Most presidents parties lose midterm elections. The risk for Republicans is that if Trump's tariffs increase cost of living more than they create new jobs that could hit the incumbent party even more than usual
Lol. It's going to be hilarious watching Reform trying to run various things, what are they going to do once they run out of non-existent diversity officers to fire?
I’m gonna hazard a wild guess that this will have absolute fucking negative minus nano-zero impact on the good or bad polling of Reform. It’s the non-storiest non-story since I tried to make a big deal out of Labour discussing “burner phones”
Unless the bins stop being emptied then 90+% of voters will not know or care a hoot what happens to a Reform-run council sadly.
It is always worth bearing in mind how little interest most voters have in anything to do with politics or government.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I had a (perhaps optimistic, & slightly lengthy) go at that one on another platform over the weekend where they had been trying to analyse the Canada-USA relationship. This is lightly edited:
Both UK and Europe are playing a twin-track game, and I'd say Starmer and also Macron have been doing a very good (not quite excellent) strategic job, including working alongside Zelensky. The perspective is subtly different from USA-Canada. For Europe Trump is a strategic threat, but EU + the rest are big enough to face him down in time and be the core of a new world trading system where international law still rules and the USA is marginalised - unlike Trump's desired free for all. UK is pivoting back to a closer position with the EU, more like Norway. OTOH we have a far more intimate relationship with the US than most of Europe, via Five Eyes and so on; in that respect the UK is more like Canada.
Starmer has a couple of very experienced hands in Peter Mandelson and Jonathon Powell in key positions. He's been weaker domestically.
The need is to keep the USA onside (ie avoid Trump tantrums) whilst moving Europe to a position where it can deal with Ukraine / Russia without needing the USA very much, and halting Trump's aim of creating a 3 polar USA / Russia / China world with Europe as meat to be carved up, whilst not having Trump pull out NATO and Europe in a short time. That means strategic autonomy - which imo France is now shown as having been better prepared for than the UK.
Meanwhile we need time for Europe to wake up and get organised (think Germany, Italy, Spain). We are making progress there, but it is a process of several years, and the more we keep the USA on side on the ground, the closer Trump is to the end of his term (or his life) and the further we can get.
Notable achievements recently are that Trump has signed a deal with Ukraine which is roughly what Ukraine wanted, rather than Trump's proposed surrender to Putin, and mutual carve up / looting of Ukraine to the USA's benefit. He has signed the principles and is now engaged for 6-12 months to negotiate the final version, in which time he will be less likely to surrender to Putin or just walk away on eg intelligence support.
Also Europe is now in a position to meet Ukraine's artillery needs with non-USA allies including Canada, which will further reduce USA leverage, and help defang Trump / Vance. Europe itself is already 2/3 of the way to delivering the 2 million 155mm shells promised for this year, and it is only 4 months in.
There's a long way to go, but they are still walking the tightrope. There's also the question as to whether the USA relationships can be salvaged post-Trump; keeping 2/3 or 3/4 of it if the USA stays a democracy would be better than a total loss.
Of course, we still have tactical arguments with the French - c'est la vie since 1066.
"The [Xi] regime fears mass protests because the Chinese people, even in calm times, have a history of acting in concert. Last June, four female college students in Zhengzhou decided to take an overnight 50-km bike ride to Kaifeng for soup dumplings. The craze caught on, and in November tens of thousands were making the overnight treks. Authorities tried to limit the number of riders, and there were even reports that colleges and universities were restricting students from congregating and participating, but to little avail."
Did it really take these elections for Labour to realise removing WFA was a political disaster.
Of course Reeves won’t do a complete u-turn because she’d have to admit the policy was one of the worst political decisions of all time .
So I expect we’ll get an increase in the threshold in the autumn .
The smart move would be to incorporate the WFA into the basic pension, but drop the pension rise>=pay rises part of the triple lock. Doesn't save anything now, but makes pensions sustainable in the long term.
Did it really take these elections for Labour to realise removing WFA was a political disaster.
Of course Reeves won’t do a complete u-turn because she’d have to admit the policy was one of the worst political decisions of all time .
So I expect we’ll get an increase in the threshold in the autumn .
If only some of these top strategy aides surrounding Reeves and Starmer read PB for a few minutes they would have known it was a political disaster within hours of announcing it.
Every time I see a statement from somebody in the Trump administration I think they are perhaps the dumbest person that has ever lived
And then another comes along and trumps them...
Lutnick, or Nutlick as Canadians call him, is one of the dumbest. He's ranting about Canada's "socialist regime", you know the Canada with an ex-central bank governer as PM and a King.
And the most popular leader of a British Party is…
🆕 Jump in Nigel Farage’s approval ratings following last week’s local elections, to give him the highest net approval of the big four leaders with Ed Davey just behind. Meanwhile Badenoch and Starmer see falls.
With Labour apparently following the Cameron playbook, have they won over any former moderate voters who would now pick Labour over Reform?
This may be useful in tight contests. The New Statesmen opines this be the case.
Why don't you do a straw poll of PB? BG North Wales, Marquee Mark, David L are all very moderate Tories, ask them if they would lend their vote to Sir in order to keep Reform out. Some of them might do?
Good morning
I would not vote for Starmer under any circumstances
Under any circumstances?
Suppose the next election resolved into a Farage-Starmer showdown.
Or, more fancifully, BNP-Starmer? There's always a point where a voter has to find a clothes peg for their nose.
And yes, if Romford is a Ref-Con fight next time, the appalling Andrew Rosindell has my vote. Even though Buster the bull terrier was always the brains of the operation, and he's dead now.
While a number of Tory voters might vote LD over Reform most Tory voters would still vote Reform over Labour
New in today’s Playbook by @BlewettSam we asked Brits if they were thought the top 4 party leaders helped or held back their party. Brits were more likely to say Farage helped Reform and Starmer held back Labour, with don’t know the most common response for Badenoch and Davey.
Trump’s film tariffs are a special kind of madness. Again it seems to come from a perception he has of a hegemonic America as it was in 1989 or 1993. He believes America is still that powerful and, if it isn’t, the mere exercise of presidential will can restore that power
Back then in 1989 Hollywood WAS utterly dominant and could boss the global film biz. Now the Chinese market is actually bigger and is, for the first time, generating Chinese movies that gross more than American movies
“Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 made global history as the world’s highest-grossing film in a single market on Friday. It beat Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which made $936.7 million in North America. As of 10 pm on Friday, Ne Zha 2 had made box office revenue of 6.82 billion yuan ($940.7 million), according to ticketing platform Maoyan”
And this isn’t a one-off, there are lots of these huge Chinese movies now
So if the USA imposes massive movie tariffs China can hit back with similar tariffs, knowing that it now makes its own movies which are more popular than Hollywood. And that cuts Hollywood out of the biggest market on earth - China - a devastating blow to the US entertainment industry
It's not just that the rest of the world are producing more films. It's also that American films have been getting worse and worse for some time. Films aren't like cars: whereas you might be able to say 'if I can't have a Tesla I'll have the Chinese equivalent', the language element for films makes them a lot less fungible. But when almost everything coming out of Hollywwod is dross, even the English language advantage isn't the benefit it might be.
American TV, though, I think is still quite good - I wonder if that will be tarriffed too? Hard to say where to draw the line between one and another.
Caveat: I know very little about this subject so am happy to be contradicted.
Hollywood movies have been in artistic decline for a while, I believe that’s generally accepted
One reason amongst several is that people over 25 are much more reluctant to visit the cinema. They’d rather watch movies at home on big TVs. I can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema (not now my kids are grown; they were the last reason for me to do so)
Ergo movies are made for teens. Ergo they are brash, vulgar, simplistic and formulaic
Lol. It's going to be hilarious watching Reform trying to run various things, what are they going to do once they run out of non-existent diversity officers to fire?
I’m gonna hazard a wild guess that this will have absolute fucking negative minus nano-zero impact on the good or bad polling of Reform. It’s the non-storiest non-story since I tried to make a big deal out of Labour discussing “burner phones”
Unless the bins stop being emptied then 90+% of voters will not know or care a hoot what happens to a Reform-run council sadly.
It is always worth bearing in mind how little interest most voters have in anything to do with politics or government.
True, but voters do care about their council tax.
It will be interesting next spring to see how many Reform councils freeze, or even cut, council tax, which should be easy for them to do given how much money councils are apparently wasting. I'm not holding my breath.
Visa applications for some nationalities could be restricted
Visa applications from nationalities thought most likely to overstay and claim asylum in the UK could be restricted under a new government crackdown.
Under Home Office plans, first reported in the Times, external, people from countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka may find it more difficult to come to the UK to work and study.
Ministers believe there is a particular problem with those who come to the UK legally on work or study visas and then lodge a claim for asylum - which if granted, would allow them to stay in the country permanently.
Are the government including online triage as new appointments? I tried to make an appointment with my doctor recently, and was directed to an online questionnaire about my symptoms instead, which is the way the surgery is going from now on
Getting seen sooner by your GP, with better care in a modernised GP practice.
That’s what my Plan for Change is delivering.
We’re investing in GP surgeries to create over 8 million more appointments this year.
With Labour apparently following the Cameron playbook, have they won over any former moderate voters who would now pick Labour over Reform?
This may be useful in tight contests. The New Statesmen opines this be the case.
Why don't you do a straw poll of PB? BG North Wales, Marquee Mark, David L are all very moderate Tories, ask them if they would lend their vote to Sir in order to keep Reform out. Some of them might do?
Good morning
I would not vote for Starmer under any circumstances
Under any circumstances?
Suppose the next election resolved into a Farage-Starmer showdown.
Or, more fancifully, BNP-Starmer? There's always a point where a voter has to find a clothes peg for their nose.
And yes, if Romford is a Ref-Con fight next time, the appalling Andrew Rosindell has my vote. Even though Buster the bull terrier was always the brains of the operation, and he's dead now.
While a number of Tory voters might vote LD over Reform most Tory voters would still vote Reform over Labour
Visa applications for some nationalities could be restricted
Visa applications from nationalities thought most likely to overstay and claim asylum in the UK could be restricted under a new government crackdown.
Under Home Office plans, first reported in the Times, external, people from countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka may find it more difficult to come to the UK to work and study.
Ministers believe there is a particular problem with those who come to the UK legally on work or study visas and then lodge a claim for asylum - which if granted, would allow them to stay in the country permanently.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
We'll see how it goes. I'm less optimistic, but obviously my "accessible public realm" beat can be caught up in some of the more bonkers stereotypes of "woke" or "DEI" in the minds of low information politicians.
It is also in that penumbra where Councils traditionally have legal responsibilities they try to ignore by sloping shoulders are saying "so make me", relying on the extreme difficulty of making complaints achieve anything except "sorry" and a finding of poor treatment 1-2 years after the fact. Once they find their declared aspirations are not legal or in their powers, Ref UK may well be doing things within that grey area in search of pinkish meat to feed to their followers, or perhaps just not doing things.
Notts will be interesting. Around Ashfield and Mansfield it was the former Conservative controlled Council that did the little that had been done. The next District Elections in 2027 will be important.
Worcestershire is one of the Councils now with Reform as the largest group, so we shall see. If it has not changed, Worcester is full of off street multiuser paths with the types of chicane barriers on them that force people riding cycles back onto the roads because of the inconvenience caused.
As it happens I've known the former Conservative Lead for Transport at Worcestershire as an internet acquaintance since he was the tech person at Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street internet TV experiment in ~2007. He wrote a piece in praise of pedelecs on Conservative Home a couple of years ago, but pursued a "where the local residents want it" policy on mobility infra and traffic calming - which is imo ineffective.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
The trouble with being more Carney and being more anti-Trump is that @Leon might be right about our destination being more nationalist leaders around the world, but wrong about the cause. The new driving force might not be anti-wokeism but rather the need to rally to the flag against Trump's America.
ETA and if Leon is right then Leon-sceptics are wrong, and their calls to oppose Trump risk boosting the nationalists – the polar opposite of their intention.
Leon is ALWAYS right
I know this coz I have just heard praise of my opinions from a Nobel prize winner
True story
So you know someone who won a toy Dulux dog at B and Q. Big deal!
I’ll leave it to you to guess the Nobel prize winner
I have neither the time, inclination or interest to check. Why waste my ltime when you won't be able to resist telling us before 9.30.
Anyway I'm off. It's far too Reformy to post on here today.
The new Phil Collins! "If the Tories win I'm leaving the country"
Just to clarify. Tough luck, this is not a flounce. That comes later. I am off for today because the most prolific posters today are discussing a subject in a way I find disappointing.
A shame after Robert's phenomenal thread header yesterday. C'est la vie.
Anyway wasn't Phil Collins leaving for Lake Geneva because he feared we would all vote Labour?
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
Are they calling for reforming social care, or protecting people's inheritances?
Happy for the former, not a penny of taxpayers money should go for the latter.
100 percent IHT on everything?
That's a spicy take for this early in the morning.
(I mean, it's the least bad stage of life to tax things, and the current balance of taxation makes inheritance way too important in terms of getting on with life, and I am half-joking, but still...)
I never said that. I think inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as income. You shouldn't be taxed more for working for a living, than for inheriting one.
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
Trump’s film tariffs are a special kind of madness. Again it seems to come from a perception he has of a hegemonic America as it was in 1989 or 1993. He believes America is still that powerful and, if it isn’t, the mere exercise of presidential will can restore that power
Back then in 1989 Hollywood WAS utterly dominant and could boss the global film biz. Now the Chinese market is actually bigger and is, for the first time, generating Chinese movies that gross more than American movies
“Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 made global history as the world’s highest-grossing film in a single market on Friday. It beat Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which made $936.7 million in North America. As of 10 pm on Friday, Ne Zha 2 had made box office revenue of 6.82 billion yuan ($940.7 million), according to ticketing platform Maoyan”
And this isn’t a one-off, there are lots of these huge Chinese movies now
So if the USA imposes massive movie tariffs China can hit back with similar tariffs, knowing that it now makes its own movies which are more popular than Hollywood. And that cuts Hollywood out of the biggest market on earth - China - a devastating blow to the US entertainment industry
It's not just that the rest of the world are producing more films. It's also that American films have been getting worse and worse for some time. Films aren't like cars: whereas you might be able to say 'if I can't have a Tesla I'll have the Chinese equivalent', the language element for films makes them a lot less fungible. But when almost everything coming out of Hollywwod is dross, even the English language advantage isn't the benefit it might be.
American TV, though, I think is still quite good - I wonder if that will be tarriffed too? Hard to say where to draw the line between one and another.
Caveat: I know very little about this subject so am happy to be contradicted.
Hollywood movies have been in artistic decline for a while, I believe that’s generally accepted
One reason amongst several is that people over 25 are much more reluctant to visit the cinema. They’d rather watch movies at home on big TVs. I can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema (not now my kids are grown; they were the last reason for me to do so)
Ergo movies are made for teens. Ergo they are brash, vulgar, simplistic and formulaic
I went to the cinema quite recently, actually, for the first time in, ooh, about 15 years. A new cinema has opened in my town - 20 minutes' walk from my house - and it's lovely: a cosy little bar which leads to some screenrooms, with big comfy seats. It's perfect. But there's nothing there that looks even remotely engaging. (The film I went to see was Dogman, which illustrates your point - though I did quite enjoy it.) I think before that the last film I saw at the cinema was No Country for Old Men.
(All that said, my failure to find films to my taste cannot wholly be laid at the door of a declining Hollywood: I've never been that successful in finding films that I like even in the good years).
NEW: Unexpected news from Berlin- CDU leader Friedrich Merz isn’t elected Chancellor on the first round. He needed 316 votes in the Bundestag, received 310 (and expected 328).
No Chancellor in the history of the Republic has failed to be elected on the first round. A moment of peril for Merz, albeit he can be nominated again.
No further chancellor votes in Bundestag today. Possible second vote will be on Friday. Merz trips to Paris and Warsaw planned for tomorrow (presumably) out of the window. What a mess.
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
There is absolutely no reason why the business model can't work. People are willing to pay for convenience.
Domino's Pizza UK & Eire has a market cap of over £1bn with a P/E ratio of 11.76 on the back of a not especially dissimilar business model.
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I had a (perhaps optimistic, & slightly lengthy) go at that one on another platform over the weekend where they had been trying to analyse the Canada-USA relationship. This is lightly edited:
Both UK and Europe are playing a twin-track game, and I'd say Starmer and also Macron have been doing a very good (not quite excellent) strategic job, including working alongside Zelensky. The perspective is subtly different from USA-Canada. For Europe Trump is a strategic threat, but EU + the rest are big enough to face him down in time and be the core of a new world trading system where international law still rules and the USA is marginalised - unlike Trump's desired free for all. UK is pivoting back to a closer position with the EU, more like Norway. OTOH we have a far more intimate relationship with the US than most of Europe, via Five Eyes and so on; in that respect the UK is more like Canada.
Starmer has a couple of very experienced hands in Peter Mandelson and Jonathon Powell in key positions. He's been weaker domestically.
The need is to keep the USA onside (ie avoid Trump tantrums) whilst moving Europe to a position where it can deal with Ukraine / Russia without needing the USA very much, and halting Trump's aim of creating a 3 polar USA / Russia / China world with Europe as meat to be carved up, whilst not having Trump pull out NATO and Europe in a short time. That means strategic autonomy - which imo France is now shown as having been better prepared for than the UK.
Meanwhile we need time for Europe to wake up and get organised (think Germany, Italy, Spain). We are making progress there, but it is a process of several years, and the more we keep the USA on side on the ground, the closer Trump is to the end of his term (or his life) and the further we can get.
Notable achievements recently are that Trump has signed a deal with Ukraine which is roughly what Ukraine wanted, rather than Trump's proposed surrender to Putin, and mutual carve up / looting of Ukraine to the USA's benefit. He has signed the principles and is now engaged for 6-12 months to negotiate the final version, in which time he will be less likely to surrender to Putin or just walk away on eg intelligence support.
Also Europe is now in a position to meet Ukraine's artillery needs with non-USA allies including Canada, which will further reduce USA leverage, and help defang Trump / Vance. Europe itself is already 2/3 of the way to delivering the 2 million 155mm shells promised for this year, and it is only 4 months in.
There's a long way to go, but they are still walking the tightrope. There's also the question as to whether the USA relationships can be salvaged post-Trump; keeping 2/3 or 3/4 of it if the USA stays a democracy would be better than a total loss.
Of course, we still have tactical arguments with the French - c'est la vie since 1066.
It was a Times Radio video about Starmer and Carney, and a few comments expressing a view that they were ignorant about Canadian politics (probably true; Ukraine the Latest have a better expertise) - so I wanted to try and explicate the difference of being next to Uncle Sam and 3000 miles from Russia, and vice versa.
I like sometimes posting in forums that are a little off topic for me, or have a view I disagree with - even sometimes GB News. It sounds sanctimonious, but I think a dialogue is still important even when politics has rather shattered. People I disagree with are some of the ones I need to convince !
But my most ever liked (~2k iirc) Youtube comment was on an "American reacts to Larry the Number 10 Cat" video, which was approximately:
"The Prime Minister does not have a cat; Larry the Cat has a Prime Minister."
Trump’s film tariffs are a special kind of madness. Again it seems to come from a perception he has of a hegemonic America as it was in 1989 or 1993. He believes America is still that powerful and, if it isn’t, the mere exercise of presidential will can restore that power
Back then in 1989 Hollywood WAS utterly dominant and could boss the global film biz. Now the Chinese market is actually bigger and is, for the first time, generating Chinese movies that gross more than American movies
“Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 made global history as the world’s highest-grossing film in a single market on Friday. It beat Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which made $936.7 million in North America. As of 10 pm on Friday, Ne Zha 2 had made box office revenue of 6.82 billion yuan ($940.7 million), according to ticketing platform Maoyan”
And this isn’t a one-off, there are lots of these huge Chinese movies now
So if the USA imposes massive movie tariffs China can hit back with similar tariffs, knowing that it now makes its own movies which are more popular than Hollywood. And that cuts Hollywood out of the biggest market on earth - China - a devastating blow to the US entertainment industry
It's not just that the rest of the world are producing more films. It's also that American films have been getting worse and worse for some time. Films aren't like cars: whereas you might be able to say 'if I can't have a Tesla I'll have the Chinese equivalent', the language element for films makes them a lot less fungible. But when almost everything coming out of Hollywwod is dross, even the English language advantage isn't the benefit it might be.
American TV, though, I think is still quite good - I wonder if that will be tarriffed too? Hard to say where to draw the line between one and another.
Caveat: I know very little about this subject so am happy to be contradicted.
Hollywood movies have been in artistic decline for a while, I believe that’s generally accepted
One reason amongst several is that people over 25 are much more reluctant to visit the cinema. They’d rather watch movies at home on big TVs. I can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema (not now my kids are grown; they were the last reason for me to do so)
Ergo movies are made for teens. Ergo they are brash, vulgar, simplistic and formulaic
With spectacle being prioritised over good plotting and characterisation (although that is true of quite a lot of TV as well).
That said, I did find Dune awesome, at the cinema.
I’ve often thought when people have an idea for a film or TV series, they should first write it down as a novel, before then adapting it.
If it doesn’t work as a novel, it won’t work in other media.
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
Rupert Lowe constantly attacking Farage didn't seem to do him any harm at the local elections.
Politics is tides of sentiment, isn’t it, and at the moment the tide is rising for Farage so the scuffles, hypocrisy and cock ups you’ll get from Reform will have near zero short term impact, just as currygate, Angela’s houses and backbench sniping at Starmer made no dent on Labour advances post-Truss and the first few rounds of controversy didn’t hurt Boris until the edifice started faltering around the time of Owen Paterson.
As Reform don’t have national power I expect they’ll get away with it for a good while to come.
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
Rupert Lowe constantly attacking Farage didn't seem to do him any harm at the local elections.
The row won't do them harm because Lowe is basically Reform+, and currently the likes of UKIP, Homeland Party, Patriotic Alternative, Heritage Party, BNP, Football lads alliance, English Democrats, Tommy Robinson's followers and anyone else to the right of Reform has zero electoral candidates and very low prospects right now. In provincial England and Wales, Reform could well be seen as the centre ground in the future. Nige is the Putin to Lowe's Liberal Democratic party.
Trump’s film tariffs are a special kind of madness. Again it seems to come from a perception he has of a hegemonic America as it was in 1989 or 1993. He believes America is still that powerful and, if it isn’t, the mere exercise of presidential will can restore that power
Back then in 1989 Hollywood WAS utterly dominant and could boss the global film biz. Now the Chinese market is actually bigger and is, for the first time, generating Chinese movies that gross more than American movies
“Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 made global history as the world’s highest-grossing film in a single market on Friday. It beat Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which made $936.7 million in North America. As of 10 pm on Friday, Ne Zha 2 had made box office revenue of 6.82 billion yuan ($940.7 million), according to ticketing platform Maoyan”
And this isn’t a one-off, there are lots of these huge Chinese movies now
So if the USA imposes massive movie tariffs China can hit back with similar tariffs, knowing that it now makes its own movies which are more popular than Hollywood. And that cuts Hollywood out of the biggest market on earth - China - a devastating blow to the US entertainment industry
He’s really targeting the shorts market which is killing both full length film and hitting streaming. And is totally dominated by China.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I know somebody in the UK film and TV industry and they saw film tariff is a hammer blow to the UK creative industries.
Given the timeframes involving in production of movies and TV shows this is going to take years to recover if it at all.
Trump is an economic terrorist.
It's a blow to US, European and Asian filmmakers too. Just more brain fart from the dementocrat.
Mr. B, aye. If they do film in the US then it hikes production costs, so even more ticket sales are needed to break even. But if this goes ahead and shafts the UK (and others) it's not hard to see an anti-US film approach spring up. And while the US domestic market is very big, hiking costs and necessitating greater sales to make any profit at all means an international boycott by film-goers (even if only partial) would make it very difficult to end up in the black.
We're both wrong, apparently.
Leavitt: The trade deals are continuing to move along in a positive and productive direction.. You had a new announcement yesterday, tariffs on the film industry. We are going to make Hollywood great again and it's one of the many great proposals the president has had to make our country boom again and to bring jobs back here https://x.com/Acyn/status/1919566244203884742
Clearly doesn't have a Netflix account. It will take a lot of original scriptwriting to make Hollywood great again.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
How does active travel funding work in England? There's a common misconception in Scotland that the big projects are funded by the council, when they are actually financed by the Scottish Government via Sustrans (broad generalisation). I suspect that's why even somewhere like Worcestershire is getting some infrastructure.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
Reform UK councillor quits after suspension and launches huge attack on Nigel Farage
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
Rupert Lowe constantly attacking Farage didn't seem to do him any harm at the local elections.
The row won't do them harm because Lowe is basically Reform+, and currently the likes of UKIP, Homeland Party, Patriotic Alternative, Heritage Party, BNP, Football lads alliance, English Democrats, Tommy Robinson's followers and anyone else to the right of Reform has zero electoral candidates and very low prospects right now. In provincial England and Wales, Reform could well be seen as the centre ground in the future. Nige is the Putin to Lowe's Liberal Democratic party.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
The trouble with being more Carney and being more anti-Trump is that @Leon might be right about our destination being more nationalist leaders around the world, but wrong about the cause. The new driving force might not be anti-wokeism but rather the need to rally to the flag against Trump's America.
ETA and if Leon is right then Leon-sceptics are wrong, and their calls to oppose Trump risk boosting the nationalists – the polar opposite of their intention.
Leon is ALWAYS right
I know this coz I have just heard praise of my opinions from a Nobel prize winner
True story
So you know someone who won a toy Dulux dog at B and Q. Big deal!
I’ll leave it to you to guess the Nobel prize winner
“Very interesting…” he says, slowly backing away from the wild-eyed man in the pub…
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Saw some polling that Polievre won Canadians under 55, - it was the boomers wot won it for Carney.
I don’t think the US will go ahead with a “tariff” on films.
First of all, you can’t put customs duty on intangibles. The whole system is based on goods being taxed as they clear customs. So the “tariff” has to operate by some other means. Essentially, a withholding tax.
To levy WHT on films would require changes to domestic tax law. It would also infringe just about every tax treaty the US has. That kind of change has to go through the house and senate, it can’t generally be done by executive order. Which means being part of the tax reform package this Autumn. Seems unlikely to me.
There are other levers they are planning to pull (also going through the tax reform process currently) that retaliate against other OECD tax regimes, and those are nasty and affect intangible transactions, but they are very different from a film tax.
They won't go ahead because the movie industry has a very specific carve out from the executive power on national security tariffs. That's why all of the media industry shares bounced back yesterday, it's simply not feasible for Trump to put up tariffs on movies because he doesn't have that power, it's one of a very small number of areas where Congress retains the power even with the very broad national emergency/security exemptions that give him power to put up other tariffs.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Given the age/gender cohort, bad news for the populist right. Naughty tweets are going to see you hanged, drawn and quartered.
Are they calling for reforming social care, or protecting people's inheritances?
Happy for the former, not a penny of taxpayers money should go for the latter.
100 percent IHT on everything?
That's a spicy take for this early in the morning.
(I mean, it's the least bad stage of life to tax things, and the current balance of taxation makes inheritance way too important in terms of getting on with life, and I am half-joking, but still...)
I never said that. I think inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as income. You shouldn't be taxed more for working for a living, than for inheriting one.
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
I agree in principle with that - treat it as income, but imo it would require a switch to taxing the recipient not the deceased at IHT time. There might also be timing complications, or maybe probate and so on could all be foreshortened.
I think that it may not be quite so straightforward as "same tax rates", and some expenditure (eg funeral costs) would need to be untaxed in the estate ie allowable expenses, whilst other things - eg rental income on a property owned by the deceased - would need to be taxed in the estate.
There may also need to be thought about circumstances where the "Estate" continues to exist, such as eg the estates of authors which continue to collect copyright fees, and fees for broadcasts. JRR Tolkien is perhaps a good example, or Enid Blyton.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Saw some polling that Polievre won Canadians under 55, - it was the boomers wot won it for Carney.
Are they calling for reforming social care, or protecting people's inheritances?
Happy for the former, not a penny of taxpayers money should go for the latter.
100 percent IHT on everything?
That's a spicy take for this early in the morning.
(I mean, it's the least bad stage of life to tax things, and the current balance of taxation makes inheritance way too important in terms of getting on with life, and I am half-joking, but still...)
I never said that. I think inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as income. You shouldn't be taxed more for working for a living, than for inheriting one.
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
There are some separate behavioural/macro effects too though.
1) People passing on wealth early to avoid IHT and social care costs, further embedding generational inequality and increasing costs to the state
2) OTOH, people hoarding wealth in their retirement because they are terrified of going to some crap local authority care home. This reduces consumption and prevents people using that wealth productively.
All this points to an insurance based system, private or public. I'm not ideologically wedded to a view on IHT, but as implemented now it's deeply stupid and I think I'd prefer a more general wealth tax, with no special provisions for property given the distorting effect it has on house prices.
The WFA debacle has cost Labour many votes but if the rumours are correct and they are considering ways to ameliorate the problem they are just making it worse and will not regain votes by backtracking
They made their decision and should stay with it and try to move on
Yes. I have generally supported Labour recently, not out of any real ideological drive, but because they appeared to be the only party in the UK doing serious politics. If they start rowing back on WFA while still decimating care for the disabled it shows they aren't serious either. And that means there are no - zero - serious political parties in the UK right now. That's a bad place to be. We can't afford this indulgence.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
There is absolutely no reason why the business model can't work. People are willing to pay for convenience.
Domino's Pizza UK & Eire has a market cap of over £1bn with a P/E ratio of 11.76 on the back of a not especially dissimilar business model.
They couldn't make money when we were all locked in our homes for months.
Also the issue is the inefficiency of being the everything anywhere.
Dominos are transporting from one hub i.e. the pizza shop. The same as home shopping from Amazon or Supermarkets. They also essentially sell a single shaped product with a massive margin.
The problem with Just Eat etc is it is massively inefficient to have riders first go to random different locations and also they are offering to pick up absolutely anything from pizza, to ice cream to doing your weekly shop from Co-Op. They have only do one order at a time. There is a limit on the size of the order etc. You are making 1000s and 1000s of low value unique journeys with different start and end points.
Are they calling for reforming social care, or protecting people's inheritances?
Happy for the former, not a penny of taxpayers money should go for the latter.
100 percent IHT on everything?
That's a spicy take for this early in the morning.
(I mean, it's the least bad stage of life to tax things, and the current balance of taxation makes inheritance way too important in terms of getting on with life, and I am half-joking, but still...)
I never said that. I think inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as income. You shouldn't be taxed more for working for a living, than for inheriting one.
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
There are some separate behavioural/macro effects too though.
1) People passing on wealth early to avoid IHT and social care costs, further embedding generational inequality and increasing costs to the state
2) OTOH, people hoarding wealth in their retirement because they are terrified of going to some crap local authority care home. This reduces consumption and prevents people using that wealth productively.
All this points to an insurance based system, private or public. I'm not ideologically wedded to a view on IHT, but as implemented now it's deeply stupid and I think I'd prefer a more general wealth tax, with no special provisions for property given the distorting effect it has on house prices.
An insurance based system which commences at say 40 or 50 at £20-30/m for all adults over that age would probably work, it basically replicates life insurance.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Number One Son has a Singapore partner, attractive and well off. For some reason she prefers to live in the UK. Amazes me.
🆕 Jump in Nigel Farage’s approval ratings following last week’s local elections, to give him the highest net approval of the big four leaders with Ed Davey just behind. Meanwhile Badenoch and Starmer see falls.
🆕 Jump in Nigel Farage’s approval ratings following last week’s local elections, to give him the highest net approval of the big four leaders with Ed Davey just behind. Meanwhile Badenoch and Starmer see falls.
Georgia governor Brian Kemp has decided that he won't challenge Democrat John Ossoff for the Georgia Senate seat in next year's midterms.
He clearly also realises that the midterms will be a bloodbath for Republicans & doesn't want to take the chance of being branded a loser.
And burning through his cash pike in the process.
Curious to know if Musk will also draw in his horns in supporting Republicans in the mid-terms.
Musk seems to have undergone a genuine conversion into a right-wing extremist, and has also burned most of his bridges with liberals & the Democratic Party.
I think he will try to give as much support as he can to try & reduce the Democrats' expected House majority & prevent them from gaining the Senate.
It would have to be a really bad election for the Republicans for them to lose the Senate. Democrats would have to make a net gain of 4. On a good day let's say they hold onto all the seats they currently hold (including 2 where Trump won in 24). And let's say they also pick up Maine and North Carolina. They would need to pick up Ohio - which Trump won by 11.2%. And then - which is the 4th Senate pickup? I guess Alaska? Or Texas or Florida?
FWIW Democrats are up average 2-3% in the generic congressional polling at the moment - I would have thought they'd need to be a lot further ahead than that to have even a small chance of taking the Senate.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I know somebody in the UK film and TV industry and they saw film tariff is a hammer blow to the UK creative industries.
Given the timeframes involving in production of movies and TV shows this is going to take years to recover if it at all.
Trump is an economic terrorist.
It's a blow to US, European and Asian filmmakers too. Just more brain fart from the dementocrat.
Mr. B, aye. If they do film in the US then it hikes production costs, so even more ticket sales are needed to break even. But if this goes ahead and shafts the UK (and others) it's not hard to see an anti-US film approach spring up. And while the US domestic market is very big, hiking costs and necessitating greater sales to make any profit at all means an international boycott by film-goers (even if only partial) would make it very difficult to end up in the black.
We're both wrong, apparently.
Leavitt: The trade deals are continuing to move along in a positive and productive direction.. You had a new announcement yesterday, tariffs on the film industry. We are going to make Hollywood great again and it's one of the many great proposals the president has had to make our country boom again and to bring jobs back here https://x.com/Acyn/status/1919566244203884742
I've got a biography of King John, arguably England's worst ever king (Aethelred the Unready being the only rival). I do wonder if Trump's worse. The strategic damage to the USA as other nations seek to reduce business due to lack of confidence in their fickle and bizarre ways is not going to be minor.
A bad president shouldn't be as bad as a bad king because they have more constrained powers within a democratic system... until the Republican Party decided to give Trump kingly powers.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
How does active travel funding work in England? There's a common misconception in Scotland that the big projects are funded by the council, when they are actually financed by the Scottish Government via Sustrans (broad generalisation). I suspect that's why even somewhere like Worcestershire is getting some infrastructure.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
The snarky answer is "it doesn't". But that aside, I believe active travel funds are awarded by Active Travel England by taking council bids, and then divvying up the pot according to which authorities are judged most capable. So if you haven't demonstrated you spend the money on good stuff, you don't get it. Worcestershire's capability rating is pretty low.
Obviously there's also core council highways funding and S106/S278 income. You get that whether or not ATE likes you, but if you spend it on terrible schemes then ATE will downrank your capability rating and so you won't get much active travel funding in the future.
Good morning fellow pb-ers. Not as warm and welcoming today, but the blue-tit chicks in our TV'd nest are flourishing.
On a slightly bizarre note, and of course o/t, my Facebook page has three postings relating to the 'arrest' of Martin Lewis. Clearly some sort of scam and/or fake news, but to what end, I wonder
"The [Xi] regime fears mass protests because the Chinese people, even in calm times, have a history of acting in concert. Last June, four female college students in Zhengzhou decided to take an overnight 50-km bike ride to Kaifeng for soup dumplings. The craze caught on, and in November tens of thousands were making the overnight treks. Authorities tried to limit the number of riders, and there were even reports that colleges and universities were restricting students from congregating and participating, but to little avail."
I think our travel correspondent should go and do this.
I went to an interesting talk of Chinese online censorship. They found that authorities focused on censoring calls for acting in concert. You could criticise a local mayor, that wasn't censored. You could praise a local mayor. What you can't do is propose a mass protest against, or a mass rally in favour of, the local mayor.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
How does active travel funding work in England? There's a common misconception in Scotland that the big projects are funded by the council, when they are actually financed by the Scottish Government via Sustrans (broad generalisation). I suspect that's why even somewhere like Worcestershire is getting some infrastructure.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
The snarky answer is "it doesn't". But that aside, I believe active travel funds are awarded by Active Travel England by taking council bids, and then divvying up the pot according to which authorities are judged most capable. So if you haven't demonstrated you spend the money on good stuff, you don't get it. Worcestershire's capability rating is pretty low.
Obviously there's also core council highways funding and S106/S278 income. You get that whether or not ATE likes you, but if you spend it on terrible schemes then ATE will downrank your capability rating and so you won't get much active travel funding in the future.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
How does active travel funding work in England? There's a common misconception in Scotland that the big projects are funded by the council, when they are actually financed by the Scottish Government via Sustrans (broad generalisation). I suspect that's why even somewhere like Worcestershire is getting some infrastructure.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
Usually the big stuff is centrally funded with 20% from the Local Highways Authority (LHA). LHAs are the county or unitary council. In tiered District-County areas it is County who do roads and highways (including the likes of Bridleways and Public Footpaths, which are categories of highway).
In some areas Regional Mayors have a long term coordinating, approval and strategy role - initially London, Greater Manchester, and I think Birmingham, but more recently East/West Yorkshire, and then several in 2024 as the last Govt were trying again for regional devolution, and the Starmer Govt are pursuing it. That process was what the delayed elections for some areas were about, and why it is complex during the transition.
Centrally there is Active Travel England, Chris Boardman's setup, who have a role in regulation (they own LTN 1/20), approval, and dissemination of best practice, design and assessment tools etc. And they can pull back money if schemes are not done to suitable standards, but I've not seen the power used yet.
Trump’s film tariffs are a special kind of madness. Again it seems to come from a perception he has of a hegemonic America as it was in 1989 or 1993. He believes America is still that powerful and, if it isn’t, the mere exercise of presidential will can restore that power
Back then in 1989 Hollywood WAS utterly dominant and could boss the global film biz. Now the Chinese market is actually bigger and is, for the first time, generating Chinese movies that gross more than American movies
“Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 made global history as the world’s highest-grossing film in a single market on Friday. It beat Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which made $936.7 million in North America. As of 10 pm on Friday, Ne Zha 2 had made box office revenue of 6.82 billion yuan ($940.7 million), according to ticketing platform Maoyan”
And this isn’t a one-off, there are lots of these huge Chinese movies now
So if the USA imposes massive movie tariffs China can hit back with similar tariffs, knowing that it now makes its own movies which are more popular than Hollywood. And that cuts Hollywood out of the biggest market on earth - China - a devastating blow to the US entertainment industry
It's not just that the rest of the world are producing more films. It's also that American films have been getting worse and worse for some time. Films aren't like cars: whereas you might be able to say 'if I can't have a Tesla I'll have the Chinese equivalent', the language element for films makes them a lot less fungible. But when almost everything coming out of Hollywwod is dross, even the English language advantage isn't the benefit it might be.
American TV, though, I think is still quite good - I wonder if that will be tarriffed too? Hard to say where to draw the line between one and another.
Caveat: I know very little about this subject so am happy to be contradicted.
Hollywood movies have been in artistic decline for a while, I believe that’s generally accepted
One reason amongst several is that people over 25 are much more reluctant to visit the cinema. They’d rather watch movies at home on big TVs. I can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema (not now my kids are grown; they were the last reason for me to do so)
Ergo movies are made for teens. Ergo they are brash, vulgar, simplistic and formulaic
I went to the cinema quite recently, actually, for the first time in, ooh, about 15 years. A new cinema has opened in my town - 20 minutes' walk from my house - and it's lovely: a cosy little bar which leads to some screenrooms, with big comfy seats. It's perfect. But there's nothing there that looks even remotely engaging. (The film I went to see was Dogman, which illustrates your point - though I did quite enjoy it.) I think before that the last film I saw at the cinema was No Country for Old Men.
(All that said, my failure to find films to my taste cannot wholly be laid at the door of a declining Hollywood: I've never been that successful in finding films that I like even in the good years).
Try Sinners, a really interesting film and most enoyable.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
I don't want autocracy, or the death penalty.
I do want liberals to listen though, and fix what people are really asking for - like on immigration- or that's what we will get.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
I don't want autocracy, or the death penalty.
I do want liberals to listen though, and fix what people are really asking for - like on immigration- or that's what we will get.
It's regrettable that younger people are more authoritarian but it doesn't surprise me.
Good morning fellow pb-ers. Not as warm and welcoming today, but the blue-tit chicks in our TV'd nest are flourishing.
On a slightly bizarre note, and of course o/t, my Facebook page has three postings relating to the 'arrest' of Martin Lewis. Clearly some sort of scam and/or fake news, but to what end, I wonder
-1.2C at the vineyard overnight, which means at least part of this year’s crop buggered again.
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
This is a takeover by an American firm, so there is no immediate effect on the shape of the UK market. Now to watch Battlebus's recommended television programme.
I think you misunderstood my point. Its a game of hot potato. You either got to be the ultimate winner and hope then people will pay the real cost of delivery or get an offer and pass the hot potato. Because a) the economics don't work for the actual service and b) they know you have to keep spending insane amount of advertising to get the customers coming back, as soon as you drop off the ads, the number of users falls off quickly.
c) Reform government in 2029 bans delivery by bicycle.
On that c), are there any actual Reform Councils with "Rip Out The Cycle Lanes" pledges (ignoring the disabled people who use mobility aids)?
Now that Reform control a number of Local Highways Authorities, this will be a convenient "not us" political target. They will need some when they find their more windy aspirations are not in their grasp.
Worcestershire under Tory control had a policy of not building any cycle lanes - or rather, they wouldn't do anything that took space away from motorists, which has meant a remarkable programme of building shiny new cycle/pedestrian bridges but nothing else. So now Reform are the largest party I don't expect anything to change. Maybe fewer bridges.
The frothing about "omg Reform are now in charge of councils" elides the fact that, in several cases, these councils were previously run by the most little-Englander Conservatives that you could imagine. I don't expect much to change in Worcestershire.
How does active travel funding work in England? There's a common misconception in Scotland that the big projects are funded by the council, when they are actually financed by the Scottish Government via Sustrans (broad generalisation). I suspect that's why even somewhere like Worcestershire is getting some infrastructure.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
The snarky answer is "it doesn't". But that aside, I believe active travel funds are awarded by Active Travel England by taking council bids, and then divvying up the pot according to which authorities are judged most capable. So if you haven't demonstrated you spend the money on good stuff, you don't get it. Worcestershire's capability rating is pretty low.
Obviously there's also core council highways funding and S106/S278 income. You get that whether or not ATE likes you, but if you spend it on terrible schemes then ATE will downrank your capability rating and so you won't get much active travel funding in the future.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I know somebody in the UK film and TV industry and they saw film tariff is a hammer blow to the UK creative industries.
Given the timeframes involving in production of movies and TV shows this is going to take years to recover if it at all.
Trump is an economic terrorist.
It's a blow to US, European and Asian filmmakers too. Just more brain fart from the dementocrat.
Mr. B, aye. If they do film in the US then it hikes production costs, so even more ticket sales are needed to break even. But if this goes ahead and shafts the UK (and others) it's not hard to see an anti-US film approach spring up. And while the US domestic market is very big, hiking costs and necessitating greater sales to make any profit at all means an international boycott by film-goers (even if only partial) would make it very difficult to end up in the black.
We're both wrong, apparently.
Leavitt: The trade deals are continuing to move along in a positive and productive direction.. You had a new announcement yesterday, tariffs on the film industry. We are going to make Hollywood great again and it's one of the many great proposals the president has had to make our country boom again and to bring jobs back here https://x.com/Acyn/status/1919566244203884742
I've got a biography of King John, arguably England's worst ever king (Aethelred the Unready being the only rival). I do wonder if Trump's worse. The strategic damage to the USA as other nations seek to reduce business due to lack of confidence in their fickle and bizarre ways is not going to be minor.
A bad president shouldn't be as bad as a bad king because they have more constrained powers within a democratic system... until the Republican Party decided to give Trump kingly powers.
I don’t think it’s the fact Trump has been given kingly powers - what he has found is that he if he moves fast enough he can change things faster than the constraints can stop him
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
Social media is the main reason for this perception. Tiktok is full of it, even if the crime survey shows people don't actually experience much crime at all. Theft from the person is increasing, but it's still a very low rate. Fraud is much bigger problem.
Part of me thinks the answer is the police using social media much better. Their videos of them smashing moped thieves into walls gets millions of views and likes.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
So old men are the most liberal and least authoritarian. That'll come as a surprise to the woke.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
My local Waitrose, near Alton railway station - in rural Hampshire- has become a hotbed of crime.
Ramraiding became so common they had to remove the cashpoint outside the store, shoplifting is absolutely rife and teenagers had a fight in there less than 3 weeks ago where one was stabbed in the hand, and the manager had to go to hospital for treatment. It was deeply upsetting for all concerned.
Police are prosecuting them for affray and one for GBH, but no-one expects it will solve the problem.
Are they calling for reforming social care, or protecting people's inheritances?
Happy for the former, not a penny of taxpayers money should go for the latter.
100 percent IHT on everything?
That's a spicy take for this early in the morning.
(I mean, it's the least bad stage of life to tax things, and the current balance of taxation makes inheritance way too important in terms of getting on with life, and I am half-joking, but still...)
I never said that. I think inheritances should be taxed at the same rate as income. You shouldn't be taxed more for working for a living, than for inheriting one.
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
There are some separate behavioural/macro effects too though.
1) People passing on wealth early to avoid IHT and social care costs, further embedding generational inequality and increasing costs to the state
2) OTOH, people hoarding wealth in their retirement because they are terrified of going to some crap local authority care home. This reduces consumption and prevents people using that wealth productively.
All this points to an insurance based system, private or public. I'm not ideologically wedded to a view on IHT, but as implemented now it's deeply stupid and I think I'd prefer a more general wealth tax, with no special provisions for property given the distorting effect it has on house prices.
An insurance based system which commences at say 40 or 50 at £20-30/m for all adults over that age would probably work, it basically replicates life insurance.
The average person needs about £100k, if they go into care. What's the proportion who do? Your figures suggest about 10%.
Why is the Starmer government continuing to even try to pretend that the US government is a reliable partner?
I know that we are enmeshed on defence and intelligence. And all it takes is one EO for Trump to end that. We can try to head that off by playing nice but as we have seen Trump is inconsistent because he's totally mad.
We need to be part of the international community organising against Trump's America, not fawning away as if they are still our ally. They are not.
Be more Carney.
I know somebody in the UK film and TV industry and they saw film tariff is a hammer blow to the UK creative industries.
Given the timeframes involving in production of movies and TV shows this is going to take years to recover if it at all.
Trump is an economic terrorist.
It's a blow to US, European and Asian filmmakers too. Just more brain fart from the dementocrat.
Mr. B, aye. If they do film in the US then it hikes production costs, so even more ticket sales are needed to break even. But if this goes ahead and shafts the UK (and others) it's not hard to see an anti-US film approach spring up. And while the US domestic market is very big, hiking costs and necessitating greater sales to make any profit at all means an international boycott by film-goers (even if only partial) would make it very difficult to end up in the black.
We're both wrong, apparently.
Leavitt: The trade deals are continuing to move along in a positive and productive direction.. You had a new announcement yesterday, tariffs on the film industry. We are going to make Hollywood great again and it's one of the many great proposals the president has had to make our country boom again and to bring jobs back here https://x.com/Acyn/status/1919566244203884742
I've got a biography of King John, arguably England's worst ever king (Aethelred the Unready being the only rival). I do wonder if Trump's worse. The strategic damage to the USA as other nations seek to reduce business due to lack of confidence in their fickle and bizarre ways is not going to be minor.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
I would not mistake what you want for what people at large express in opinion polls and which you then extrapolate based on little to no evidence.
The far right wrote off democracy before, they were wrong then and they will fail again now. Why don´t you just switch your moniker to "Oswald" to make quite clear what your perspective actually is?
In this situation, the whole business model doesn't work, so the only play is ultimately a monopoly or duopoly. So loads of these companies are just waiting for the offer.
There is absolutely no reason why the business model can't work. People are willing to pay for convenience.
Domino's Pizza UK & Eire has a market cap of over £1bn with a P/E ratio of 11.76 on the back of a not especially dissimilar business model.
It’s a totally different business model. Domino’s is vertically integrated so captures the restaurant margin. It’s trade-off is between the capital employed in real estate and wait staff vs the cost of delivery.
Deliveroo is a middleman providing a delivery service. For their model to work they need to have significant peak capacity at rush times without overburdening their P&L (hence the gig model). But they also face no barriers to entry and very limited brand loyalty so essentially compete on price. They are basically buying customers with VC funding and hoping to be the lst man standing.
More interesting are mixed models such as Just Eat which are increasingly using dark kitchens to compete with their restaurant clients.
Good morning fellow pb-ers. Not as warm and welcoming today, but the blue-tit chicks in our TV'd nest are flourishing.
On a slightly bizarre note, and of course o/t, my Facebook page has three postings relating to the 'arrest' of Martin Lewis. Clearly some sort of scam and/or fake news, but to what end, I wonder
That's been around for some time.
I think it's a fake page that looks like a BBC News item, presumably either a phishing front end, or malware infiltration.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
I don't want autocracy, or the death penalty.
I do want liberals to listen though, and fix what people are really asking for - like on immigration- or that's what we will get.
I don’t want autocracy. I am now unsure about the death penalty
However, autocracy is where we’re headed because democracy has stopped delivering - whereas the smartest autocracies - Dubai, Singapore, etc - seem to deliver greater prosperity AND zero crime, zero litter, zero graffiti, zero machetes, zero shoplifting
People can see the slow urban degradation all around them, and they’re sick of it. And this sickness infects the whole western world
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
So old men are the most liberal and least authoritarian. That'll come as a surprise to the woke.
They are on here, and they are woke.
What's the proportion of regular posters? 80% over 50 (or higher) and 90% blokes?
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
My local Waitrose, near Alton railway station - in rural Hampshire- has become a hotbed of crime.
Ramraiding became so common they had to remove the cashpoint outside the store, shoplifting is absolutely rife and teenagers had a fight in there less than 3 weeks ago where one was stabbed in the hand, and the manager had to go to hospital for treatment. It was deeply upsetting for all concerned.
Police are prosecuting them for affray and one for GBH, but no-one expects it will solve the problem.
And north-east Hampshire is supposed to be the wealthiest and most content place in the country.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
The trigger moment for so many people (in my experience) is when they have their phone/tablet/smart tech stolen they go to the police and say it was stolen and it is currently at this location and the police aren’t interested and tell you here’s your crime reference number and claim on your insurance.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Number One Son has a Singapore partner, attractive and well off. For some reason she prefers to live in the UK. Amazes me.
No accounting for taste.
I recommend a stay of a couple of days in Singapore. You will learn everything you need to know about the city state, and will be rightfully impressed.
If you stay another ten years you won't learn another thing. What you first saw is what Singapore is. There's nothing more to it.
Just walked into Greggs to get a sausage roll at Waterloo. Bloke (rastafarian in this instance) walks in singing, helps himself to a drink from the fridge and doughnuts, and then walks out again.
Two of us stood shocked and open mouthed. Staff shrugged - says it happens every day and if they challenge, they just run off and do it again the next day.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
Social media is the main reason for this perception. Tiktok is full of it, even if the crime survey shows people don't actually experience much crime at all. Theft from the person is increasing, but it's still a very low rate. Fraud is much bigger problem.
Part of me thinks the answer is the police using social media much better. Their videos of them smashing moped thieves into walls gets millions of views and likes.
No, it's the police response that really annoys everyone. My wife's best friend had her phone stolen, she was able to track it to a property where clearly phones were being fenced but the police did precisely zero to recover it and told her they couldn't get it back, just gave her a crime number to make an insurance claim. It's an extremely common story too. That's what drives people towards more authoritarian outlooks IMO.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
The trigger moment for so many people (in my experience) is when they have their phone/tablet/smart tech stolen they go to the police and say it was stolen and it is currently at this location and the police aren’t interested and tell you here’s your crime reference number and claim on your insurance.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
People with really high IQs (or even median IQs) know better than read too much into small subsamples.
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
Low level crime is a really big one IMO, especially in big cities across the UK. There just doesn't seem to be any push back from the police against phone thieves, bike thieves, fare jumpers, shop looters etc... It makes people feel as if we live in a lawless society and all of the statistics in the world that suggest it's the same as somewhere else in Europe doesn't make a difference. Millions of people have experienced this kind of crime first hand and tens of millions have either witnessed or had family/friends who have low level crime committed against them and everyone is fed up.
Social media is the main reason for this perception. Tiktok is full of it, even if the crime survey shows people don't actually experience much crime at all. Theft from the person is increasing, but it's still a very low rate. Fraud is much bigger problem.
Part of me thinks the answer is the police using social media much better. Their videos of them smashing moped thieves into walls gets millions of views and likes.
It’s not fucking social media you dolt
I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Shoplifters walking into my local Tesco’s and Sainsburys and calmly sweeping entire shelves. That never used to happen. Now I see it all the time
Ditto graffiti, litter, general grottiness. I travel a great deal so I can see how much cleaner and safer foreign cities are compared to the UK. East Asia is a different and superior world. You don’t have to worry about your phone because no one will steal it
Comments
Of course Reeves won’t do a complete u-turn because she’d have to admit the policy was one of the worst political decisions of all time .
So I expect we’ll get an increase in the threshold in the autumn .
DEFINITELY Add a sachet of dashi stock powder as you add the butter beans….
It is always worth bearing in mind how little interest most voters have in anything to do with politics or government.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/05/05/xi-jinping-cant-survive-trumps-tariff-pain/
I think our travel correspondent should go and do this.
Ant Middleton
@antmiddleton
I will ensure that this is how London looks EVERY SINGLE DAY! 🫡🇬🇧
https://x.com/antmiddleton/status/1919261060856496440
Is the squeaky voiced squaddy the official Reform candidate for London mayor? He certainly fits in well with their assault and tax dodging profile.
🆕 Jump in Nigel Farage’s approval ratings following last week’s local elections, to give him the highest net approval of the big four leaders with Ed Davey just behind. Meanwhile Badenoch and Starmer see falls.
➡️ Farage: -3
🔶 Davey: -4
🌳 Badenoch: -23
🌹Starmer: -38
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1919662903436726287?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1919333862724784418?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
One reason amongst several is that people over 25 are much more reluctant to visit the cinema. They’d rather watch movies at home on big TVs. I can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema (not now my kids are grown; they were the last reason for me to do so)
Ergo movies are made for teens. Ergo they are brash, vulgar, simplistic and formulaic
It will be interesting next spring to see how many Reform councils freeze, or even cut, council tax, which should be easy for them to do given how much money councils are apparently wasting. I'm not holding my breath.
https://amzn.eu/d/049VfiB
And dashi stock powder
https://amzn.eu/d/af8jSkv
Getting seen sooner by your GP, with better care in a modernised GP practice.
That’s what my Plan for Change is delivering.
We’re investing in GP surgeries to create over 8 million more appointments this year.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1919649944857690529?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
It is also in that penumbra where Councils traditionally have legal responsibilities they try to ignore by sloping shoulders are saying "so make me", relying on the extreme difficulty of making complaints achieve anything except "sorry" and a finding of poor treatment 1-2 years after the fact. Once they find their declared aspirations are not legal or in their powers, Ref UK may well be doing things within that grey area in search of pinkish meat to feed to their followers, or perhaps just not doing things.
Notts will be interesting. Around Ashfield and Mansfield it was the former Conservative controlled Council that did the little that had been done. The next District Elections in 2027 will be important.
Worcestershire is one of the Councils now with Reform as the largest group, so we shall see. If it has not changed, Worcester is full of off street multiuser paths with the types of chicane barriers on them that force people riding cycles back onto the roads because of the inconvenience caused.
As it happens I've known the former Conservative Lead for Transport at Worcestershire as an internet acquaintance since he was the tech person at Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street internet TV experiment in ~2007. He wrote a piece in praise of pedelecs on Conservative Home a couple of years ago, but pursued a "where the local residents want it" policy on mobility infra and traffic calming - which is imo ineffective.
A shame after Robert's phenomenal thread header yesterday. C'est la vie.
Anyway wasn't Phil Collins leaving for Lake Geneva because he feared we would all vote Labour?
Donna Edmunds, a councillor for Shropshire who was suspended from Reform UK, has launched an attack on Nigel Farage, calling him a 'terrible leader' who 'stabs people in the back'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uk-councillor-quits-after-35175681
But too often in the social care debate there's talk of "reforming" social care not to improve care but because of fears that someone's future inheritance might be spent on the old person rather than be inherited.
If an old person spends their money on themselves, or their own care, leaving nothing to be inherited, that's not something that needs the welfare state - or taxpayers - to get involved in.
I think before that the last film I saw at the cinema was No Country for Old Men.
(All that said, my failure to find films to my taste cannot wholly be laid at the door of a declining Hollywood: I've never been that successful in finding films that I like even in the good years).
NEW: Unexpected news from Berlin- CDU leader Friedrich Merz isn’t elected Chancellor on the first round. He needed 316 votes in the Bundestag, received 310 (and expected 328).
No Chancellor in the history of the Republic has failed to be elected on the first round. A moment of peril for Merz, albeit he can be nominated again.
@JeremyCliffe
No further chancellor votes in Bundestag today. Possible second vote will be on Friday. Merz trips to Paris and Warsaw planned for tomorrow (presumably) out of the window. What a mess.
Domino's Pizza UK & Eire has a market cap of over £1bn with a P/E ratio of 11.76 on the back of a not especially dissimilar business model.
Radio, Ceefax and text: the history of cricketers being selected for England
Players feel the same emotions but the difference in how selectors communicate shows how society has changed
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/may/06/letters-ceefax-text-history-cricketers-selected-england-news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tc8T1jnIEE
It was a Times Radio video about Starmer and Carney, and a few comments expressing a view that they were ignorant about Canadian politics (probably true; Ukraine the Latest have a better expertise) - so I wanted to try and explicate the difference of being next to Uncle Sam and 3000 miles from Russia, and vice versa.
I like sometimes posting in forums that are a little off topic for me, or have a view I disagree with - even sometimes GB News. It sounds sanctimonious, but I think a dialogue is still important even when politics has rather shattered. People I disagree with are some of the ones I need to convince !
But my most ever liked (~2k iirc) Youtube comment was on an "American reacts to Larry the Number 10 Cat" video, which was approximately:
"The Prime Minister does not have a cat; Larry the Cat has a Prime Minister."
“ Few things could be more shameful and humiliating.”
For Russia.
That said, I did find Dune awesome, at the cinema.
I’ve often thought when people have an idea for a film or TV series, they should first write it down as a novel, before then adapting it.
If it doesn’t work as a novel, it won’t work in other media.
As Reform don’t have national power I expect they’ll get away with it for a good while to come.
In provincial England and Wales, Reform could well be seen as the centre ground in the future. Nige is the Putin to Lowe's Liberal Democratic party.
Therefore cancelling new bridges and paths has zero impact on council finances, and just means less cash spent in your local area.
“Young Brits now more supportive of the death penalty than older Brits.
55% support among 25-34 year olds
49% support among 64-74 year olds
Plus more popular with women (56%) than men (52%)”
Looks like good news for the populist right…
https://x.com/christiancalgie/status/1919671552540328119?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Basically, everyone now wants to live in Singapore or Dubai. They’re done with democracy and liberalism. It’s not delivering. They want autocracy, clean streets and zero crime
I think that it may not be quite so straightforward as "same tax rates", and some expenditure (eg funeral costs) would need to be untaxed in the estate ie allowable expenses, whilst other things - eg rental income on a property owned by the deceased - would need to be taxed in the estate.
There may also need to be thought about circumstances where the "Estate" continues to exist, such as eg the estates of authors which continue to collect copyright fees, and fees for broadcasts. JRR Tolkien is perhaps a good example, or Enid Blyton.
1) People passing on wealth early to avoid IHT and social care costs, further embedding generational inequality and increasing costs to the state
2) OTOH, people hoarding wealth in their retirement because they are terrified of going to some crap local authority care home. This reduces consumption and prevents people using that wealth productively.
All this points to an insurance based system, private or public. I'm not ideologically wedded to a view on IHT, but as implemented now it's deeply stupid and I think I'd prefer a more general wealth tax, with no special provisions for property given the distorting effect it has on house prices.
Also the issue is the inefficiency of being the everything anywhere.
Dominos are transporting from one hub i.e. the pizza shop. The same as home shopping from Amazon or Supermarkets. They also essentially sell a single shaped product with a massive margin.
The problem with Just Eat etc is it is massively inefficient to have riders first go to random different locations and also they are offering to pick up absolutely anything from pizza, to ice cream to doing your weekly shop from Co-Op. They have only do one order at a time. There is a limit on the size of the order etc. You are making 1000s and 1000s of low value unique journeys with different start and end points.
No accounting for taste.
➡️ Farage: -3
🔶 Davey: -4
🌳 Badenoch: -23
🌹Starmer: -38
LOL
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1919662903436726287?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
FWIW Democrats are up average 2-3% in the generic congressional polling at the moment - I would have thought they'd need to be a lot further ahead than that to have even a small chance of taking the Senate.
Obviously there's also core council highways funding and S106/S278 income. You get that whether or not ATE likes you, but if you spend it on terrible schemes then ATE will downrank your capability rating and so you won't get much active travel funding in the future.
Capability ratings are here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-active-travel-capability-ratings . Worcestershire is 1 (not good), up from 0 in 2023. Only Cambridgeshire, Manchester, Leicester, Nottingham, West Midlands and West Yorks are 3. Nowhere is 4.
On a slightly bizarre note, and of course o/t, my Facebook page has three postings relating to the 'arrest' of Martin Lewis. Clearly some sort of scam and/or fake news, but to what end, I wonder
In some areas Regional Mayors have a long term coordinating, approval and strategy role - initially London, Greater Manchester, and I think Birmingham, but more recently East/West Yorkshire, and then several in 2024 as the last Govt were trying again for regional devolution, and the Starmer Govt are pursuing it. That process was what the delayed elections for some areas were about, and why it is complex during the transition.
Centrally there is Active Travel England, Chris Boardman's setup, who have a role in regulation (they own LTN 1/20), approval, and dissemination of best practice, design and assessment tools etc. And they can pull back money if schemes are not done to suitable standards, but I've not seen the power used yet.
Here's Chris Boardman talking to Active Travel Cafe last September about his experience and how they roll, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPgi8_rHD9E
There are a couple of other talks by ATE bods, which are worth a listen.
I do want liberals to listen though, and fix what people are really asking for - like on immigration- or that's what we will get.
The only one downranked in 2024 was ... Nottinghamshire.
Part of me thinks the answer is the police using social media much better. Their videos of them smashing moped thieves into walls gets millions of views and likes.
Ramraiding became so common they had to remove the cashpoint outside the store, shoplifting is absolutely rife and teenagers had a fight in there less than 3 weeks ago where one was stabbed in the hand, and the manager had to go to hospital for treatment. It was deeply upsetting for all concerned.
Police are prosecuting them for affray and one for GBH, but no-one expects it will solve the problem.
The far right wrote off democracy before, they were wrong then and they will fail again now. Why don´t you just switch your moniker to "Oswald" to make quite clear what your perspective actually is?
Deliveroo is a middleman providing a delivery service. For their model to work they need to have significant peak capacity at rush times without overburdening their P&L (hence the gig model). But they also face no barriers to entry and very limited brand loyalty so essentially compete on price. They are basically buying customers with VC funding and hoping to be the lst man standing.
More interesting are mixed models such as Just Eat which are increasingly using dark kitchens to compete with their restaurant clients.
I think it's a fake page that looks like a BBC News item, presumably either a phishing front end, or malware infiltration.
However, autocracy is where we’re headed because democracy has stopped delivering - whereas the smartest autocracies - Dubai, Singapore, etc - seem to deliver greater prosperity AND zero crime, zero litter, zero graffiti, zero machetes, zero shoplifting
People can see the slow urban degradation all around them, and they’re sick of it. And this sickness infects the whole western world
What's the proportion of regular posters? 80% over 50 (or higher) and 90% blokes?
If you stay another ten years you won't learn another thing. What you first saw is what Singapore is. There's nothing more to it.
Just walked into Greggs to get a sausage roll at Waterloo. Bloke (rastafarian in this instance) walks in singing, helps himself to a drink from the fridge and doughnuts, and then walks out again.
Two of us stood shocked and open mouthed. Staff shrugged - says it happens every day and if they challenge, they just run off and do it again the next day.
Literally just happened 2 minutes ago. Rife.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Shoplifters walking into my local Tesco’s and Sainsburys and calmly sweeping entire shelves. That never used to happen. Now I see it all the time
Ditto graffiti, litter, general grottiness. I travel a great deal so I can see how much cleaner and safer foreign cities are compared to the UK. East Asia is a different and superior world. You don’t have to worry about your phone because no one will steal it
Why can’t we have that?