How the general election would have looked under different voting systems – politicalbetting.com

Sandpit said:

MarqueeMark said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

rottenborough said:

"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.

The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."

AEP - Telegraph

Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.

Nope.

By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.

The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.

I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.

Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.

They tried.

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.

His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.

He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Well, that was very much not Starmer’s position in the Commons.

Malmesbury said:

Eabhal said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

noneoftheabove said:

PJH said:

Malmesbury said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Morris_Dancer said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?

Who said it was easy?

I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.

Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.

Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage?
Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background?
You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?

What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?

It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.

SO, for someone where I live that means per month:
Rent 1600
Other bills 400
Food and groceries 800
Kids clothing activities etc 500
Car 250
Personal clothes etc x 2 200
Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?

Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.

Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference

This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.

The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.

Build, build, build.

Then build some more!

It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.

Scene : Malmesbury's Britain

Husband: Disaster!
Wife: What?
Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box!
Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth?
Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?

Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.

Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.

I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.

Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.

Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.

Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.

But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.

In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.

Cookie said:

IanB2 said:

Cookie said:

HYUFD said:

So basically PR now benefits the Tories and Reform most as well as the Greens with the LDs little changed.

FPTP though massively benefits Labour now

FPTP benefits the winning party, rather than specifically Labour.

Not necessarily. There have been several elections in which the party benefitting was the one in second place - and a gross distortion is quite likely in an election where the vote shares for any of the pairs LibDem and Tory, LibDem and Labour, or Reform and Tory, or Reform and Labour, were very close

It benefit parties with more concentrated support rather than those with broader, but shallower appeal (the opposite of what we should want given only a choice between that or the opposite).

I don't disbelieve you, but I'm surprised by this and struggling to think of any examples (of the primary beneficiary of FPTP being the party with the second-most votes.) Have you got any examples?

I do agree with your other point about concentrated support e.g. Plaid Cymru.

1951 UK general election? Tories second on votes, but win a majority in the Commons.

MarqueeMark said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

rottenborough said:

"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.

The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."

AEP - Telegraph

Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.

Nope.

By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.

The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.

If I suspect Feersum was poking fun at AEP.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!

And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.

Labour voters' favourite Christmas film is Elf.
Tory: Love Actually.
Green: Muppet Christmas Carol.
Reform: Scrooged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9Kc9Wz_z8&t=1690s

Love Actually, which we discussed here the other day.

I still have no desire to see it.

Sandpit said:

MarqueeMark said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

rottenborough said:

"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.

The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."

AEP - Telegraph

Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.

Nope.

By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.

The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.

I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.

Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.

I'm sure they know that too - witness them trying to stop the Ukrainians from hitting Russian refineries.

The conclusion I'd draw is that OPEC countries either preferred to see a Trump Presidency, or have a greater interest in high oil prices. Aren't Saudi Arabia running a huge budget deficit at the moment? Maybe they can't afford to drive the oil price down for a year or two?

Looks like the Rouble is heading for intensive care again after the emergency action the other week.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!

And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.

Labour voters' favourite Christmas film is Elf.
Tory: Love Actually.
Green: Muppet Christmas Carol.
Reform: Scrooged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9Kc9Wz_z8&t=1690s

Love Actually, presumably because it's about rich people ?
Had it been more accurately titled "Luvvies, Actually", it probably would not have polled quite so high with them.

Taz said:

Rayner to clear (not personally) Green Belt area the size of Surrey to build homes.

If she does this, actually does it rather than just spouting about it, then good.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/rayner-will-clear-green-belt-area-the-size-of-surrey-for-homes/ar-AA1vF1oe?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=d21d8dafd1e448ae8ff2c9ae711fd5b2&ei=18

It depends where it is. Our peer nations each have several economic centres. Britain is uniquely skewed towards London. The last thing Britain needs, however many want it, is more development in the South-East.

Eabhal said:

Malmesbury said:

Eabhal said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

noneoftheabove said:

PJH said:

Malmesbury said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Morris_Dancer said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?

Who said it was easy?

I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.

Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.

Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage?
Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background?
You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?

What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?

It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.

SO, for someone where I live that means per month:
Rent 1600
Other bills 400
Food and groceries 800
Kids clothing activities etc 500
Car 250
Personal clothes etc x 2 200
Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?

Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.

Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference

This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.

The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.

Build, build, build.

Then build some more!

It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.

Scene : Malmesbury's Britain

Husband: Disaster!
Wife: What?
Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box!
Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth?
Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?

Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.

Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.

I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.

Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.

Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.

Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.

But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.

In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.

There are more houses being built where there is the greatest demand for houses, but not enough houses anywhere, and so prices still increasing most where there's the greatest demand.

That doesn't seem counterintuitive to me.

The housing market has been so dysfunctional for so long that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand.

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it

She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want

MarqueeMark said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.

His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.

He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.

Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”

Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”

I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent

Andy_JS said:

This is the biggest lot of nonsense you will ever read.

"73.7% of votes did not directly affect the outcome in 2024 –21.2 million votes in total."

Every vote was important in deciding whether or not a constituency was marginal or not. We see this all the time. Seats which used to be safe are now marginal, because voters decided they ought to be, and vice versa.

I agree that they are overclaiming. They're saying that the only votes that directly affected the outcome are those that ensure the winner got 1 more than the 2nd placed candidate. I think, as you suggest, that the votes for that 2nd placed candidate were determinative too. It's the large number of votes for candidates coming 3rd, 4th etc. that show the problems with FPTP, and these were at at a record high.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!

And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.

Labour voters' favourite Christmas film is Elf.
Tory: Love Actually.
Green: Muppet Christmas Carol.
Reform: Scrooged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9Kc9Wz_z8&t=1690s

Confirms me as a Reform voter. Scrooged is def my fave Xmas movie

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

Just be grateful it is Leon who is predicting it, which should greatly relieve us all.

rottenborough said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.

And that's before the migration issue comes into play.

However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.

Indeed so

If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028

However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”

LostPassword said:

Sandpit said:

MarqueeMark said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

rottenborough said:

"Putin’s regime is not yet at [economic collapse] but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.

The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh."

AEP - Telegraph

Looks like the Saudis will be cutting back production then.

Nope.

By opening the taps, the Saudis will ultimately take out a lot of competing Russian production. That Russian production is already suffering degradation by dint of sanctions. This winter will see more wells closed down, not to be replaced. It will see pipelines of waxy crude turned into hundred-mile long candles. When the Soviet Union fell, that process caused many fields to be closed down for years, even decades.

The Saudis can take out a chunk of their competition for reducing world hydrocarbon markets. While they, like their fellow members of the GCC, invest in long-term renewables. By the time Russia gets opened up again, the market for their hydrocarbons will be even further reduced, the price further driven down.

I’m still amazed that Biden and Blinken didn’t use every bit of political capital they had left with OPEC, to get them pumping like crazy in the run up to the election.

Nothing would have helped more with their “Economy is getting better” narrative, than a significant fall in gas (petrol) prices in the summer and autumn.

I'm sure they know that too - witness them trying to stop the Ukrainians from hitting Russian refineries.

The conclusion I'd draw is that OPEC countries either preferred to see a Trump Presidency, or have a greater interest in high oil prices. Aren't Saudi Arabia running a huge budget deficit at the moment? Maybe they can't afford to drive the oil price down for a year or two?

I suspect Bin Salman wants Trump back. You can argue that Biden made a principled stance over Khashoggi but it cost him politically.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Polling news. More In Common's poll for The Rest is Entertainment finds that as potential Prime Ministers, Martin Lewis beats Jeremy Clarkson by 73 to 24 per cent, although Marina thinks in a presidential-style campaign, Jezza would pull ahead. Bad news for Kemi & Keir follows!

And MiC also polled on Christmas films, and their political crossovers.

Labour voters' favourite Christmas film is Elf.
Tory: Love Actually.
Green: Muppet Christmas Carol.
Reform: Scrooged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac9Kc9Wz_z8&t=1690s

I am pleased to confirm as still noneoftheabove on Christmas films. Don't mind the snowman I suppose if that counts.

Green energy tycoon [Dale Vince] ‘gave Labour millions to reduce payout to ex-wife in divorce’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/dale-vince-green-tycoon-labour-millions-divorce-payout-ex/ (£££)

Cookie said:

MarqueeMark said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

No-one is defending because no-one is watching.

Quite.
I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough.
Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.

Spot on Cookie when you mention it’s the strategy.

Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.

She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.

Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.

“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.

Leon said:

MarqueeMark said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.

His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.

He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.

Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”

Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”

I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent

I'd say about 20% of pb also thinks Labour are doing ok. Contrary to what some people think, on the narrow position of approval or otherwise of the government, pb.com is pretty representative.

LostPassword said:

Eabhal said:

Malmesbury said:

Eabhal said:

Alphabet_Soup said:

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

noneoftheabove said:

PJH said:

Malmesbury said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Morris_Dancer said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

If working in the public sector is so lucrative and such a piece of piss to do, why don't you all quit your shit finance/legal/consulting/management/self publishing author jobs and get on the gravy train?

Who said it was easy?

I will say, though, that the supremely high level of job security sounds nice, given a mix of AI and tech giant algorithm fiddling has rather shafted me this year.

Oh, and on 'easy': getting pay rises certainly become that way under Starmer.

Genuinely, what would you pay a nurse? What should the person giving you CPR in the back of an ambulance be on an hour? How much is it worth to you to get dragged out of your burning house at 3 in the morning? Why shouldn't train drivers earn a good wage?
Is emptying bins not worthy of a decent pay packet? What about the office staff who keep all the plates spinning in the background?
You won't do these jobs, but don't want to pay the people who will do them. Why?

What is a decent pay packet? Genuine question - how can we define that?

It doesn't look like anyone has had a go at this yet. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that for someone in mid-career in a job with some responsibility or skill required, it ought to be possible to earn enough to house and feed a family.

SO, for someone where I live that means per month:
Rent 1600
Other bills 400
Food and groceries 800
Kids clothing activities etc 500
Car 250
Personal clothes etc x 2 200
Total after tax £3750 - what's that as a Gross salary, about £60k?

Note - no allowance for leisure spending or holidays.

Also note: my wife (when I had one) would have far exceeded the £200 per month joint personal allowance on her own. But she did work part time to fit around childcare as many mothers so supported herself and I think that's a reasonable assumption to make, but £100 doesn't make a lot of difference

This is based very much on my own historic records, for most of the time when my children were younger money was tight and I had to budget to the penny to work out what was unavoidable. You can quibble on the odd 50 or hundred maybe but that's my ballpark.

The other thing I would note is that housing costs are roughly 50% of that - if property wasn't so ridiculously expensive then a lot of people would be a lot better off.

Build, build, build.

Then build some more!

It really is the Housing Theory of Everything at this point, there’s still way too many people chasing way too few houses.

Scene : Malmesbury's Britain

Husband: Disaster!
Wife: What?
Husband: Daisy won a house - the coupon was in her cereal box!
Wife: Oh God. We have 17 houses already. What's this one worth?
Husband: 5 bedroom in Cornwall. I checked. Someone might give us 99p on eBay. I asked the tramp outside Tesco - he has 8 houses already. Bloody housing surplus.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that as soon as someone actually acquires a property they rapidly lose interest in cheaper house prices. No-one wants to see their £500k 'investment' reduced overnight to £300k because all the adjacent fields have been built on. Human nature, innit?

Fortunately for these newly-enfranchised home owners, developers are unlikely to increase their building rate because (a) it would drive up the cost of labour and materials while (b) reducing the selling price. Sooner or later they will be operating at a loss. Sooner is my guess. In fact, developers already own vast tracts of near-urban farmland with outline planning permission (their infamous land bank) and the reason they're not in a hurry to build is simple economics of the kind BartholomewRoberts frequently espouses. It's nothing to do with a sclerotic planning system.

Houses cost money to build and to maintain. The theory behind the postwar social housing boom was that the hard-working occupants would eventually cover the building cost out of their wages and even use their artisanal skills to do a bit of maintenance from time to time. This simple equation doesn't work with an indigent population dependent on benefits for their rent and without any spare cash (or inclination) to paint the door, unblock the drain or fix a broken window. The corollary of 'build build build' is 'tax tax tax'.

I was picking through some Scottish housebuilding data last week - it's completely bonkers.

Last 10 years, number of homes has increased by 6%, population up 2%. Nominal wages up 25%, house prices up 36%.

Midlothian is our YIMBYiest council - 15% increase in houses. Yet also has the highest increase in house prices at 67%. Meanwhile Inverclyde has only built 1% more, and house prices only up 13%.

Your regular reminder that a percentage increase doesn't necassarily make up for a shortfall.

But it's not working, is it? There is a strong correlation between councils building houses and house prices going up faster than elsewhere.

In Clackmannanshire, they've built 5% more houses, the population is flat at 0%, and prices have gone up 53%. In the Western Isles, the population has fallen by 5%, they've built 3% more houses, but prices are up 44%.

There are more houses being built where there is the greatest demand for houses, but not enough houses anywhere, and so prices still increasing most where there's the greatest demand.

That doesn't seem counterintuitive to me.

The housing market has been so dysfunctional for so long that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand.

That's true, particularly in Scotland. The underlying issue is that everyone wants to live in or around Edinburgh.

But it still doesn't explain why house prices are increasing so quickly even where there are more houses being built and the population (and the number of households) is falling. The only area this isn't happening is around Aberdeen.

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.

And that's before the migration issue comes into play.

However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.

Indeed so

If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028

However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”

Reform's problem, and the Tories' problem with cosying up to Reform, is that for all their success with working class Red Wall voters, Nigel Farage has Redwoodesque economic views and would privatise the NHS.

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

Kemi B, like most Conservatives, is still at the "we were right all along, you will all come running back and begging us to be in charge again" bit of the defeat cycle. See the gloating here at every one of Starmer's many pratfalls.

Embodying that is what got KB the job, but it's also why she would struggle, even if she had more political talent than she does.

Morris_Dancer said:

bigjohnowls said:

Morris_Dancer said:

I'm amused by the notion private sector workers are going to be delighted to vote Labour given recent policies of flinging private sector taxpayers' cash at public sector workers and increasing taxes on the private sector while the public sector gets exempted.

Simple solution take a job in the public sector if you think it's well paid and easy money. I recommend a nursing assistant role on grade 2 (over 7000 vacancies )

It is fun how every 'public sector worker' becomes a nurse. And be glad of the private sector. That's the sole source of wages for the public sector.

Well, 34% of public sector workers are in the NHS, and nurses are the biggest group employed by the NHS, so a lot of public sector workers are nurses. I wondered if they constitute the modal public sector job, but I think they're only the second largest group overall. The commonest public sector worker is a teacher.

But there are plenty of teaching vacancies too, if you think working in the public sector is well paid and easy money.

MoonRabbit said:

Cookie said:

MarqueeMark said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

No-one is defending because no-one is watching.

Quite.
I must admit I'm disappointed with the Tories under Kemi. They don't appear to have a strategy. They don't appear to be thinking about what they will offer to the electorate at the next election. At present they are just opposing everything, and therefore appear to be continuity Rishi. Even if Labour spend the next five years being awful, this won't be enough.
Happily for them, as you say, no-one's paying the slightest bit of attention at the moment, and Labour appear to be quite capable of putting all their failures on display without the opposition having to do it for them. But I'd quite like the Tories to use this window they have been granted to do a bit of thinking and planning. Maybe they are.

Spot on Cookie when you mention it’s the strategy.

Starmer unilaterally disarmed UKs detterent against illegal migration, so boat rivals are up from 4th July because of this. That’s Badenoch’s strategy brought to today’s PMQs.

She’s issuing a rallying cry to a point of view that’s not actually from the real world.

Since the Boris take over - expulsion of one nation Tories, **** business, and pipe dream promises about everyone’s incomes going up - the Tories strategic policy thinking hasn’t been in the real world.

“the fact we monumentally screwed up just about everything - economy, migration, public services, house building, mortgages, incomes - is going to be instantly forgotten when it comes to coming General Elections.” Continuing like this is the road to a whole two decades of out of power pain in my opinion.

Let’s see if it even gets a mention on WATO

Taz said:

Young Londoner jailed in Dubai for a year for "holiday romance" with 17 year old girl.

Must be more to this than meets the eye.

The girl's mother made a complaint and that was that for the young lad.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/londoner-18-sentenced-to-a-year-in-dubai-prison-over-holiday-romance-with-17-year-old-girl/ar-AA1vEWVR?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=2b1db61995894b42d7510ef35d01fa81&ei=12

If i read that correctly, that sounds like the Dubai parallel to what happens in the UK when a 16 year old and a still-15 year old have a legover at a party, whether tipsy or not, and the younger one's parents put in a police complaint out of outrage.

In legal definition I think it is sex with a minor.

It may be that mum did not cop how seriously it would be taken.

What has happened in the UK under the mess of laws / hysteria under early New Labour was if the 16 year old was prosecuted (or accepted a police caution) whilst the original version of the laws were in place around sex with minors was that there could be really long-term (effectively lifelong) implications because DBS records would be preserved.

I believe that now if the elder was still under 18, then the cautions are wiped from records at onset of adulthood under reforms to V&B regimes and related laws.

IIRC there were cases around, for example, a drunk youth pinching a policewoman's bottom. That is a serious matter, but an effective lifetime exclusion from caring professions (eg teacher, ambulance driver) was (imo) perhaps excessive as a consequence. But it's the sort of edge case and nuance that gets buried under tabloid outrage driving moral panic.

If this one just got a year in prison, in an ME legal system he may well have got off quite lightly. I'd suggest this may be daughter in shock at the punishment applied in the local legal system compared to her own values, and blaming mum.

If the local legal rules were followed, I don't see anything happening to change it.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it

She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want

May 3rd 2029 is a very long way away, the pollsters questions could mean something very different to voters closer to the day. In the meantime for something now and next couple of years with a General Election focus, “who would make better PM” and “who do you trust with the economy” are the measures to follow - as it would be terrible for Labour to fall behind on those early on. Even when Milliband had big Labour leads, he didn’t on those measurements. Those two are the serious ones to follow, I hope people keep posting them on here.

However, it doesn’t mean we should give up on PB for 3.5 years, because the wonders of PB is all the things we learn and fun we have, because threads struggle to stay on topic and the site rarely discusses politics for long 🤣

Leon said:

rottenborough said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

Trouble is, Starmer and Reeves foundation fixing will need ten years and they aint gonna get that as things seem to be panning out.

And that's before the migration issue comes into play.

However, international events are at fever pitch and so god knows what the situation will be in 2029.

Indeed so

If things continue as they are, I expect Reform to win either outright or in a deal with the Tories in 2028

However, if we know one thing about the 2020s, it’s that things generally don’t “continue as they are”

All it might take is a slowly growing number of MP defections from the Tories to Reform.

I'm not predicting that will happen, but it's not exactly difficult to see how it might. Such a trend could become self-reinforcing, and beyond a certain point, even loyal Tories would face a choice between voting Reform, and allowing Labour a second term.

Leon said:

MarqueeMark said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.

His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.

He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.

Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”

Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”

I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent

Moving in polite urban northern middle class circles as I do, most of the time, and consuming broadcast media, I have never really heard much criticism of Labour since the days of John Smith*. It wasn’t really done. It was apparently acceptable to criticise them on the issue of the second Gulf War, but aside from that, you rarely heard anything in potentially politically mixed circles. (My brother-in-law made a rather good and quite subtle joke about Gordon Brown in early 2010 at a family meal, but that’s all I can really remember). I’ve been astonished almost immediately since they came to power at the general election at people’s willingness, indeed keenness to slag them off. Even in the last days of Gordon Brown the last lot didn’t engender this sort of contempt.

Which isn't to say everyone hates them all the time. But they're getting a lot more stick, more openly, than any Labour Party I've ever known in the past.

*On reflection, apart from the peak years of Corbyn. This lot are being slagged off more than Corbyn - but of course Corbyn wasn't in government so not a fair comparison.

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

Major also went the full five years, so "almost never" is a bit of a stretch.
It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Cookie said:

Leon said:

MarqueeMark said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is bloody difficult to like, let alone love. His support at the election was a mile wide and an inch deep.

And that inch was ice, which has melted since the election.

His "relaunch" led to a fall in his approval ratings.

He just seems piss-poor at politics. As is the bulk of his Cabinet. Call it cruel if you like, but that is how I see it. And I'm harldy alone. To the extent I have any discussions about politics outside pb.com, it is people saying unprovoked how uttterly crap this Government is performing. They expected better; they haven't got it.

Exactly my experience. Seldom hear politics discussed but if I hear it - unprompted by me - it’s an eye-roll and “Jesus Christ how can they be even worse/as bad as the last lot”

Loyal lefties say “as bad as”, everyone else says “even worse”

I mean, there must be people out there beyond PB who think Starmer and Co are doing ok, pretty good, etc - polls show about 20% of Britons think this. I just never meet them. But then, all my friends are intelligent

Moving in polite urban northern middle class circles as I do, most of the time, and consuming broadcast media, I have never really heard much criticism of Labour since the days of John Smith*. It wasn’t really done. It was apparently acceptable to criticise them on the issue of the second Gulf War, but aside from that, you rarely heard anything in potentially politically mixed circles. (My brother-in-law made a rather good and quite subtle joke about Gordon Brown in early 2010 at a family meal, but that’s all I can really remember). I’ve been astonished almost immediately since they came to power at the general election at people’s willingness, indeed keenness to slag them off. Even in the last days of Gordon Brown the last lot didn’t engender this sort of contempt.

Which isn't to say everyone hates them all the time. But they're getting a lot more stick, more openly, than any Labour Party I've ever known in the past.

*On reflection, apart from the peak years of Corbyn. This lot are being slagged off more than Corbyn - but of course Corbyn wasn't in government so not a fair comparison.

That’s properly interesting. And matches my experience (which I thought might be too London-centric and bohemian)

People in general are just more pissed off and politically volatile. You can blame it on social media or you can look at basic facts - incomes have barely budged since 2008, mass migration is changing the country in ways people don’t like, a sequence of governments have been utterly shite. There is no longer any tolerance left

FPT: There are two more "isms" that should have been included in that list, Banfield's "amoral familism" and tribalism. (The latter is the most common, world wide -- in my opinion.)

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Mexicanpete said:

..

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1866820258696401052

Starmer hammers Badenoch again in PMQs for championing a ‘one nation experiment in open borders under the last government’

Pledges to ‘drive down lawful migration and drive down illegal migration’

It’s noticeable no one on PB rallying to defend Badenoch after today’s performance.

There’s quite a few PMQs from Badenoch now, and where she currently comes across as out of her depth and not suited to the role of forensic probing, she is bound to get better.

But it’s the strategy Kemi and her team are bringing, that’s the problem. That’s what went wrong today.

The very basis of Badenoch’s argument at PMQs: Rwanda Scheme was a detterent that smashes the criminal gangs and stops illegal migrant crossings in the channel.

She’s choosing to tie herself to the policies and record of the thrown out government, on the basis the government had the right policies and they were working? It’s politically tone deaf isn’t it?

I thought she chose the wrong subject today with the farmers outside and it was Ed Davey fighting their corner and that is the way Sky are reporting it

She is young and has a lot to learn but if she fails then Farage will be in poll position and that is something I do not want

I see what you did there "poll position".

Can't we just call the win for her every week because we all hate Starmer?

I do not hate Starmer at all and please do not suggest I do

I judge him on his ability as a PM and on that he falls short and has in Reeves an inept Chancellor whose path to growth is to damage those who create growth

Indeed the next crisis for Starmer and Reeves is the 2.8% public sector pay award which is likely to be rejected by all the unions, but in truth is as much as the nation can afford and is where pension increases should be and not the triple lock until 2029, it is not affordable

Point of information:

It's not an award yet, it's the government sending their recommendation to the pay review bodies. Other organisations, including unions, will do the same. Later on, the pay review body will come to a conclusion, which the government can accept or reject.

A union that wasn't moaning at this stage wouldn't be doing its job, but if the government accepts whatever is recommended, I doubt there will be any strikes.

MarqueeMark said:

Fed up of waiting for Germany to provide their longer-range missiles, Ukraine has manaufactured - and now used - their even-longer range home made Peklo ("Hell" in Ukrainian) missiles/drones.

Used to hit an oil facility in Bryansk. Which it seems was just a trial run - their range is more than enough to get to Moscow. Sorry, Assad, no rest for the wicked...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRvv1PHM3qw

If Merz wins the German election next year they will get their German longer range missiles too

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely

bondegezou said:

Cookie said:

Taz said:

Young Londoner jailed in Dubai for a year for "holiday romance" with 17 year old girl.

Must be more to this than meets the eye.

The girl's mother made a complaint and that was that for the young lad.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/londoner-18-sentenced-to-a-year-in-dubai-prison-over-holiday-romance-with-17-year-old-girl/ar-AA1vEWVR?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=2b1db61995894b42d7510ef35d01fa81&ei=12

"Marcus Fakana, of Tottenham, “feels abandoned by the British government and Keir Starmer”, Detained in Dubai said."

I'm not sure Marcus has a leg to stand on here. He went to another country and broke one of its laws. If he wanted *that* sort of holiday he should have gone to Majorca. It's not as if Arab disapproval of this sort of thing is a secret.
We might say the legal boundary for such activities should be 16 rather than 18. But the Emiratis take a different view.

18 isn't even an unusual age of consent. It's that in nearly a dozen US states too.

Technically sex outside heterosexual marriage is illegal in Dubai, even if their police and courts focus on under 18 sex, sex in public and LGBT sex

LostPassword said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.

If only Rishi could have let Starmer have a go for six months - THEN called the election...

Leon said:

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

Major also went the full five years, so "almost never" is a bit of a stretch.
It's governments with not much hope that tend to cling on. In the hope of... hope.

Start Date; Dissolution Date; Duration (Years and Days)

05/07/1945-03/02/1950; 4 years, 210 days

23/02/1950-05/10/1951; 1 year, 225 days

25/10/1951-06/05/1955; 3 years, 194 days

26/05/1955-18/09/1959; 4 years, 114 days

08/10/1959-25/09/1964; 4 years, 353 days

15/10/1964-10/03/1966; 1 year, 146 days

31/03/1966;-29/05/1970; 4 years, 59 days

18/06/1970-08/02/1974; 3 years, 235 days

28/02/1974-20/09/1974; 6 months, 23 days

10/10/1974-08/04/1979; 4 years, 181 days

03/05/1979-13/05/1983; 4 years, 10 days

09/06/1983-18/05/1987; 4 years, 343 days

11/06/1987-16/03/1992; 4 years, 279 days

09/04/1992-08/04/1997; 5 years, 0 days

01/05/1997-14/05/2001; 4 years, 13 days

07/06/2001-11/04/2005; 3 years, 338 days

05/05/2005-12/04/2010; 4 years, 337 days

06/05/2010-30/03/2015; 4 years, 328 days

07/05/2015-03/05/2017; 1 year, 362 days

08/06/11/2017-06/11/2019; 2 years, 151 days

Looking at my own data, if it’s right, and if we define “going the full term” as closer than, say, two months - eight weeks - of the legal maximum term, it looks like only 3 parliaments out of 21 since the war have gone “full term”. 2010 doesn’t count coz of the FTPA

MarqueeMark said:

LostPassword said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

Rishi Sunak was extremely unusual. He's the first Prime Minister who expected to lose who called an election early by choice. And that only by half a year.

If only Rishi could have let Starmer have a go for six months - THEN called the election...

No.

This isn’t a question of “I had the choice between the meat and the fish; I chose the meat and now wish I had chosen the fish”.

At worst, it’s “the fish has been terrible in this place for years, so I am ordering the meat. Now it’s arrived, I am wondering how much better it is?”

MattW said:

The Health Secretary Statement is making a statement on Puberty Blockers on in the Commons.

An indefinite ban is being imposed.

'These should never have been used until after enough evidence being available' sounds like a potential large incoming compensation bill, if the NHS or NHS staff were involved.

I'd be interested to know how they'd manage a double-blind trial to establish 'evidence'.

Given the comment above, I’ve gone and watched today’s PMQs.

I think Kemi’s problem is going to be that, even on her points where she might have a case, she doesn’t come across very well. In a debate there’s no good scoring a point on the facts, if you do so in a way that doesn’t impress the audience.

When it comes to campaigning out in the country, that’s going to be a serious handicap.

Burgessian said:

Interesting article by John Redwood on how to grow the economy. Tip to Rachel: learn from Joe Biden. Not sure what to make of the Vulcan. Obviously bright but possessed of a tin ear.

"It is a pity Rachel Reeve did not look across the Atlantic, to a Democratic president much to her liking, and copy some of his better ideas. During his four years in office Joe Biden allowed more oil and gas drilling – on top of the 50 per cent increase under Donald Trump – permitting more cheaper energy to be made available to American business.

"He had a strong onshoring policy for more industrial investment, again building on Trump’s successful push for more home-based industry. Like his predecessor, Biden used tariffs and bans against China where he thought they were competing unfairly or undermining American national security interests."

https://conservativehome.com/2024/12/11/john-redwood-if-labour-really-wanted-to-deliver-growth-they-should-take-lessons-from-biden/

I have said the same about Biden's aggressive economic policies - which also included getting biddable countries to increase Corporation Tax. Oddly, PB's Biden defenders (of which there are many) take the rather dickless stance that that's OK for the gaffer but we shouldn't do the same in case we offend someone. Or something.

...

Daveyboy1961 said:

Do Farmer's tractors have to pay ULEZ?

Just asking...

I am guessing anything earlier than Euro6 and they pay double bubble. With £3m plus estates they can afford it.