He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
I think the problem with that is an employer with a perfect set up for even mildly mentally ill people and who was willing to put up with all the problems they brought with them would be quite a rare bird. In my experience manual labour of most sorts is a pretty tough environment even without the physical side; you get shouted at, sworn at & get the piss ripped out you even when you don’t get things wrong. If you’re resilient you toughen up and learn to fire back, if you’re vulnerable that won’t happen.
My anecdotal example is my brother who was a site engineer, went to university then went back to the building sites. After his wife left him and some serious dope smoking he had a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which then deteriorated to the more serious schizoid affective disorder. That’s probably not a milky mental disorder but I’m certain that building sites were the worst place for him to be at that point.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
The next GE is an eternity sway.- why are folk trying to project the result now? Makes no sense. Labour and (possibly) the Tories will recover in due time. Farage and his black shirts will eventually crash and burn. They are literally offering nothing apart from Trump lite policies.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his continued attention seeking hissy fits.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
It's the only shop available in much of the Highlands/Islands, so it fills the remote niche too.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
Reading that, my minds eye was envisioning a grotesque combination of David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Josh Widdicombe on Would I Lie To You
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen consisted of Russian Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, a Royal Marine and a French Navy Fusilier Marin. The burghers of Paphos should have known what they were in for.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his wife's continued attention seeking hissy fits.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
It clearly doesn't as you point out that the personal allowance is unchanged for five years, whilst the pension has seen big rises.
Wages go up, pension goes up. The personal allowance stays the same.
And thereby employees pay a greater share of their wages in tax to the pensioners. That is just maths, not sure why it is being denied.
The next GE is an eternity sway.- why are folk trying to project the result now? Makes no sense. Labour and (possibly) the Tories will recover in due time. Farage and his black shirts will eventually crash and burn. They are literally offering nothing apart from Trump lite policies.
Because it’s PB, and we like to try and predict the results of GEs?
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his wife's continued attention seeking hissy fits.
The Lib/NP opposed tax cuts which were voted through recently by Labour which was an extraordinary position to take and Dutton’s comments that he would support the idea of a nuclear power plant in his own electoral division finished off his chances there .
A reminder of the Conservative view (earlier expressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg) that the party's attempted gerrymandering backfired. Requiring ID to vote was intended to hurt Labour but many Conservative supporters do not habitually carry any form of ID.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
Reading that, my minds eye was envisioning a grotesque combination of David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Josh Widdicombe on Would I Lie To You
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen consisted of Russian Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, a Royal Marine and a French Navy Fusilier Marin. The burghers of Paphos should have known what they were in for.
Am I right in thinking you don’t drink? You must have a hell of an excess of rude animal spirits to get up to all that mischief unaided.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his continued attention seeking hissy fits.
As the judge put it succinctly, "a sense of grievance is not a legal argument." Yes, the family and the State could have chosen to do things differently. But the idea he had some sort of right to this or indeed anything else is just weird and irrational. I'd love to know what advice he was getting behind closed doors. One of the oddest cases of the year.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
Talking of stag dos, I will shortly be leaving home to go on my son's. So in case you never hear from me again, I wish you all well.
What sort of man takes invites his father to his stag do? Not the sort taking a gang of mates to Croation brothels, I guess.
I was best man at my father’s third wedding. But I did tup a bridesmaid after the ceremony, so we maintained SOME traditions
I've been to quite a lot of stag nights featuring the groom's father, including my own. He stayed for the clay pigeon shooting and some drinking but departed before the indie nightclub.
There are thousands of them. I've seen more nuns than non-nuns. They're from all over the world; they all have badges saying where they're from
There's also a load of men wearing black, military looking uniforms with berets, and badges with the Maltese cross. Like all the nuns have on their cloaks
They all look full of joy to be somewhere so spiritually important to them
I'm rather enjoying the moment, too
You have obviously never been to Blackpool on a stag / hen do.....
Be a bold group who hit Lourdes for theirs...!
One of the best stag nights that I have been on was at a Dutch Reform mission in Malawi.
Mine was in Cyprus and it was mental. My Russian best man stabbed a cop and my RM mate filled my bottle of sunscreen with white house paint. The same Bootie (who is now a very senior civil servant in the MoD) performed cunnilingus on the oldest prostitute I have ever seen and I've seen a few. His condition report on her vulva was "Tasted like a 9V battery, smelled like a damp stair carpet and was as yellow as a toad.". We also lost our apartment key so we broke into the apartment above and lowered ourselves on to the balcony using my belt. This was on the 9th and 8th floors. Loads more, and worse/better, happened. There is an entire chapter on it in the autobiography I will never publish. "Chapter 12: Disgrace and other Coetzee Novels".
I looked like fucking Data from TNG in the wedding photos from the unwitting and liberal application of paint. I had to doctor them in Photoshop to restore an approximately human pallor before Mrs DA did her nut and the marriage succumbed to infant mortality.
Reading that, my minds eye was envisioning a grotesque combination of David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Josh Widdicombe on Would I Lie To You
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen consisted of Russian Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, a Royal Marine and a French Navy Fusilier Marin. The burghers of Paphos should have known what they were in for.
Am I right in thinking you don’t drink? You must have a hell of an excess of rude animal spirits to get up to all that mischief unaided.
One tot of Pusser's on Taranato Night and never anything else alcoholic at any other time. I have been accused of many deficiencies, often with justification, but never a lack of "rude animal spirit".
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
As a Corbynist-leaning CLP chair, I don't recognise Rayner as tied to the left at all - she's simply more working-class and less interested in middle-class obsessions. I wouldn't see her as a progressive breakthrough, but she'd potentially be better than Starmer at expressing centrist objectives forcefully.
The next GE is an eternity sway.- why are folk trying to project the result now? Makes no sense. Labour and (possibly) the Tories will recover in due time. Farage and his black shirts will eventually crash and burn. They are literally offering nothing apart from Trump lite policies.
Because it’s PB, and we like to try and predict the results of GEs?
The story of the past is a totally different subject from the story of the present and future. Once a thing happens it stops being news. News deals in right now crises, current stuff which cannot be fully understood and speculation about what happens next. Once a thing is known it isn't news; this coheres exactly with the mental state of people who by nature are interested in any sort of betting.
Allied to that, I think I notice that the tone of Trump coverage has shifted a gear since the 100 day mark. Trump and Trumpism is now an established fact and, as the thing itself, has ceased to be news in itself. What was utterly shocking has become custom and habit to us.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
That would be a wonderful example of that extraordinary sort of leftism which is led by the needs of the providers, not the users of a service.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
I think the problem with that is an employer with a perfect set up for even mildly mentally ill people and who was willing to put up with all the problems they brought with them would be quite a rare bird. In my experience manual labour of most sorts is a pretty tough environment even without the physical side; you get shouted at, sworn at & get the piss ripped out you even when you don’t get things wrong. If you’re resilient you toughen up and learn to fire back, if you’re vulnerable that won’t happen.
My anecdotal example is my brother who was a site engineer, went to university then went back to the building sites. After his wife left him and some serious dope smoking he had a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which then deteriorated to the more serious schizoid affective disorder. That’s probably not a milky mental disorder but I’m certain that building sites were the worst place for him to be at that point.
I'd agree about the building site. I was thinking more of the post pandemic u25s with mild anxiety have picking crops on farms. Smoking cannabis is a roulette wheel, I wish people wouldn't think of it as a soft drug. Hope your brother makes a arecovery
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
That would be a wonderful example of that extraordinary sort of leftism which is led by the needs of the providers, not the users of a service.
John Lewis has made it work for many decades. Better employment conditions and a focus on quality service over low price. Struggling now like all department stores but the model was fine.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
We could easily find that what counts as 'progressive' undergoes subtle alteration. For the moment a lot of people want dirigiste government on economic matters, a lot less tax avoidance from the wealthy, a socially conservative approach to crime and the public square, and are very doubtful about private profit being made out of natural monopolies such as water.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
I think the problem with that is an employer with a perfect set up for even mildly mentally ill people and who was willing to put up with all the problems they brought with them would be quite a rare bird. In my experience manual labour of most sorts is a pretty tough environment even without the physical side; you get shouted at, sworn at & get the piss ripped out you even when you don’t get things wrong. If you’re resilient you toughen up and learn to fire back, if you’re vulnerable that won’t happen.
My anecdotal example is my brother who was a site engineer, went to university then went back to the building sites. After his wife left him and some serious dope smoking he had a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which then deteriorated to the more serious schizoid affective disorder. That’s probably not a milky mental disorder but I’m certain that building sites were the worst place for him to be at that point.
I'd agree about the building site. I was thinking more of the post pandemic u25s with mild anxiety have picking crops on farms. Smoking cannabis is a roulette wheel, I wish people wouldn't think of it as a soft drug. Hope your brother makes a arecovery
Thanks, but all that was quite a long time ago. Unfortunately he hasn’t worked for the last 25 years, no relationships in that time and a rapidly shrinking circle of people who care about him. The dope was certainly a trigger, exacerbated by him sharing a flat with a dealer who had regular access to the ‘good’ stuff.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his continued attention seeking hissy fits.
As the judge put it succinctly, "a sense of grievance is not a legal argument." Yes, the family and the State could have chosen to do things differently. But the idea he had some sort of right to this or indeed anything else is just weird and irrational. I'd love to know what advice he was getting behind closed doors. One of the oddest cases of the year.
I have some experience with the couple. Sound advice will have been replaced with advice they wanted to hear.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
I've never respected the notion that the Co-Op are an ethical firm and that comes from my perspective of being an ex-employee of theirs. I finished High School (A-Level equivalent) in Australia end of 1999, moved home to the UK start of 2000 and started University in 2000 so had 9 months to kill which I did working for the Co-Op.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Farage is about to pivot on all sorts of his over simplifications. The moves could include: learning from the SNP about how to blame Westminster; 'Rome was not built in a day'; blaming the intervention of the courts and the laws they have to follow; blaming county councils past for the contracts they are stuck with; 'give us the tools and we'll finish the job'; the local council funding system. Etc.
The awesome reality is that the public want huge increases in local expenditure, not cuts.
I wouldn't choose to put anyone in a tent myself but I read reports some while back that a local council chose that option for a young person leaving state care.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
It’s the Quadruple Lock (Patent Pending)
Pensions locked to the personal allowance. *As well*.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
Isn't that basically what the Poles and Lithuanians were doing until Brexit got rid of them?
Training long term unemployed/people with kind of milky mental health excuses not to work, to be out in the fresh air all day working could be a way of killing two birds with one stone. The idea that these were "immigrants jobs" to be done while our kids were studying for a degree in corporate nonsense speak always seemed a bit privileged, bordering on xenophobic . Plenty of the under 25s with negative mental health would find it beneficial to be given this work, rather than medication and benefit payments
I think the problem with that is an employer with a perfect set up for even mildly mentally ill people and who was willing to put up with all the problems they brought with them would be quite a rare bird. In my experience manual labour of most sorts is a pretty tough environment even without the physical side; you get shouted at, sworn at & get the piss ripped out you even when you don’t get things wrong. If you’re resilient you toughen up and learn to fire back, if you’re vulnerable that won’t happen.
My anecdotal example is my brother who was a site engineer, went to university then went back to the building sites. After his wife left him and some serious dope smoking he had a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which then deteriorated to the more serious schizoid affective disorder. That’s probably not a milky mental disorder but I’m certain that building sites were the worst place for him to be at that point.
I'd agree about the building site. I was thinking more of the post pandemic u25s with mild anxiety have picking crops on farms. Smoking cannabis is a roulette wheel, I wish people wouldn't think of it as a soft drug. Hope your brother makes a recovery
Thanks, but all that was quite a long time ago. Unfortunately he hasn’t worked for the last 25 years, no relationships in that time and a rapidly shrinking circle of people who care about him. The dope was certainly a trigger, exacerbated by him sharing a flat with a dealer who had regular access to the ‘good’ stuff.
Sorry to hear that. I had my moments with cannabis in my teens, it led to anxiety and panic attacks, and I leant on alcohol as a crutch. Stopped it at 19 and thankfully I managed to be ok, although social anxiety and claustrophobia still raise their ugly heads sometimes. Maybe that was always the case though
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
It’s the Quadruple Lock (Patent Pending)
Pensions locked to the personal allowance. *As well*.
Because Quadruple is better than Triple.
Why stop there. Let's lock it to the price of a mid-ranking cabin on the Queen Mary 2 as well.
Reform control the Mayoralty and County Council in Lincolnshire with myself as local MP
If you are thinking of investing in solar farms, Battery storage systems, or trying to build pylons
Think again
We will fight you every step of the way
We will win
People ask me why I’d not vote for Reform.
This is why. I don’t want another NIMBY party.
I agree with Tice when it comes to solar farms and pylons. Battery storage on brownfield sites is OK.
Battery storage for a fair sized solar farm will be a couple of ISO containers. The chap I know who’s going big on solar farming is planting a hollow wood round his. You’ll need a helicopter to see them.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
A reminder of the Conservative view (earlier expressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg) that the party's attempted gerrymandering backfired. Requiring ID to vote was intended to hurt Labour but many Conservative supporters do not habitually carry any form of ID.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
I'd generally assumed that part of it was that coop stores tend to be smaller: so there's a missing economy of scale in having to do delivery of stock into more places in more awkward locations, needing more employees overall, etc.
They do seem to be currently running some "Aldi price match" labelling on various items like bread, so they are at least somewhat sensitive to price differences against the others.
He then said: "These people, who have to live somewhere, let's have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.
"Six o'clock every morning, let's have them up.
"Let's have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o'clock, same again the next day."
(It probably lost him some votes on the Carsic Estate, but the Lab Councillor for Carsic defected to Reform some time ago. Wearing my Active Travel Hat I need to go down and add a K to that sign for a photo op!)
On the upside, this will possibly create Lincolnshire Blues.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
A serious suggestion of annexation might well cause some reaction.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
So if Trump was attacking the UK and saying it should be the 51st state and Farage has been well known to be a Trump arselicker you don’t think that would effect voters here .
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
I've never respected the notion that the Co-Op are an ethical firm and that comes from my perspective of being an ex-employee of theirs. I finished High School (A-Level equivalent) in Australia end of 1999, moved home to the UK start of 2000 and started University in 2000 so had 9 months to kill which I did working for the Co-Op.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
Having only dealt with Co-Op Funerals, I agree. And, their bank was chaired by the Crystal Methodist.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
So if Trump was attacking the UK and saying it should be the 51st state and Farage has been well known to be a Trump arselicker you don’t think that would effect voters here .
Farage has already distanced himself from Trump's talk of making Canada the 51st state, so I doubt he'd give it much of a hearing
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Actually, if you look at where Farage gets his votes from it is not impossible that, if he is serious about power, he might find that he, Farage his very self, is to be that 'straight talking figure of the left'.
It seems to me there are two (or more) possibles Farages. One is a Trumpian demagogic friend of plutocrats deluding the MAGA type simpletons. The other is much closer to the Labour party of the 1950s.
This is partly what makes him interesting.
Footnote: Tim Montgomerie, who is interesting, seems to me to be saying: "I joined Reform not because of what it is (ie full of crackpots with silly ideas) but because of what it can become". I think this is a thought worth watching.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
It clearly doesn't as you point out that the personal allowance is unchanged for five years, whilst the pension has seen big rises.
Wages go up, pension goes up. The personal allowance stays the same.
The point being that future pension increases would increase the personal allowance - and the reverse. So chancellors would find that the most popular move - oldies + the workers.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
It’s the Quadruple Lock (Patent Pending)
Pensions locked to the personal allowance. *As well*.
Because Quadruple is better than Triple.
You've also just locked the personal allowance increases by inflation or average earnings or 2.5% a year - and while that's sensible it's going to remove Rishi, Hunt and Reeves favourite hidden tax increase method.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
I'd generally assumed that part of it was that coop stores tend to be smaller: so there's a missing economy of scale in having to do delivery of stock into more places in more awkward locations, needing more employees overall, etc.
They do seem to be currently running some "Aldi price match" labelling on various items like bread, so they are at least somewhat sensitive to price differences against the others.
Aldi's price match is great - it means every other supermarket is continually telling their customers to go to Aldi as they are cheaper.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
They might if his tarrif bollocks causes a global depression. I don't think many Fukkers give enough of a toss about Ukraine (the Lincolnshire of Eastern Europe) or the rest of his shit to change their vote over it. They probably like the flamboyant cruelty of his anti woke guff. However, if Trumps manic fiddling with the controls of the global economy mean that GTA6 is going to cost Fukker yobbos 200 quid then Farage is beyond fucked. It's the economy (and Fukkers are) stupid.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
They might if his tarrif bollocks causes a global depression. I don't think many Fukkers give enough of a toss about Ukraine (the Lincolnshire of Eastern Europe) or the rest of his shit to change their vote over it. They probably like the flamboyant cruelty of his anti woke guff. However, if Trumps manic fiddling with the controls of the global economy mean that GTA6 is going to cost Fukker yobbos 200 quid then Farage is beyond fucked. It's the economy (and Fukkers are) stupid.
Lincolnshire is the finest county on earth, and one of earth's best kept secrets.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
It’s the Quadruple Lock (Patent Pending)
Pensions locked to the personal allowance. *As well*.
Because Quadruple is better than Triple.
Why stop there. Let's lock it to the price of a mid-ranking cabin on the Queen Mary 2 as well.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
He has no argument. He knew the deal when he jumped ship. His mistake was thinking The Queen/King would bend to his wife's continued attention seeking hissy fits.
Given that he is worth something towards $100 million, a chunk of it inherited from his mum, another chunk from his great grandma, perhaps something from QE2 unknown to me, and still iirc has more to come at older ages, all the stuff suing HMG for costs of security and saying "therefore I cannot come to the UK" is a bit much.
I have a lot of sympathy for Will's complex childhood, especially the loss of Diana, and admire his actions holding the press responsible. But for me he's burnt through the sympathy with the security court action and the incessant attention-seeking after walking away for a more private life amongst the loboto-celebs of California.
If he wants to reconcile, it should be in private not via a newspaper or TV channel, as each time he tells them more family nuggets it confirms that he cannot be relied upon. IMO that will undermine his case, not make it.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
Indeed kidnapping my father from the care home today to sit in a devon beer garden for a couple of hours
Well done you. He'll love you for it. (Unless the beer is shit - in which case you'll never hear the end of it!!)
But then he’ll love @Pagan2 fpr giving him something to complain about
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
A serious suggestion of annexation might well cause some reaction.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Actually, if you look at where Farage gets his votes from it is not impossible that, if he is serious about power, he might find that he, Farage his very self, is to be that 'straight talking figure of the left'.
It seems to me there are two (or more) possibles Farages. One is a Trumpian demagogic friend of plutocrats deluding the MAGA type simpletons. The other is much closer to the Labour party of the 1950s.
This is partly what makes him interesting.
Footnote: Tim Montgomerie, who is interesting, seems to me to be saying: "I joined Reform not because of what it is (ie full of crackpots with silly ideas) but because of what it can become". I think this is a thought worth watching.
Reform as SDPlite is probably an election majority winning coalition.
I would think they're trying really hard to get a union endorsement before the next election.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
I've never respected the notion that the Co-Op are an ethical firm and that comes from my perspective of being an ex-employee of theirs. I finished High School (A-Level equivalent) in Australia end of 1999, moved home to the UK start of 2000 and started University in 2000 so had 9 months to kill which I did working for the Co-Op.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
I know a few folk who work in supermarkets - and they all report that the Coop is by far the worst of them to work for.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
I'd generally assumed that part of it was that coop stores tend to be smaller: so there's a missing economy of scale in having to do delivery of stock into more places in more awkward locations, needing more employees overall, etc.
They do seem to be currently running some "Aldi price match" labelling on various items like bread, so they are at least somewhat sensitive to price differences against the others.
The Coop in my neighbourhood also have a very good discount scheme when approaching sell by date.
It geos 25% off, 50% off, then 75% off on the last evening before they send it to the foodbank for the next morning at 9pm.
When they first opened they kept doing it with smoked salmon, having overestimated local demand. Ideal stock for the freezer.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
So if Trump was attacking the UK and saying it should be the 51st state and Farage has been well known to be a Trump arselicker you don’t think that would effect voters here .
He's going to be looking for that next 51st state now Canada has given the double middle finger. Why not his ancestral roots?
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
They might if his tarrif bollocks causes a global depression. I don't think many Fukkers give enough of a toss about Ukraine (the Lincolnshire of Eastern Europe) or the rest of his shit to change their vote over it. They probably like the flamboyant cruelty of his anti woke guff. However, if Trumps manic fiddling with the controls of the global economy mean that GTA6 is going to cost Fukker yobbos 200 quid then Farage is beyond fucked. It's the economy (and Fukkers are) stupid.
Lincolnshire is the finest county on earth, and one of earth's best kept secrets.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
This is going to be the pivot point. Councils are simply the providers of statutory services - usually through outsourcing to commercial operations. So if they don't provide the service, the council will be fighting legal battles, losing and having to pay compensation adding to the financial burden. Or they can challenge a sovereign parliament about the laws that obligate the councils to provide such services. There will be no winners - only whiners.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
So if Trump was attacking the UK and saying it should be the 51st state and Farage has been well known to be a Trump arselicker you don’t think that would effect voters here .
Farage has already distanced himself from Trump's talk of making Canada the 51st state, so I doubt he'd give it much of a hearing
So fine for him to carry on as a "Trump arselicker", you think?
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
It would be an informal way of sharing both pain and sweeties between employees and pensioners. Not a bad idea.
The part of the triple lock that rises with wages does that.
It clearly doesn't as you point out that the personal allowance is unchanged for five years, whilst the pension has seen big rises.
Wages go up, pension goes up. The personal allowance stays the same.
And thereby employees pay a greater share of their wages in tax to the pensioners. That is just maths, not sure why it is being denied.
We need a simpler system. I would combine income tax, NI and CGT into one, paid on all income. Increase the state pension and other allowances to counter part of the effect of pensioners paying more tax. Then link it, and the annual allowance to inflation, CPI or RPI. Ensure the inflation measure used includes mortgages, rents, council tax, energy and fuel costs as well as basics such as food and clothes. Exclude luxury items such as holidays, jewellery and vehicles costing over £50,000. Then stop tinkering with it.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Yes — if the Labour Party today was the same as it was in about 1977, RefUK and Farage wouldn't exist as political forces. It's because of the "journey" the party has gone on since then that has created the problems it now faces.
So it appears that the Labor party of Australia is the latest leftish party to gain from the Trump effect with the centre right leader Dutton even losing his seat.
Having Trump as an enemy is undoubtedly a problem but having him as a friend is not much short of catastrophic.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
I've never respected the notion that the Co-Op are an ethical firm and that comes from my perspective of being an ex-employee of theirs. I finished High School (A-Level equivalent) in Australia end of 1999, moved home to the UK start of 2000 and started University in 2000 so had 9 months to kill which I did working for the Co-Op.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
Of all the jobs I have ever had, the time I spent working for Co-Operative Insurance was by far the worst. Edit: it’s also the only time I was in a Trades Union. It’s protection was needed by many.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
His idle speculation about the King's life expectancy will not have enhanced his popularity in regal circles.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
I'd generally assumed that part of it was that coop stores tend to be smaller: so there's a missing economy of scale in having to do delivery of stock into more places in more awkward locations, needing more employees overall, etc.
They do seem to be currently running some "Aldi price match" labelling on various items like bread, so they are at least somewhat sensitive to price differences against the others.
Aldi's price match is great - it means every other supermarket is continually telling their customers to go to Aldi as they are cheaper.
They are generally also comparing their extremely low quality products with higher quality products from Aldi.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Yes — if the Labour Party today was the same as it was in about 1977, RefUK and Farage wouldn't exist as political forces. It's because of the "journey" the party has gone on since then that has created the problems it now faces.
I said this many times regarding the referendum; it baffled me that the party of the Trade Unions were happy with low paid British workers having their wages undercut by mass immigration of cheap labour. As Maurice Glasman said, Freedom of Movement was capitalism's greatest con trick
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
The real contradiction with the Coop is in retail. They are socialist social cooperative set up without the need to distribute massive dividends to shareholders or owners in Dubai, mostly dealing in food for ordinary people many of whom are not wealthy.
But their pricing is enormously expensive when compared with Lidl, Aldi etc.
This makes no sense. As a social set up if they have proper priorities it would be to provide high quality product at less cost to poorer consumers. Instead their price policy sends them to the ruthless capitalists. This is exactly what happens in my immediate area.
Isn't the answer quite simple, they don't have the vast scale of the big boys along with their principles stops them competing on price, so instead they have forged a path of using their do gooder image to move to increasingly being the middle class corner shop where people aren't as price sensitive.
They claim to be the fifth biggest food retailer. As Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainbury's, Aldi and Lidl make another 6, their scale of operation isn't the answer.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
A reasonable alternative would be better employment conditions for employees. (Not heard anything to suggest that is the case, but it would be consistent with social ownership).
I've never respected the notion that the Co-Op are an ethical firm and that comes from my perspective of being an ex-employee of theirs. I finished High School (A-Level equivalent) in Australia end of 1999, moved home to the UK start of 2000 and started University in 2000 so had 9 months to kill which I did working for the Co-Op.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
Of all the jobs I have ever had, the time I spent working for Co-Operative Insurance was by far the worst. Edit: it’s also the only time I was in a Trades Union. It’s protection was needed by many.
It seems our experiences are far from unique.
Poor for employees, poor value for customers and no shareholders. Have to wonder where exactly all the money is going when it's not going to employees, keeping prices down or shareholders?
I assume people in positions like the crystal methodist had get their chunk of it but not sure exactly who else does.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Yes — if the Labour Party today was the same as it was in about 1977, RefUK and Farage wouldn't exist as political forces. It's because of the "journey" the party has gone on since then that has created the problems it now faces.
The people that now support Labour are mostly not the people that supported them in 1977.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
His idle speculation about the King's life expectancy will not have enhanced his popularity in regal circles.
And kinda ensures he's so screwed when his big bro takes over the Firm.
So it appears that the Labor party of Australia is the latest leftish party to gain from the Trump effect with the centre right leader Dutton even losing his seat.
Having Trump as an enemy is undoubtedly a problem but having him as a friend is not much short of catastrophic.
The Maple MAGA is staging a comeback. Some fawning lickspittle in a safe Liberal riding, who has doubtless been promised fuck knows what, is standing down to trigger a by-election so PP can return to parliament.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
His idle speculation about the King's life expectancy will not have enhanced his popularity in regal circles.
And kinda ensures he's so screwed when his big bro takes over the Firm.
"I don't know how much longer my father has" (so I need to wrest some concessions out of him before it's too late).
The difference between Canada/Australia and the UK is that I think most British voters wouldn't allow anything Trump does/says to influence the way they vote.
I disagree. In a GE Farage is going to have every Trump selfie and arse-licking soundbite broadcast everywhere by all the other parties. His feet are going to be held to the fire and whilst it might not bother the 25% of Reform core voters it's going to resonate with other 75%. Tactical voting is going to be massive. It nearly did for him in Runcorn.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking. There’s no reason to believe that any large group of right wing voters would switch to left wing parties to stop Reform, nor that any large group of left wing voters would switch to the Conservatives to stop them,
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Apple’s not falling very far then..
If we had an elected head of state it would likely be Farage right now…
Comments
My anecdotal example is my brother who was a site engineer, went to university then went back to the building sites. After his wife left him and some serious dope smoking he had a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which then deteriorated to the more serious schizoid affective disorder. That’s probably not a milky mental disorder but I’m certain that building sites were the worst place for him to be at that point.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Dickson called for Labor.
Less than 5 hours until polls close…
… So grab your ID, head to your local polling station, and vote Conservative for better services and lower taxes!
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1917977415055216862
A reminder of the Conservative view (earlier expressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg) that the party's attempted gerrymandering backfired. Requiring ID to vote was intended to hurt Labour but many Conservative supporters do not habitually carry any form of ID.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
If the difference were a matter if pence it would make sense, but it isn't, it's massive.
it is very hard to justify a socially owned socialist huge food retailer having priorities other than food for ordinary people including the poorest at prices competitive with the grasping ruthless capitalists.
Allied to that, I think I notice that the tone of Trump coverage has shifted a gear since the 100 day mark. Trump and Trumpism is now an established fact and, as the thing itself, has ceased to be news in itself. What was utterly shocking has become custom and habit to us.
The dope was certainly a trigger, exacerbated by him sharing a flat with a dealer who had regular access to the ‘good’ stuff.
https://www.fox9.com/news/mn-lawmakers-want-make-trump-derangement-syndrome-mental-illness
Though one of the 5 has since resigned after being arrested for soliciting a teenage girl. The Deep State got him, I guess.
I was paid £2.50 per hour, because as a 17 year old there was no National Minimum Wage at the time. My 16 year old colleague was paid £2 per hour. The working conditions were the worst I've ever experienced, by far.
I then got a job at McDonalds where I was both paid and treated far, far better.
The awesome reality is that the public want huge increases in local expenditure, not cuts.
Pensions locked to the personal allowance. *As well*.
Because Quadruple is better than Triple.
They do seem to be currently running some "Aldi price match" labelling on various items like bread, so they are at least somewhat sensitive to price differences against the others.
It seems to me there are two (or more) possibles Farages. One is a Trumpian demagogic friend of plutocrats deluding the MAGA type simpletons. The other is much closer to the Labour party of the 1950s.
This is partly what makes him interesting.
Footnote: Tim Montgomerie, who is interesting, seems to me to be saying: "I joined Reform not because of what it is (ie full of crackpots with silly ideas) but because of what it can become". I think this is a thought worth watching.
Why if the word 'tariff' so hard to spell?
I have a lot of sympathy for Will's complex childhood, especially the loss of Diana, and admire his actions holding the press responsible. But for me he's burnt through the sympathy with the security court action and the incessant attention-seeking after walking away for a more private life amongst the loboto-celebs of California.
If he wants to reconcile, it should be in private not via a newspaper or TV channel, as each time he tells them more family nuggets it confirms that he cannot be relied upon. IMO that will undermine his case, not make it.
I would think they're trying really hard to get a union endorsement before the next election.
It geos 25% off, 50% off, then 75% off on the last evening before they send it to the foodbank for the next morning at 9pm.
When they first opened they kept doing it with smoked salmon, having overestimated local demand. Ideal stock for the freezer.
So that is Scotland fucked.
With members' prices and my chosen discounts I save £1.50 on a £16 bill.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Having Trump as an enemy is undoubtedly a problem but having him as a friend is not much short of catastrophic.
Not a bad betting week, I must say.
Anglosphere elections, no yanks, a good political betting strategy for me. Maybe that tells me something deeper too.
Poor for employees, poor value for customers and no shareholders. Have to wonder where exactly all the money is going when it's not going to employees, keeping prices down or shareholders?
I assume people in positions like the crystal methodist had get their chunk of it but not sure exactly who else does.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I'm not sure where he goes next.