistence that it was “all legal and therefore almost praiseworthy” seems to have cut through. Several people mentioned duck houses…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6fQGFm1x4g
Any interest in Culinary Culture Wars ?
Bit slow to start, but great intro to Korean food and food culture.
And I've always wanted to see a Michelin star chef compete with a school dinner lady in a blind tasting.
You can’t compare them
For a newly elected PM this is indeed utterly unprecedented. The stats show it. No one has plunged this badly this quickly, nowhere near it
Who was roundly damned by a PB contributor. Who was a contemporary at university with said scientist. Apparently the scientist hasn’t had the decency to discuss his move into nuclear weapons development with said contributor or his friends. All of whom were aggressive nucleomitophobes.
Either he delivers, in which case it doesn't matter, or he doesn't - in which case Labour are screwed anyway.
It cheers you up to realise you have company in feeling slightly foolish having voted for him, I guess ?
Your average Garmin sports watch will collect data on heart rate, sleep patterns, activity etc, unless you try and stop it.
The Apple Watch is the same.
Work out which metrics are the ones you want - and what do you want to do with the data?
Export it to excel? Set some alarms on the watch to max and min heart rates? Etc
However I do know people that say “I hate him” - and seem to believe it. He really irks voters
And the right, in fairness, have exactly the same answer as Vance gives, if without some of the bile.: if you restrict migration you need to increase the incentives of those who are not economically active to become so. Employers have to try harder, whether that is better pay, more flexible working or whatever. The left...to me are more reluctant to address these issues outside of better health care for those with long term illnesses. But they certainly exist.
The 1798 Alien Enemies Act ? Please.
In addition you’d have several types of business ceasing to function. Massive price spikes for some goods and services, followed by sector die back.
Then you’d have the fun of a large group of people unable to work. And unable to claim benefits.
The phenomenon of young men moving sharply to the right, and young women moving sharply to the left, appears to be happening in a number of Western countries, the common thread being perhaps internet and woke culture that has emphasised the differences.
This is especially true of the white working classes, who are somewhat under-represented on forums such as this, but turn up in droves to hear Farage and Trump speak, and follow the likes of Andrew Tate online. The trick is to find good role models for these young men, rather than the likes of the more extremist politicians and activists we see around Europe and the US.
The likes of Chris Williamson and Joe Rogan, while not perfect, at least talk about healthy eating, exercise, outdoor activities, moderation of drink and drugs etc. Dr Jordan Peterson is another one, with his books that start by telling young men to tidy their room and dress well. As a society, we need to be steering the youth towards these more positive characters and away from more extreme and divisive characters.
My Samsung is excellent but as per the discussion yesterday Apple are also popular
I think most branded smart watches are fairly similar though recharging does seem to be a daily event for some
Much depends on the algorithms used; e.g. there's an interesting video showing how resting heart rate varies between watch brands, as when they measure it varies (e.g. we all have a lower resting heartbeat during sleep, but that is not when it should be measured).
Also, the watches are inaccurate between devices, but generally quite accurate with themselves. Therefore they're not best for comparing between people "My resting heartrate is lower than yours!", but good for saying "As I've got fitter, I've lowered my resting heartrate." as a trend.
Incidentally, I set off my automatic incident report earlier. I had a brisk walk to the local junior parkrun, followed by standing around as a marshal. This triggered the alert, which gave me a few seconds to cancel it.
Work out what you want to have measured, and then look at the watches. A doctor may give you some personal advice on what metrics are best.
We are a politics website that debates the minutiae of polls down to the last council by election in West Newent. For politics geeks of every stripe what is happening to Starmer (and to a lesser extent Labour) is surely fascinating because we’ve never seen it before. This is entirely unprecedented
Also it points to even greater volatility in the future, which is pretty relevant in a political BETTING forum