Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
They're talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. They seem obsessed with the Nigel and gave members a choice between bonkers and insane for leader. They wisely chose the bonkers one, but she's making an utter tit of herself and the party with her.
We're in the middle of a power shift in global politics. Who are the kingmakers backing at a time where Labour continue to embarrass themselves? Not the Tories. And they're never going to back the Tories because the Tories are complicit in everything wrong with this country - and everyone knows it.
Their route through this is to inject umph back into the political economy. We can rebuild the country together, we want your ideas and your drive and we're going to reward you with a future worth having - a buzz in the country like we had in the 80s with Thatcher and the late 90s with Blair. Hope, through enterprise - that has to be the Tories best play. Not wazzocking up every week. Because by the time they realise its going wrong they will already have been thrown overboard.
Yet already Badenoch is projected to gain 55 seats at the next GE and deprive Starmer of his majority.
That would be more seat gains than Hague, Howard or indeed Kinnock, Foot and Ed Miliband and even Corbyn 2017 ever got as Leader of the Opposition
You'll stay in denial until you accept reality and join Reform.
The polls now are meaningless with regards to seats in an election 4 years away. The *trends* shown in the polls are what is relevant - will they continue / get stronger / get weaker?
The polls show that you lot would get plowed. Not on "if there was an election tomorrow" - there won't be. In 4 years, when you play the current trends forward.
Your party is done - and you are the culprit. Bravo.
They're not meaningless. They tell you lots about views and trends which, one set, become harder to shift.
Starmer, and Labour more broadly, won't get to magically wipe the slate clean and start again at T-12 months from the next GE just because it's in the offing.
When was the last time a politician laid out an unpopular prospectus but had the courage and energy to make a case for it and persuade a majority why it was necessary? 1983 perhaps? Ever since then we have had government by focus group, triangulating policies to maximise their electoral appeal, regardless of consistency or efficacy.
My heart sinks whenever there's a PB header derived from a YouGov poll. They simply demonstrate how facile the electorate is when asked their opinion about anything. Sooner or later a plausible leader will emerge and make an irresistible case for monosyllabic half-baked solutions to our deep-rooted complex problems and it will be 2016 all over again.
Well, we might get lucky- and actually get a good leader.
A joint UK-Mauritius statement “could come tomorrow” according to a Bloomberg reporter.
Jesus they’ve gone and done it. The worst deal in British history, a fittingly bathetic end to the British Empire as I sit in colonial Rangoon. We’ve ended up giving away possessions and paying billions for the pleasure
Still well up on the overall Empire deal, though. Mega ££££ banked.
Despite being an article of faith with believers in reparations, that's not really true. Some investments in the Empire were profitable, but no more profitable than domestic ones at the time. There was no big 'appropriation' we can point to that enriched our country at the expense of the colonised. Colonies were actually very costly to administrate. Britain got rich by being the first industrial nation.
It doesn't mean other things haven't also made us wealthy or that reparations are due, but - c'mon - colonising a large chunk of the planet for so long was not financially advantageous to us? Of course it was. We didn't do it out of the goodness of our heart.
For security. Britain was a small trading maritime nation. We needed to keep that going to keep our country going. The direction of all foreign policy, including imperial policy, was to secure key trading routes, so we could import the raw materials we needed, and export finished industrial goods. It was only afterwards that there was this pomp and circumstance around the size of the empire.
Ok, have it your own way.
Always happy to learn more on the issue if you'd ever like to bring fresh info to the table.
No, I won't be doing that. I've said my piece. Empire = Exploitation. Exploitation = ££££ for the exploiter. That's the headline. Nothing to back it up except for loads of history books and podcasts, all by other people.
I think the mistake you are making was to assume it was exploitation by *Britain*
It was usually *British* chancers and promotors operating independently on the ground - basically a land based version of Raleigh or Drake - exploring the locals for all they were worth (literally)
“Empire” was a loose term employed to give a sense of order to a kaleidoscope of localised arrangements
The Macmillan govt's 'Audit of Empire' reports in the late 1950s reckoned that the 'home' (ie. UK-based) economy was smaller by a sixth than it would have been without the empire - similar to the effect of WW2, but less than that of WW1.
You can sense check that by comparing with (West) Germany which, starting from a lower base in 1871 and suffering similar WW1 and greater WW2 losses, surpassed us in GDP terms around 1960.
It's hard to see the empire as having been anything other than a net loss for us, in economic terms at least.
The Empire cost money, overall, but it provided huge military advantages. The contribution of soldiers, sailors, and airmen, from India, the Dominions, and Africa, in both world wars, was huge.
In which case it didn't cost.
It's also worth bearing in mind that without the bases and protectorates it wouldn't have been possible to carry out open trade on a global scale.
The WTO and its equivalents didn't exist then and, to the extent they do now, they are in a large part a child of its legacy.
Yep. Big picture. £££ gain to us. Course it was.
Protectorates were generally only established reluctantly and where informal arrangements no longer sufficed.
Where I probably differ from you is that is that, in the political context of the times, I don't see anything wrong with that.
The stark difference in the responses of Conservative and Reform voters in those polls tells you much about the difference in who supports each.
That’s why they embody the real political divide in British society. Labour will become an increasingly marginal relic of the 20th century.
Nonsense on stilts. The rich poor divide is only going to rise in salience as a political issue which means a party of the left will remain prominent. That doesn't have to be Labour but it's most likely to be. There's no socialist Farage on the horizon and when there is they are more likely to emerge from within Labour than from another party or a new party.
Labour can't represent the interests the working class because they reject the idea that they have any interests.
There's no lumpen "working class" but there is a crisis of inequality. Addressing this is the only way to reduce the number of people struggling in this relatively wealthy country of ours. Labour for all their flaws are the best bet on this. It's why I vote for them and why I'm a member.
This suggests that if there is a crisis, it's that the top 1% and 10% are doing better at the expense of the next 40%, but the bottom half have not seen any erosion in their share of income.
Income isn’t the relevant indicator, though. Wealth is. Since 2008 especially, asset price appreciation has been the issue.
The successive minimum wage increases have delivered a reasonable % increase in low earners’ income, but they’re still further and further away from home ownership, and being crippled by inflationary rent increases.
Low earners have rarely been able to afford home ownership.
Its housing affordability for the 25-75% band which is socioeconomically and politically vital.
Low earners were able to in the 1980s and 1990s, before the system became broken at the turn of the century.
Anyone who is working full-time ought to be able to own their own home. It is a broken system that means that people are paying a landlord's mortgage instead of their own.
The idea that only the privileged ought to be able to afford a home was an alien concept to better Conservatives of the past. To quote Margaret Thatcher:
I am much nearer to creating one nation than Labour will ever be. Socialism is two nations. The privileged rulers, and everyone else. And it always gets to that. What I am desperately trying to do is create one nation with everyone being a man of property, or having the opportunity to be a man of property.
Of course, what actually happened was that housing changed from being simply somewhere to live into an investment and a commodity, with catastrophic consequences for the entire country.
Low earnings - and there are a hell of a lot of people on the minimum wage, just think of the vast legions of warehouse workers, delivery drivers, basement level shop and hospitality staff, care sector workers and the rest - stymie household formation. You end up with millions of adults as permanent teenagers living in their childhood bedrooms, or in couples stuck in starter flats, spending most of their incomes on subsistence and deciding they can probably just about afford to keep a cat but a baby is out of the question.
The entire post-1979 economic settlement has come to this: a disaster. When you withdraw state involvement from the housing market and leave everything to volume housebuilders then they're going to produce a strangulated supply of shoddily constructed homes, built with deliberately small rooms to cram the maximum quantity on the available plots, sat in the middle of a car park. No thought is given to people's welfare and everything is about the maximisation of profit. It's part of a larger theme in which the entire economy is structured to redistribute what wealth exists upwards.
When have the lowest earners ever been able to buy a property? 100 years ago most of the population rented let alone just the lowest earners and still had families. There was no minimum wage either until Blair.
Thatcher at least enabled those with council homes to have the chance to buy them.
And this might not have ended in a dumpster fire if she, (and her successors, to be fair: New Labour exhibited no interest in addressing the matter) had bothered to replace the council houses. All Maggie was interested in was using the receipts to subsidise current spending and thus fund tax cuts.
As it is, a large segment of the population now finds itself stuck in ludicrously expensive private rentals with no prospect of ever buying their way off that treadmill. We now have a neo-Hanoverian settlement: rentier capitalism with a large peasant underclass.
Your party won't fix this problem because it is contrary to the interest of your rump vote to do so. It is therefore useless to most of the country and thoroughly deserved the good caning it got last year.
*A lot* of post WWII council house estates (eg Robin Hood Gardens, or the Everton Piggeries or Hackney Wick tower blocks), were jerry-built shitholes. Beware of thinking that in the past, everyone had decent homes. The overall standard of housing today is better today than in the Sixties or Seventies.
Some of the apartment blocks built in Glasgow in the 1960s to replace the Gorbals slums were damp and mould infested hellholes from the day they were built. They only lasted 30 years.
It is worth noting that the devastation caused by the fires in Los Angeles aren't one tenth of the damage the Fukashima earthquake did to Japan, either financially or in terms of loss of life. It will also have no impact, for example, on the power grid.
Modern developed economies are remarkably resilient to natural disasters, and US housing is cheap and quick to construct (thanks in part to plenty of ... undocumented ... laborers from South America).
This time next year, Palisades will be a third rebuilt. By the time of the next presidential election, you won't know it happened.
Damn, and I was hoping to find a nice patch of land going cheap…
Every country needs a Robert Hooke after a good fire.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
You’re conflating two things, though.
Voting Brexit correlated strongly with age, and although of course there are economically vulnerable pensioners, many more of them are economically secure (which doesn’t mean wealthy - simply that they are relatively free of debt and their income is fixed and balances with their outgoings).
But voting Brexit also correlates with having less education, and among working age people that included the more economically vulnerable. Among middle class people of working age, voting remain becomes more common. Hence why many of those areas now have LibDem MPs, whereas God’s waiting rooms by the sea still elect Tories.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was not,going to vote but I went labour in the end. Partly because I fell for the govt in waiting line. Partly because i thought reeves would be a safe pair of,hands (she really did seem to be the real deal from her speeches and what she was saying) and partly due to not wanting a reform MP and the labour candidate being quite engaging.
The social care decision is a bloody disgrace. It’s kicked out to the next Parliament in 2029. Shameful. I’d vote for them if they turned it around and things improved.
However I think this is the mid seventies not the late nineties.
No it wasn't just them otherwise Remain would have won comfortably.
Leave won all social groups other than upper middle class ABs and Leave won most working voters aged 45 to 65, not just retired home owning voters over 65
Upper middle-class AB != well off. Plenty of people on the hamster wheel struggling to make ends meet are AB.
Leave disproportionately won home owners. Remain disproportionately won tenants.
It was security, not it's inverse, that made people less risk-averse. Whatever the stereotypes might be.
If that was the case the tenants would not have voted for Corbyn and the home owning pensioners would not have voted for May in 2017 either rather than the reverse
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
They're talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. They seem obsessed with the Nigel and gave members a choice between bonkers and insane for leader. They wisely chose the bonkers one, but she's making an utter tit of herself and the party with her.
We're in the middle of a power shift in global politics. Who are the kingmakers backing at a time where Labour continue to embarrass themselves? Not the Tories. And they're never going to back the Tories because the Tories are complicit in everything wrong with this country - and everyone knows it.
Their route through this is to inject umph back into the political economy. We can rebuild the country together, we want your ideas and your drive and we're going to reward you with a future worth having - a buzz in the country like we had in the 80s with Thatcher and the late 90s with Blair. Hope, through enterprise - that has to be the Tories best play. Not wazzocking up every week. Because by the time they realise its going wrong they will already have been thrown overboard.
Yet already Badenoch is projected to gain 55 seats at the next GE and deprive Starmer of his majority.
That would be more seat gains than Hague, Howard or indeed Kinnock, Foot and Ed Miliband and even Corbyn 2017 ever got as Leader of the Opposition
You'll stay in denial until you accept reality and join Reform.
The polls now are meaningless with regards to seats in an election 4 years away. The *trends* shown in the polls are what is relevant - will they continue / get stronger / get weaker?
The polls show that you lot would get plowed. Not on "if there was an election tomorrow" - there won't be. In 4 years, when you play the current trends forward.
Your party is done - and you are the culprit. Bravo.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
They're talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. They seem obsessed with the Nigel and gave members a choice between bonkers and insane for leader. They wisely chose the bonkers one, but she's making an utter tit of herself and the party with her.
We're in the middle of a power shift in global politics. Who are the kingmakers backing at a time where Labour continue to embarrass themselves? Not the Tories. And they're never going to back the Tories because the Tories are complicit in everything wrong with this country - and everyone knows it.
Their route through this is to inject umph back into the political economy. We can rebuild the country together, we want your ideas and your drive and we're going to reward you with a future worth having - a buzz in the country like we had in the 80s with Thatcher and the late 90s with Blair. Hope, through enterprise - that has to be the Tories best play. Not wazzocking up every week. Because by the time they realise its going wrong they will already have been thrown overboard.
Yet already Badenoch is projected to gain 55 seats at the next GE and deprive Starmer of his majority.
That would be more seat gains than Hague, Howard or indeed Kinnock, Foot and Ed Miliband and even Corbyn 2017 ever got as Leader of the Opposition
You'll stay in denial until you accept reality and join Reform.
The polls now are meaningless with regards to seats in an election 4 years away. The *trends* shown in the polls are what is relevant - will they continue / get stronger / get weaker?
The polls show that you lot would get plowed. Not on "if there was an election tomorrow" - there won't be. In 4 years, when you play the current trends forward.
Your party is done - and you are the culprit. Bravo.
Good evening
I had a chuckle when I read 'when you play the current trends forward' as it is exactly the argument @HYUFD uses and in this climate is just a silly
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has the slightest clue what 2029 will bring and saying anything else is wish casting
I see Arteta is coming under pressure with lots of suggestions, but I would add a further one
Ban Starmer as he is a Jonah for everyone at present
""I hear the atmosphere at the Jewish Labour Conference in North London this afternoon is 'grim'. There is a huge Ivor Caplin shaped elephant in the room and attendees are trying to ignore it but 'everyone knows'.
Many are keeping off social media so they do not get accused of being nonces.
Mike Katz spotted going round other delegates and having "hushed conversations". Some I am told think the event should have been cancelled last night as soon as news of the arrest came to light".
Dr Ian Darcy
SKS has an unfortunate habit of being friends with alleged nonces.
Hopefully said elephant is not of the white eared variety !!
Climate change means this will happen more frequently in future, not yes.
Any wooden (any?) house virtually anywhere warmish (California, Australia etc) might burn up every few years, particularly if it's in close proximity to others, and you won't be able to get insurance.
This isn't a one off.
Should they stop it happening again?
Would you like your property and possessions burnt down every 5 years?
No.
But I'd rather that than have no property or possessions.
Besides its not every 5 years that each home will need replacing, within 5 years other homes might not the same ones.
That is how insurance is able to work.
Or, you rebuild at a lower density, to higher standards, with better firebreaks or you move to a different area.
I certainly wouldn't buy a like-for-like property in that area now.
I don't think it would make a good investment and, I doubt it'd be fully insurable.
This would be a good use of eminent domain. California should buy the land, create larger lots, significant set backs and firebreaks and then sell the land back to private owners (perhaps with first dibs to previous owners).
For what will actually happen look at the history of Wren’s plan to rebuild London after the great fire
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
You’re conflating two things, though.
Voting Brexit correlated strongly with age, and although of course there are economically vulnerable pensioners, many more of them are economically secure (which doesn’t mean wealthy - simply that they are relatively free of debt and their income is fixed and balances with their outgoings).
But voting Brexit also correlates with having less education, and among working age people that included the more economically vulnerable. Among middle class people of working age, voting remain becomes more common. Hence why many of those areas now have LibDem MPs, whereas God’s waiting rooms by the sea still elect Tories.
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Your analysis was correct and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report I linked echoed it.
I think the local elections that take place in places like Durham will be very interesting as I can see gains for Reform and them gaining several councillors.
I think Reform and Farage have their eyes on the prize here. They will hold it together. They are putting structures in place and seem to be taking a more professional approach.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
'They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.'
No it wasn't just them otherwise Remain would have won comfortably.
Leave won all social groups other than upper middle class ABs and Leave won most working voters aged 45 to 65, not just retired home owning voters over 65
Just a note to point out that as the ballot was secret, none of the post-vote analyses are definitive, they are based on small polling samples, and their conclusions do not seem to agree.
On the original topic, 1 in 5 18-45 prefer unelected leaders, Danny Dorling has estimates of less than 50% turnout for 18-45 https://www.dannydorling.org/?p=10237. It is entirely human that 40% of those that can't be bothered to vote are angry that those who can be bothered get a say and don't want them to have a vote.
Based on those turnout figures from the IPSOS poll, I'm going to suggest that VOTING MAKES YOU LIVE LONGER
I'm aware that actually it shows those who are better-off and better educated live longer and are more likely to vote.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
Bonkers. People who never ever votes coming out in armies to vote in terrible run down places. Voting out of desperation to stick it to the system which had so utterly failed them.
That's the stereotype but the data is the polar opposite.
Wealthy home owners were far more likely to vote Leave.
Insecure tenants were far more likely to vote Remain.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
They're talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. They seem obsessed with the Nigel and gave members a choice between bonkers and insane for leader. They wisely chose the bonkers one, but she's making an utter tit of herself and the party with her.
We're in the middle of a power shift in global politics. Who are the kingmakers backing at a time where Labour continue to embarrass themselves? Not the Tories. And they're never going to back the Tories because the Tories are complicit in everything wrong with this country - and everyone knows it.
Their route through this is to inject umph back into the political economy. We can rebuild the country together, we want your ideas and your drive and we're going to reward you with a future worth having - a buzz in the country like we had in the 80s with Thatcher and the late 90s with Blair. Hope, through enterprise - that has to be the Tories best play. Not wazzocking up every week. Because by the time they realise its going wrong they will already have been thrown overboard.
Yet already Badenoch is projected to gain 55 seats at the next GE and deprive Starmer of his majority.
That would be more seat gains than Hague, Howard or indeed Kinnock, Foot and Ed Miliband and even Corbyn 2017 ever got as Leader of the Opposition
You'll stay in denial until you accept reality and join Reform.
The polls now are meaningless with regards to seats in an election 4 years away. The *trends* shown in the polls are what is relevant - will they continue / get stronger / get weaker?
The polls show that you lot would get plowed. Not on "if there was an election tomorrow" - there won't be. In 4 years, when you play the current trends forward.
Your party is done - and you are the culprit. Bravo.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
They're talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. They seem obsessed with the Nigel and gave members a choice between bonkers and insane for leader. They wisely chose the bonkers one, but she's making an utter tit of herself and the party with her.
We're in the middle of a power shift in global politics. Who are the kingmakers backing at a time where Labour continue to embarrass themselves? Not the Tories. And they're never going to back the Tories because the Tories are complicit in everything wrong with this country - and everyone knows it.
Their route through this is to inject umph back into the political economy. We can rebuild the country together, we want your ideas and your drive and we're going to reward you with a future worth having - a buzz in the country like we had in the 80s with Thatcher and the late 90s with Blair. Hope, through enterprise - that has to be the Tories best play. Not wazzocking up every week. Because by the time they realise its going wrong they will already have been thrown overboard.
Yet already Badenoch is projected to gain 55 seats at the next GE and deprive Starmer of his majority.
That would be more seat gains than Hague, Howard or indeed Kinnock, Foot and Ed Miliband and even Corbyn 2017 ever got as Leader of the Opposition
You'll stay in denial until you accept reality and join Reform.
The polls now are meaningless with regards to seats in an election 4 years away. The *trends* shown in the polls are what is relevant - will they continue / get stronger / get weaker?
The polls show that you lot would get plowed. Not on "if there was an election tomorrow" - there won't be. In 4 years, when you play the current trends forward.
Your party is done - and you are the culprit. Bravo.
Good evening
I had a chuckle when I read 'when you play the current trends forward' as it is exactly the argument @HYUFD uses and in this climate is just a silly
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has the slightest clue what 2029 will bring and saying anything else is wish casting
I see Arteta is coming under pressure with lots of suggestions, but I would add a further one
Ban Starmer as he is a Jonah for everyone at present
Probably the second-most sensible suggestion after "buy and play an actual striker". Arsenal's transfer dealings have been terrible, not content with discarding academy products so they can recruit players of similar or worse ability, they took Sterling off Chelsea so they could sign Sancho.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
You’re conflating two things, though.
Voting Brexit correlated strongly with age, and although of course there are economically vulnerable pensioners, many more of them are economically secure (which doesn’t mean wealthy - simply that they are relatively free of debt and their income is fixed and balances with their outgoings).
But voting Brexit also correlates with having less education, and among working age people that included the more economically vulnerable. Among middle class people of working age, voting remain becomes more common. Hence why many of those areas now have LibDem MPs, whereas God’s waiting rooms by the sea still elect Tories.
Or Farage, see Clacton
Depends where. Left behind seaside towns like Blackpool will regularly go labour and will be fertile for Reform.
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
Climate change means this will happen more frequently in future, not less.
Any wooden (any?) house virtually anywhere warmish (California, Australia etc) might burn up every few years, particularly if it's in close proximity to others, and you won't be able to get insurance.
This isn't a one off.
Not true. It happens less these days than it used to 100 years ago. You need to see past the opportunistic ghoulish bullshit that the green lobby puts out whenever such a miserable event takes place.
Bit like the sudden jump in sea temperatures that was actually the result of banning sulphur compounds from marine fuel. Didn't stop the lying scrotes claiming it's all because people have the audacity to heat their homes and drive their cars.
You're a denier, so it's a waste of time discussing this with you.
Margaret Thatcher understand and knew the science and recognised it. And, as one of your heroes, you should listen to her.
And you're a prize pillock whose special talent appears to be being wrong about everything and everyone.
Great argument, mate. Real zinger.
One I could happily provide dozens of citations for if I could be bothered.
What a shame.
It is.
Here's the information on how there are less fires today than there were over 100 years ago:
Here's some information on the very real changes in California, made chiefly due to the activities of the green lobby, including the removal of water infrastructure, lack of building any new reservoirs since 1979 (sound familiar?), allowing undergrowth to grow out of control without any controlled burning or grazing by cattle, all of which have led directly to the severity of these wildfires:
Here's some information backing up my comments on the noted recent increase in temperatures that I ascribed correctly to the banning of sulphur in maritime fuels, this is confirmed by the following study, and several PBers will back this up.
A common theme here being the greens lobbying for their agenda and then cynically using the ensuring disasters to lobby even harder. Sadly there's no use debating with you, because you're just a denier - of fact.
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Climate change means this will happen more frequently in future, not less.
Any wooden (any?) house virtually anywhere warmish (California, Australia etc) might burn up every few years, particularly if it's in close proximity to others, and you won't be able to get insurance.
This isn't a one off.
Not true. It happens less these days than it used to 100 years ago. You need to see past the opportunistic ghoulish bullshit that the green lobby puts out whenever such a miserable event takes place.
Bit like the sudden jump in sea temperatures that was actually the result of banning sulphur compounds from marine fuel. Didn't stop the lying scrotes claiming it's all because people have the audacity to heat their homes and drive their cars.
You're a denier, so it's a waste of time discussing this with you.
Margaret Thatcher understand and knew the science and recognised it. And, as one of your heroes, you should listen to her.
And you're a prize pillock whose special talent appears to be being wrong about everything and everyone.
Great argument, mate. Real zinger.
One I could happily provide dozens of citations for if I could be bothered.
What a shame.
It is.
Here's the information on how there are less fires today than there were over 100 years ago:
Here's some information on the very real changes in California, made chiefly due to the activities of the green lobby, including the removal of water infrastructure, lack of building any new reservoirs since 1979 (sound familiar?), allowing undergrowth to grow out of control without any controlled burning or grazing by cattle, all of which have led directly to the severity of these wildfires:
Here's some information backing up my comments on the noted recent increase in temperatures that I ascribed correctly to the banning of sulphur in maritime fuels, this is confirmed by the following study, and several PBers will back this up.
A common theme here being the greens lobbying for their agenda and then cynically using the ensuring disasters to lobby even harder. Sadly there's no use debating with you, because you're just a denier - of fact.
There’s headers like this make me realise people who want to join the EU don’t really understand what doing so would mean. As every year goes by, it’s less and less credible as an idea.
Although the suggestion of Canada “falling” does show it was never a serious thread header.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
She was trying to do that before the fire - the reception to the trailer was horrific - just using disaster as an excuse
I saw the trailer. It looked, to be fair, no worse than the usual mid afternoon or Sunday morning filler shows you get on daytime TV or freeview channels.
I’ve not read of any reception to it aside from it being filmed in a smaller rented property, I’m guessing she’s no Martha Stewart
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
That unlucky % with dementia is a minority though, while most OAPs still think they could be lucky then cynical politicians will be able to mobilize that vote against any policy to share the risk. Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
I have nothing to add to the OSA discussion except to share the reasons for my confusion.
Just one question out of many for now: Looking at the 'Mollie Russell' group and their completely understandable concerns: Is it possible to articulate with clarity what it is they want to achieve, in terms not of abstractions, but actual technically and practically possible reality?
My sense is: It can't be articulated and it can't be done, but I would like to be wrong. It seems another of the many fields where everyone is good at articulating the problem but don't know what they want. Any thoughts?
It should be also noted that house prices didn't spiral in the thatcherite years nor even the majorite years but in the new labour years when 1) brown decided housing could be part of a pension fund and 2) blair opened the immigration floodgates
Errr, are you sure about that?
Average house prices trebled between 1979 and 1990. It just doesn't feel as bad, because that was also a period when interest rates fell sharply.
Even in the 1990's you could buy a house or flat for three times a fairly average wage even in the south east....I know because I did twice in the 90's
That'll be because house prices fell 40% in real terms between 1990 and 1994.
Which was an exceptionally good thing.
We need it to happen again, desperately, to reverse the catastrophic damage of the Brown years onwards.
I don't disagree with that! I was just pointing out that @Pagan2 was inaccurate to claim that house prices didn't shoot up during the Thatcher years.
The Thatcher years had a cycle with a boom and bust. Nothing wrong with that over the cycle.
The problem of the 2002 years onwards is we've had cycles of boom and plateau rather than boom and bust in house prices.
That's caused a catastrophic ratchet in costs with no corrections.
In real term house prices are pretty much where they were 20 years ago.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
That unlucky % with dementia is a minority though, while most OAPs still think they could be lucky then cynical politicians will be able to mobilize that vote against any policy to share the risk. Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
Do OAPs think they will be lucky and not have their house burnt down? Do they take out insurance?
It is worth noting that the devastation caused by the fires in Los Angeles aren't one tenth of the damage the Fukashima earthquake did to Japan, either financially or in terms of loss of life. It will also have no impact, for example, on the power grid.
Modern developed economies are remarkably resilient to natural disasters, and US housing is cheap and quick to construct (thanks in part to plenty of ... undocumented ... laborers from South America).
This time next year, Palisades will be a third rebuilt. By the time of the next presidential election, you won't know it happened.
Damn, and I was hoping to find a nice patch of land going cheap…
Every country needs a Robert Hooke after a good fire.
The good news is that the property tax thing means that less well off people who’ve lived in the nice areas for decades (from before they became nice) will be pushed out, making space for richer people buying new home.
She was trying to do that before the fire - the reception to the trailer was horrific - just using disaster as an excuse
I saw the trailer. It looked, to be fair, no worse than the usual mid afternoon or Sunday morning filler shows you get on daytime TV or freeview channels.
I’ve not read of any reception to it aside from it being filmed in a smaller rented property, I’m guessing she’s no Martha Stewart
Your damning with faint praise is so effective that I begin to question whether the human species is worth keeping hold of.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
That unlucky % with dementia is a minority though, while most OAPs still think they could be lucky then cynical politicians will be able to mobilize that vote against any policy to share the risk. Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
Exactly. Nobody wants to think about going gaga, and even if they do contemplate the risk they also believe it's up to someone else to pay for it, like they do with everything else.
It makes it understandable why the Government has kicked social care into the long grass, but they've forfeited any right to spout guff about being willing to take difficult decisions in the process.
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Evening, PBers.
I don't think abolishing democracy is the answer.
We need to embrace my plans for electoral reform.
- It’s FPTP and all of the PR systems in one! - No voter fraud possible - Instant election results. - Perfectly equal representation across the entire electorate.
I think I've added everyone who asked, but if I missed you PM me here or on Bluesky, and I'll update. I've left Alistair Meeks out, as he is not noticeably here.
I've also included several feeds around UK Politics and Parliament.
You get tabs for "who is here", "feeds", and "posts" (Which I think is for the accounts included).
For those not familiar, Bluesky pushes far less at you than Twitter, so both following and blocking tend to be more actively done. Starter Packs are to help find your way into clumps of the network than match your interests.
Also if anyone finds bsky too much of an echo chamber of left-wing fuckwittery the trick is to get on some of the better block lists. For example if you follow this account a lot of dumb people will bilaterally remove you from their world: https://bsky.app/profile/jessesingal.com
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Evening, PBers.
I don't think abolishing democracy is the answer.
We need to embrace my plans for electoral reform.
- It’s FPTP and all of the PR systems in one! - No voter fraud possible - Instant election results. - Perfectly equal representation across the entire electorate.
It was -5c at Hammersmith Bridge when we boated on Saturday morning. Earlier, someone had released a Canada Goose whose foot had frozen to the pontoon we use.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
That unlucky % with dementia is a minority though, while most OAPs still think they could be lucky then cynical politicians will be able to mobilize that vote against any policy to share the risk. Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
Exactly. Nobody wants to think about going gaga, and even if they do contemplate the risk they also believe it's up to someone else to pay for it, like they do with everything else.
It makes it understandable why the Government has kicked social care into the long grass, but they've forfeited any right to spout guff about being willing to take difficult decisions in the process.
If you haven't got the political guts to take difficult decisions and make the weather when you have just won a huge majority then you aren't going to do it all.
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Evening, PBers.
I don't think abolishing democracy is the answer.
We need to embrace my plans for electoral reform.
- It’s FPTP and all of the PR systems in one! - No voter fraud possible - Instant election results. - Perfectly equal representation across the entire electorate.
Would this be your one man, one vote proposal?
Where you are the man, and you have the vote.
(h/t Terry Pratchett)
Yes
Many years ago, I was on the tube, explaining to my young daughter that family wasn’t a democracy. The parents are in charge.
“It’s one man, one vote. And I am that man.”
A gentleman, I think Nigerian, opposite, nearly fell off his seat laughing.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
On the subject of data, I give you a new measure - at least for non space nerds.
DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch.
That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
On topic - another major factor if we were to make a move to rejoin would be a possible Labour leadership election in power. Starmer will turn 67 in 2029, meaning that if he were to win the next election there'd be some pressure to step down mid second term to give a successor a run up into the election after. Especially if it's say, with a much reduced majority on a low vote share - one of the most plausible outcomes. Plus one can't see Starmer wanting to go on and on as unlike some, eg Blair and Thatcher, the job isn't his lifeblood.
In any Labour leadership election it would be tactically astute to run as a stronger pro-European than your opponent given the selectorate. It'd surely be quite tempting for someone looking to make a mark to promise to explore some form of rejoining or de facto doing so.
On the subject of data, I give you a new measure - at least outside space nerds. DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch. That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
On the subject of data, I give you a new measure - at least outside space nerds. DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch. That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
Using this metric -
That is an extraordinary chart.
Even more extraordinary is that *without* Starlink, SpaceX launched more DeltaV adjusted tonnage to orbit than everyone else on the planet.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
You must know that’s a nonsense, in the same way that anyone who says there has been zero negative impact does. We still live in a world where people speak past each other much of the time.
On topic - another major factor if we were to make a move to rejoin would be a possible Labour leadership election in power. Starmer will turn 67 in 2029, meaning that if he were to win the next election there'd be some pressure to step down mid second term to give a successor a run up into the election after. Especially if it's say, with a much reduced majority on a low vote share - one of the most plausible outcomes. Plus one can't see Starmer wanting to go on and on as unlike some, eg Blair and Thatcher, the job isn't his lifeblood.
In any Labour leadership election it would be tactically astute to run as a stronger pro-European than your opponent given the selectorate. It'd surely be quite tempting for someone looking to make a mark to promise to explore some form of rejoining or de facto doing so.
Half way through a second Labour term, after over a decade of EU divergence, no prospective PM is going to push for EU membership. Even less likely with (by then, inevitably) an increasingly popular opposition.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
You must know that’s a nonsense, in the same way that anyone who says there has been zero negative impact does. We still live in a world where people speak past each other much of the time.
On the subject of data, I give you a new measure - at least outside space nerds. DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch. That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
Using this metric -
That is an extraordinary chart.
Even more extraordinary is that *without* Starlink, SpaceX launched more DeltaV adjusted tonnage to orbit than everyone else on the planet.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
You must know that’s a nonsense, in the same way that anyone who says there has been zero negative impact does. We still live in a world where people speak past each other much of the time.
You think Brexit has turned out well? Why?
We’re outside of the European Union, and there is no longer a democratic deficit. There are multiple new EU Directives and Regulations I think are rubbish, which we’d have struggled to avoid completely.
Some limited economic down arrows and obviously a decent amount of extra red tape for trade, but all well worth it and baked in now.
Bristol University successfully argued in court that they had no duty of care to students, even ones they knew were in distress and suicidal or being harassed unlawfully.
But social media outlets are supposed to have a duty of care to anyone anywhere.
Emotion-driven legislation is some of the worst around.
On the subject of data, I give you a new measure - at least outside space nerds. DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch. That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
Using this metric -
That is an extraordinary chart.
Even more extraordinary is that *without* Starlink, SpaceX launched more DeltaV adjusted tonnage to orbit than everyone else on the planet.
Actually less - they deorbit their upper stages (excepting the ones to escape velocity for NASA) and don’t use explosives for separation events. They also actively deorbit malfunctioning satellites and launch them to low enough orbits that if that failed, they would re-enter within a year or two.
The Chinese are fairly bad, but there is a legacy of dead sats from various countries up there. Some of which explode from time to time. One a week or two ago - Boeing bird, IIRC.
Edit: the space junk prize has to go to the USSR RORSAT program. Radar satellites powered by an actual mini nuke reactor. Aside from accident dropping on Canada, these would eject the reactor core, at the end of their missions. Into a higher orbit. So those are wizzing around up there, for millennia. Even better, as designed, they voided the coolant into LEO when the core was ejected. The coolant was a mix of sodium and potassium metal. Which then solidified into 5cm (or so) spheres. So we have multiple tons of radioactive ball bearings up there. Best of all, they are a bit small to track by radar.
On topic - another major factor if we were to make a move to rejoin would be a possible Labour leadership election in power. Starmer will turn 67 in 2029, meaning that if he were to win the next election there'd be some pressure to step down mid second term to give a successor a run up into the election after. Especially if it's say, with a much reduced majority on a low vote share - one of the most plausible outcomes. Plus one can't see Starmer wanting to go on and on as unlike some, eg Blair and Thatcher, the job isn't his lifeblood.
In any Labour leadership election it would be tactically astute to run as a stronger pro-European than your opponent given the selectorate. It'd surely be quite tempting for someone looking to make a mark to promise to explore some form of rejoining or de facto doing so.
Half way through a second Labour term, after over a decade of EU divergence, no prospective PM is going to push for EU membership. Even less likely with (by then, inevitably) an increasingly popular opposition.
I don't know, rather like Cameron's original decision in his first term it would be a throw of the dice designed to shore up support on your own side. Depending on where Labour is leaking votes to it could be that the worse their electoral position the more appealing it becomes.
Plus Brexit has become unpopular as a failed project, just no one really wants to go through all that again. The received wisdom fas become that it's been a failure it's referred to as a rubbish idea in everything from gambling adverts to ITV dramas. That's not to say everyone's become FBPE-types, just it's surrounded by a fug of disappointment in a way that puts stay outers on the back foot should it ever be broached.
As for divergence, if there aren't visible benefits - and there are visible drawbacks and annoyances - then it won't really matter too much, the complex economic case about upheaval didn't last time.
Plus of course it's not necessarily about the electorate but the Labour Party membership, which is possibly among the most anti-Brexit groups of people in the country. Like Corbyn it could be a very bad idea electorally but still very popular among those with Labour membership cards.
She was trying to do that before the fire - the reception to the trailer was horrific - just using disaster as an excuse
I saw the trailer. It looked, to be fair, no worse than the usual mid afternoon or Sunday morning filler shows you get on daytime TV or freeview channels.
I’ve not read of any reception to it aside from it being filmed in a smaller rented property, I’m guessing she’s no Martha Stewart
I believe about 90% of the comments on Netflix are negative and she has been badly ratioed.
Most of the content is copied from Emma’s Kitchen as well…
It was -5c at Hammersmith Bridge when we boated on Saturday morning. Earlier, someone had released a Canada Goose whose foot had frozen to the pontoon we use.
JUST IN: All five parties in Greenland’s parliament, oppose Trump’s notion to make the autonomous island part of the United States, Danish broadcaster DR reports.
“I do not want to be part of the United States, as Trump suggests,” said Mariane Paviasen, spokesperson for the ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party. “I want an independent Greenland.”
Anyway, we Brexited and we're not about to rejoin.
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Brexit didn't work the next step is to abolish the democracy we have and build something better because this shit doesn't work for any one but the top 10% which is most people here on this forum. I don't think there are many struggling to make ends meet renters here apart from possibly morris dance....we already had someone tonight talking about retiring at 49
Evening, PBers.
I don't think abolishing democracy is the answer.
I didn't say abolish democracy, I said abolish this democracy as its shit and doesn't work for most of us
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
Love the idea of an “AI growth zone”. How is geography relevant?…
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
How does AI create jobs?
Few people keeping the computers in the data centres going.
A few more people writing the prompts that tell / asks the AI to do things...
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
You must know that’s a nonsense, in the same way that anyone who says there has been zero negative impact does. We still live in a world where people speak past each other much of the time.
You think Brexit has turned out well? Why?
We’re outside of the European Union, and there is no longer a democratic deficit. There are multiple new EU Directives and Regulations I think are rubbish, which we’d have struggled to avoid completely.
Some limited economic down arrows and obviously a decent amount of extra red tape for trade, but all well worth it and baked in now.
There are also vast fiscal benefits (now we have stopped bunging the EU extra money for our 'fine') - it's not a coincidence that the EU is struggling with its budget now that the piggy bank has left. You'd think we'd hear a bit more about that in an era when we're watching the pennies.
We also now control immigration - not a power that has been well-used, but we had a Government who handled immigration badly get booted out, and now we're getting a Government desparately trying to get it sorted or they'll get booted out. That wouldn't happen with free movement.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
The word 'unleash' in a big announcement is always a warning sign.
Some achieve things before making big announcements.
Some make big announcements before achieving things.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
I'm sure many of the 'better informed' regard higher wages for the low paid as 'not necessarily a good thing'.
Not according to the Resolution Foundation, the main research institute looking into real incomes in the UK. Albeit it is a complicated area with other factors involved, eg recent payroll taxes.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
Love the idea of an “AI growth zone”. How is geography relevant?…
Data centres, I assume. Added to the list of critical national infrastructure a few months ago.
The main constraint on DCs currently though is not land or planning permission but grid connections. They eat up vast amounts of electricity.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
How does AI create jobs?
Few people keeping the computers in the data centres going.
A few more people writing the prompts that tell / asks the AI to do things...
Don't forget the 300 'senior' Whitehall 'experts' to oversee the work of those five people out in the regions.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
How does AI create jobs?
Few people keeping the computers in the data centres going.
A few more people writing the prompts that tell / asks the AI to do things...
Lots of people to construct the data centres. It’s a real estate play.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
Love the idea of an “AI growth zone”. How is geography relevant?…
The latency of your `curl` calls to a remote API make all the difference. Those 50 milliseconds add up!
No-one wants a laggy AI. So we have a 'growth zone' instead.
See?
I have a graph! An expensive one! We had to hire consultants!
It makes sense. You just need to not think about it.
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
Love the idea of an “AI growth zone”. How is geography relevant?…
Data centres, I assume. Added to the list of critical national infrastructure a few months ago.
The main constraint on DCs currently though is not land or planning permission but grid connections. They eat up vast amounts of electricity.
Details, details. Sheesh.
Growth Zone!
...
Growth! Zone!.
You can imagine the typography on the PowerPoint, I'm sure.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
I'm sure many of the 'better informed' regard higher wages for the low paid as 'not necessarily a good thing'.
Not according to the Resolution Foundation, the main research institute looking into real incomes in the UK. Albeit it is a complicated area with other factors involved, eg recent payroll taxes.
As you say its a complicated area and with many factors involved.
But we've still had full employment and had a big increase in the minimum wage, especially so for the young.
And I'll repeat the anecdote I gave earlier:
Not least because the newest breed of nepo chefs don’t actually want to be chefs. If Brooklyn fancied work in a professional kitchen, he could get a job in the next ten minutes. Every kitchen has vacancies post-Brexit. And not just menial roles, either. One of my lads came straight out of culinary school into a Jason Atherton restaurant. I imagined him peeling potatoes for six months. “I’m on larder,” he explained, after day one. I thought he meant running errands from the larder. Transpires larder is what laymen call starters. He made them, applied the dressings, arranged the plate. Head chef checked it at the pass. If he was satisfied, Will’s food went out.
So Brooklyn could do that today, if he wished. He could do it at the place where my lad is now head chef.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
I'm sure many of the 'better informed' regard higher wages for the low paid as 'not necessarily a good thing'.
Not according to the Resolution Foundation, the main research institute looking into real incomes in the UK. Albeit it is a complicated area with other factors involved, eg recent payroll taxes.
As you say its a complicated area and with many factors involved.
But we've still had full employment and had a big increase in the minimum wage, especially so for the young.
And I'll repeat the anecdote I gave earlier:
Not least because the newest breed of nepo chefs don’t actually want to be chefs. If Brooklyn fancied work in a professional kitchen, he could get a job in the next ten minutes. Every kitchen has vacancies post-Brexit. And not just menial roles, either. One of my lads came straight out of culinary school into a Jason Atherton restaurant. I imagined him peeling potatoes for six months. “I’m on larder,” he explained, after day one. I thought he meant running errands from the larder. Transpires larder is what laymen call starters. He made them, applied the dressings, arranged the plate. Head chef checked it at the pass. If he was satisfied, Will’s food went out.
So Brooklyn could do that today, if he wished. He could do it at the place where my lad is now head chef.
Sure but the thing is, Brexit is a negative. We're going to have to live with it and it's not a disaster anyway. But coming back to the original point those voting Remain were better informed about the outcome. It doesn't sit particularly well to imply the moral superiority of Leavers in a condescending manner. (I accept you didn't do so - the conversation moved on)
The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out. Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?
The Trumpist right’s steadfast belief in everything being the fault of someone else continues unabated.
Or maybe Trump has some methods of his own in mind for putting out wildfires of bone-dry brush in the midst of 60 mph winds. Because I’m sure the firefighters in LA would love to know about them.
(Yes, things could have been done differently /before/ the fires started. That’s a separate issue.)
Trump is such a blowhard, he could just negate the Santa Ana winds...
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
How does AI create jobs?
Someone ask Starmer.
The resulting word salad could feed an army of vegans.
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
A global relationship recession: across the world, the drop in fertility is not due to fewer children per couple, but to a significant drop in the number of people in relationships.
Although it is early days in the electoral cycle , the signs are not good. If Reeves goes it will do huge damage.
The sense they are not in control is palpable. I belong to that large group who abandoned any other voting options in order to see in a Labour government as the thoughtful, courageous and reasonably skilled competent government we needed.
The early unforced errors are well known. Fair enough, they were new. But just in the last few days they have kicked social care, which is intimately connected with the NHS crisis, into 2028 and after. I think probably as a result they have lost me for good. It is the precise opposite of everything the vote lenders lent them their votes for.
I was having a twitchy nose moment this morning as Neil Kinnock was on Broadcasting House talking about how vital social care was. Did come across as a fairly pointed "Hi Keir! Remember the point of the Labour Movement? Surely? Remember why we exist and what we're for? ... Surely?"
They know it's going to cost a shedload of money. The logical place to extract it from is the property wealth of the grey vote. They remember what happened in 2017. They're terrified. So they're putting the whole thing off.
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
The stupid thing about that is the property wealth of the grey vote is already being extracted. But only if you are unlucky to get dementia or need personal care for a similar old age related reason. Then you can lose everything. The whole fucking caboodle.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
That unlucky % with dementia is a minority though, while most OAPs still think they could be lucky then cynical politicians will be able to mobilize that vote against any policy to share the risk. Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
It was actually 45 to 65 year olds who most swung against May in 2017 and cost her her majority after her dementia tax disaster as they were the ones who saw their inheritance fading away. It is of course 45 to 65 year olds who are the key swing voters who decide general elections too, not pensioners and not the young. So Starmer knows dementia tax 2 would be political suicide at the next GE which Kemi and Farage and Davey would rip him to shreds for exactly as Corbyn and Farron ripped May to shreds after her dementia tax 1 plans she ultimately had to scrap.
Of course the dementia tax was so awful as it proposed to take away your house to pay for at home personal care not just residential care as now. Boris proposed a sensible lifetime cap of £80k personal payments for social care costs. We should also look at the Japanese insurance model for care costs
If your life is shit, and all the political parties with a chance of power offer broadly the same defence of the system that has failed you, then is the illusion of choice offered by democracy of any value to you? Seems that plenty of people don't think so, and the bulk of the country believes we are in steep decline. Not pretty.
I've logged back on to talk about this.
One one hand, What the Actual Fuck On the other hand, not a surprise
Instead of petulant bitching and gaslighting revisionism, conservatives need to wake the fuck up before they lose the battle to Reform or worse. You want to remain relevant and have a shot at defeating Labour? You need to still exist and actually engage with things people are interested in.
If the Conservative Party is going to eventually regain power, it needs Brexit to no longer be an issue. Therefore their supporters should stop talking about it.
I don't hear many people talking about it.
I do hear them talking about the dire economy. There is a vague effort by the Lost Cause crew to link the two, but it doesn't wash.
The economy was structurally broken pre-Brexit. That's why so many non-voters turned out to vote for it. Whilst various things have become demonstrably worse there isn't a silver bullet Status Quo Ante solution where we rejoin and magically fix our problems.
I hope you realise the opposite was the case.
Those who voted for Brexit were predominantly those who were the most economically secure, who as a result were less risk-averse.
Those who were more economically insecure were more risk-averse and disproportionately voted Remain.
The idea that the Brexit vote was a desperate throw of the dice by those who had nothing to lose is total bullshit.
In particular (IIRC) the retired, with their secure pensions were far more likely to vote Leave than the working population.
Brexit wasn’t driven by the precariat making a last throw of the dice: It was driven by the comfortably off taking a risk that others would have to pay for if it didn’t work out.
Then why did white working class voters of working age from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon to Sunderland and the Rhondda also vote Leave too then?
They disproportionately didn't.
It was the home owning pensioners from Stoke to Grimsby to Basildon etc who disproportionately did.
The poor within those neighbourhoods were more likely to vote Remain than their neighbours.
The case against Brexit has always been that the “better” people, the wise, the well-born, the well to do, voted against it, whereas hoi polloi voted in favour.
Given Brexit has turned out badly in the way that was widely predicted at the time, I would suggest it was the better informed that voted against. In general if am option has a likely bad outcome you are better not choosing it.
Well Stuart Rose did say that leaving the EU would lead to higher wages for the low paid.
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
I'm sure many of the 'better informed' regard higher wages for the low paid as 'not necessarily a good thing'.
Not according to the Resolution Foundation, the main research institute looking into real incomes in the UK. Albeit it is a complicated area with other factors involved, eg recent payroll taxes.
Based on their projections, based on their assumption, not based on any actual objective data.
Pure GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If you assume that something is going to be bad, then you model it, then show your model - then that model can not be used to validate that your assumptions were correct.
Trump to my mind strengthens the logic of rejoining the EU.
I think the hopes that the UK will get favourable special treatment from US are misplaced if Musk has the influence that's reputed... he clearly has it in for Starmer. But Trump will pass I guess , the question is whether America generally decides to go in his America first direction generally.
I've no idea really.
One curve ball is that Trump's next Election is Nov 2028, whilst our next GE is "some time before August 2029".
I'd expect May or October 2028 for ours, but it's possible to be post-Trump.
Comments
The political challenge of today is that the people who delivered Brexit - the left-behind in dead town - have also been let down after Brexit. Hence the continuation of the vote against the system drive which has put the fire under Reform.
A sizeable number of people saying they'd be happy to discard a failed democracy for a strongman type leader actually delivering stuff. That poll suggesting that if this plays forward Reform could sweep large numbers of towns and cities - entirely realistic if Reform can hold it together.
Chronicle of a Bet Foretold
CBF1_EUDEPARTURE https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/03/24/viewcode-on-the-chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold/ 539
CBF2_ALTERNATES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/09/22/chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold-part-2/ 490
CBF3_FINLAND https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/21/finland/ 383
CBF4_THINGRUEL https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/07/02/chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold-thin-gruel/ 726
The Ideas series
IDE1_UKRAINE https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/05/02/why-ukraine-was-particularly-vulnerable/ 555
IDE2_INTERMARIUM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/01/29/the-intermarium/ 372
IDE3_CEREMONIES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/06/ceremonies/ 811
IDE4_TRANSHUMANISM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/07/transhumanism/ 501
IDE5_HISTORY https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/21/the-history-of-gambling/ 359
IDE5_SOLARPUNK https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/05/12/solarpunk/ 271
IDE6_BLOB https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/ 346
IDE7_HELL https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/11/29/hell/ 559
The Measurement series
MEA1_CLASSIFICATION https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/07/classification/ 369
MEA2_ELITES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/01/13/elites/ 511
MEA3_PARTIES https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/06/05/parties/ 2078
Other
REV1_BADBOYS https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/09/15/the-bad-boys-of-brexit-a-review/ 500
REV2_NATIONALPOPULISM https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/10/06/national-populism-the-revolt-against-liberal-democracy-a-review/ 264
Where I probably differ from you is that is that, in the political context of the times, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Voting Brexit correlated strongly with age, and although of course there are economically vulnerable pensioners, many more of them are economically secure (which doesn’t mean wealthy - simply that they are relatively free of debt and their income is fixed and balances with their outgoings).
But voting Brexit also correlates with having less education, and among working age people that included the more economically vulnerable. Among middle class people of working age, voting remain becomes more common. Hence why many of those areas now have LibDem MPs, whereas God’s waiting rooms by the sea still elect Tories.
The social care decision is a bloody disgrace. It’s kicked out to the next Parliament in 2029. Shameful. I’d vote for them if they turned it around and things improved.
However I think this is the mid seventies not the late nineties.
I had a chuckle when I read 'when you play the current trends forward' as it is exactly the argument @HYUFD uses and in this climate is just a silly
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has the slightest clue what 2029 will bring and saying anything else is wish casting
I see Arteta is coming under pressure with lots of suggestions, but I would add a further one
Ban Starmer as he is a Jonah for everyone at present
I’ll get me coat.
For what will actually happen look at the history of Wren’s plan to rebuild London after the great fire
I think the local elections that take place in places like Durham will be very interesting as I can see gains for Reform and them gaining several councillors.
I think Reform and Farage have their eyes on the prize here. They will hold it together. They are putting structures in place and seem to be taking a more professional approach.
Leave won all social groups other than upper middle class ABs and Leave won most working voters aged 45 to 65, not just retired home owning voters over 65
Just a note to point out that as the ballot was secret, none of the post-vote analyses are definitive, they are based on small polling samples, and their conclusions do not seem to agree.
On the original topic, 1 in 5 18-45 prefer unelected leaders, Danny Dorling has estimates of less than 50% turnout for 18-45 https://www.dannydorling.org/?p=10237.
It is entirely human that 40% of those that can't be bothered to vote are angry that those who can be bothered get a say and don't want them to have a vote.
Based on those turnout figures from the IPSOS poll, I'm going to suggest that VOTING MAKES YOU LIVE LONGER
I'm aware that actually it shows those who are better-off and better educated live longer and are more likely to vote.
Excellent film about the build up to the first ever Saturday Night Live in 1975
Andy Kauffman was a genius
Arsenal's transfer dealings have been terrible, not content with discarding academy products so they can recruit players of similar or worse ability, they took Sterling off Chelsea so they could sign Sancho.
https://x.com/leonsimons8/status/1878402801732067610?s=46
Short term relief traded for long term failure. Weak, weak, weak.
Here's the information on how there are less fires today than there were over 100 years ago:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/california-wildfire-history/
Here's some information on the very real changes in California, made chiefly due to the activities of the green lobby, including the removal of water infrastructure, lack of building any new reservoirs since 1979 (sound familiar?), allowing undergrowth to grow out of control without any controlled burning or grazing by cattle, all of which have led directly to the severity of these wildfires:
https://www.americaunwon.com/p/why-los-angeles-burned
Here's some information backing up my comments on the noted recent increase in temperatures that I ascribed correctly to the banning of sulphur in maritime fuels, this is confirmed by the following study, and several PBers will back this up.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1527/2024/
A common theme here being the greens lobbying for their agenda and then cynically using the ensuring disasters to lobby even harder. Sadly there's no use debating with you, because you're just a denier - of fact.
I don't think abolishing democracy is the answer.
https://x.com/skynews/status/1878548480244785225?s=61
Although the suggestion of Canada “falling” does show it was never a serious thread header.
We have a 100% IHT for the unlucky.*
A decent communicator with a huge majority could tell this story to the electorate and solve this.
Starmer has walked away from one of the big wins he could have got in the history books.
Being charitable it is because he thinks he has two terms.
LOL.
*bar £23K
I’ve not read of any reception to it aside from it being filmed in a smaller rented property, I’m guessing she’s no Martha Stewart
But we just don’t know.
Cameron used it against Brown, Corbyn against May and so on.
Just one question out of many for now: Looking at the 'Mollie Russell' group and their completely understandable concerns: Is it possible to articulate with clarity what it is they want to achieve, in terms not of abstractions, but actual technically and practically possible reality?
My sense is: It can't be articulated and it can't be done, but I would like to be wrong. It seems another of the many fields where everyone is good at articulating the problem but don't know what they want. Any thoughts?
It makes it understandable why the Government has kicked social care into the long grass, but they've forfeited any right to spout guff about being willing to take difficult decisions in the process.
- It’s FPTP and all of the PR systems in one!
- No voter fraud possible
- Instant election results.
- Perfectly equal representation across the entire electorate.
A few other pb or pb-adjacent people, not sure whether they post here but we talk about their work from time to time:
Keiran Pedley: https://bsky.app/profile/keiranpedley.bsky.social
Pip Moss: https://bsky.app/profile/quincel.bsky.social
Paul Motty: https://bsky.app/profile/paulmotty.bsky.social
Also if anyone finds bsky too much of an echo chamber of left-wing fuckwittery the trick is to get on some of the better block lists. For example if you follow this account a lot of dumb people will bilaterally remove you from their world:
https://bsky.app/profile/jessesingal.com
Where you are the man, and you have the vote.
(h/t Terry Pratchett)
Bracing….
Four more years of this grey pointless drift...
Many years ago, I was on the tube, explaining to my young daughter that family wasn’t a democracy. The parents are in charge.
“It’s one man, one vote. And I am that man.”
A gentleman, I think Nigerian, opposite, nearly fell off his seat laughing.
DeltaV adjusted payload for space launch.
That is, adjusting the payload number for the energy required to put it in orbit. Satellites going to geostationary orbit require much more energy than LEO - nearly the same as going to the moon.
This makes comparisons between launchers and countries more accurate.
Using this metric -
In any Labour leadership election it would be tactically astute to run as a stronger pro-European than your opponent given the selectorate. It'd surely be quite tempting for someone looking to make a mark to promise to explore some form of rejoining or de facto doing so.
See this thread - https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62122.0
Some limited economic down arrows and obviously a decent amount of extra red tape for trade, but all well worth it and baked in now.
Bristol University successfully argued in court that they had no duty of care to students, even ones they knew were in distress and suicidal or being harassed unlawfully.
But social media outlets are supposed to have a duty of care to anyone anywhere.
Emotion-driven legislation is some of the worst around.
The Chinese are fairly bad, but there is a legacy of dead sats from various countries up there. Some of which explode from time to time. One a week or two ago - Boeing bird, IIRC.
Edit: the space junk prize has to go to the USSR RORSAT program. Radar satellites powered by an actual mini nuke reactor. Aside from accident dropping on Canada, these would eject the reactor core, at the end of their missions. Into a higher orbit. So those are wizzing around up there, for millennia. Even better, as designed, they voided the coolant into LEO when the core was ejected. The coolant was a mix of sodium and potassium metal. Which then solidified into 5cm (or so) spheres. So we have multiple tons of radioactive ball bearings up there. Best of all, they are a bit small to track by radar.
Plus Brexit has become unpopular as a failed project, just no one really wants to go through all that again. The received wisdom fas become that it's been a failure it's referred to as a rubbish idea in everything from gambling adverts to ITV dramas. That's not to say everyone's become FBPE-types, just it's surrounded by a fug of disappointment in a way that puts stay outers on the back foot should it ever be broached.
As for divergence, if there aren't visible benefits - and there are visible drawbacks and annoyances - then it won't really matter too much, the complex economic case about upheaval didn't last time.
Plus of course it's not necessarily about the electorate but the Labour Party membership, which is possibly among the most anti-Brexit groups of people in the country. Like Corbyn it could be a very bad idea electorally but still very popular among those with Labour membership cards.
Most of the content is copied from Emma’s Kitchen as well…
Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
JUST IN: All five parties in Greenland’s parliament, oppose Trump’s notion to make the autonomous island part of the United States, Danish broadcaster DR reports.
“I do not want to be part of the United States, as Trump suggests,” said Mariane Paviasen, spokesperson for the ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party. “I want an independent Greenland.”
And he was right.
Ironically the MP who asked him the question was ... Wes Streeting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35707955
I'm sure many of the 'better informed' regard higher wages for the low paid as 'not necessarily a good thing'.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo
PM plans to 'unleash AI' across UK to boost growth
The AI Opportunities Action Plan being announced on Monday will be backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs.
...
The government says "AI Growth Zones" will be set up across the UK, with speedy planning proposals in place to create new infrastructure.
---
I don't like to be cynical - but... as someone who spends quite a lot of time in this space, .... wut?
A few more people writing the prompts that tell / asks the AI to do things...
We also now control immigration - not a power that has been well-used, but we had a Government who handled immigration badly get booted out, and now we're getting a Government desparately trying to get it sorted or they'll get booted out. That wouldn't happen with free movement.
Some achieve things before making big announcements.
Some make big announcements before achieving things.
https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/reports/the-big-brexit/
The main constraint on DCs currently though is not land or planning permission but grid connections. They eat up vast amounts of electricity.
No-one wants a laggy AI. So we have a 'growth zone' instead.
See?
I have a graph! An expensive one! We had to hire consultants!
It makes sense. You just need to not think about it.
Growth Zone!
...
Growth! Zone!.
You can imagine the typography on the PowerPoint, I'm sure.
But we've still had full employment and had a big increase in the minimum wage, especially so for the young.
And I'll repeat the anecdote I gave earlier:
Not least because the newest breed of nepo chefs don’t actually want to be chefs. If Brooklyn fancied work in a professional kitchen, he could get a job in the next ten minutes. Every kitchen has vacancies post-Brexit. And not just menial roles, either. One of my lads came straight out of culinary school into a Jason Atherton restaurant. I imagined him peeling potatoes for six months. “I’m on larder,” he explained, after day one. I thought he meant running errands from the larder. Transpires larder is what laymen call starters. He made them, applied the dressings, arranged the plate. Head chef checked it at the pass. If he was satisfied, Will’s food went out.
So Brooklyn could do that today, if he wished. He could do it at the place where my lad is now head chef.
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/no-phoenix-wills-is-born-to-do-it-not-a-wannabe-0vdlfm76s
The resulting word salad could feed an army of vegans.
Many of my customers were losing HGV drivers to substantial golden hellos from Tesco. They had to adjust pay accordingly.
That all seems to have levelled back down now.
Outstanding data story by @jburnmurdoch @ft..
https://x.com/lugaricano/status/1878001966334320983
One notable datapoint is that S Korea went from 58% of 25-34 y/o in couples* back in 2000, to 23% now.
*Married or cohabiting.
Of course the dementia tax was so awful as it proposed to take away your house to pay for at home personal care not just residential care as now. Boris proposed a sensible lifetime cap of £80k personal payments for social care costs. We should also look at the Japanese insurance model for care costs
Pure GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If you assume that something is going to be bad, then you model it, then show your model - then that model can not be used to validate that your assumptions were correct.
I'd expect May or October 2028 for ours, but it's possible to be post-Trump.