Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
That's not a real choice, though. This is universal in the corporate world now.
Thankfully, there is a pushback - but it needs a real shove to tip it out the system.
No, it isn’t.
I’ve encountered the proactive shite twice in a long career.
That and the time HR fucked up booking a resteraunt, because they had no idea of actual diversity.
Er, yes it is. And I suspect I've worked for more clients in more sectors than you have.
This is just denialism: people veer between saying the problem doesn't exist or that it does but that's your problem.
Some companies think diversity is important and spend money on it.
Some companies employ people who think it's important
My viewpoint is that it's irrelevant to me but if people think it's important that's fine by me.
I really don't see why people get worked up about it...
Then, you need to work harder to educate yourself.
You will have to enlighten me because at the moment you remind me of
I have a philosophy of live and let live and I’m the one with a blind spot?
When did I ever say I'm not live and let live?
That's not how I'm being treated. This stuff is megaphoned into my ear every year for a month or more, like Steve Bray, and if you ever objected your career would be shot.
That's not live and let live. That's live in sufferance and try not to let it get to you.
We get two months in Manchester. Pride in June, Manchester Pride in August. There's also LBGT history month in February, but that' not really caught on yet. Give it time, mind.
Yes, this stuff is essentially all year round now.
It's become a religion.
We live in a world where we are expected to celebrate for a month because someone likes it up the bum. 🌈 🤷🏼♂️
Arguably better than celebrating someone being painfully nailed to a cross
Actually a celebration of Jesus sacrificing himself for our sins and not for a month, not that I have anything against Pride particularly
And of course Jesus was a bisexual man, so he would have been celebrating Pride.
He was? Which version of the bible was that bit in?
The Gospel of John, depending upon how you interpret it.
A rather odd way, I’d wager.
The Gospel of John refers repeatedly to "the disciple whom Jesus loved" which has been interpreted by some, for hundreds of years, as being a homosexual love. That's not a modern invention.
King James I was quoted as saying it hundreds of years ago.
Anger as Oxford rail line classed as England and Wales project
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxyr75gk1vo There is anger that a multi-billion pound project to build a railway line between Oxford and Cambridge has been classed as an England and Wales project. The £6.6bn line will see no tracks laid in Wales but, because of the way it has been classified, the country will not benefit from any extra cash. David Chadwick, Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast it was "HS2 all over again", while former Welsh Labour transport minister Lee Waters called for Westminster colleagues to "fix" the system. The UK government said the project is being financed through its "rail network enhancements pipeline", which it said was also funding schemes in Wales. Under pressure over the issue in the Senedd, Wales' First Minister Eluned Morgan defended the decision but said Wales was not getting its "fair share" of rail cash...
Are English railways not also used by Welsh people?
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I went to a birthday drink for a girl I worked with in London in 2010, and we had to walk through the Pride march to get there. Being single and without children aged 35 at the time, all I could think was how my Dad would explain it to his mates if a bomb went off and I was killed there
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
Of mine the oldies, like me just aren't interested
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
A couple of years back i found myself in the Nottingham area with a few hours to spare, so I parked at a tram park and ride and ran into the city centre. It turned out to be Nottingham Pride day (I genuinely had not known), and I spent a couple of hours chatting to the bearded ladies, short-haired butch lesbians and loads of other people.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
Of mine the oldies, like me just aren't interested
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
Of mine the oldies, like me just aren't interested
I guess everyone's different. I sometimes march in the London one with colleagues but I can take it or leave it. I'm beginning to get slightly annoyed at it being lined up as the next culture war battlefield though. Both on here and amongst newly minted Reform councils. No-one complains about all of the other parades and celebrations that cost the public purse a small amount of money to police.
A couple of years back i found myself in the Nottingham area with a few hours to spare, so I parked at a tram park and ride and ran into the city centre. It turned out to be Nottingham Pride day (I genuinely had not known), and I spent a couple of hours chatting to the bearded ladies, short-haired butch lesbians and loads of other people.
“Tuesday marked the 213th day since Kemi Badenoch was elected leader of the Conservative Party. Or, to look at it another way, it was Day 212 of Robert Jenrick’s leadership campaign”
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
It is clear to us on PB that DOGE has been a disaster. That is at odds with what DOGE claims - which is that it has saved $180bn dollars.
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
I get that: I think those of us born the right side of (around) 1970 have a very different attitude to those born in 1950. (Of course that bunch won the property lottery, so I'm not that sympathetic.)
He might not get the bill through. At least 2 GOP members have now read the bill they voted through and don't like it. If it comes back from the Senate they are threatening to vote against
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
It is clear to us on PB that DOGE has been a disaster. That is at odds with what DOGE claims - which is that it has saved $180bn dollars.
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Compared to the massive increases in the budget that Elon is now complaining about - the savings are miniscule..
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
I get that: I think those of us born the right side of (around) 1970 have a very different attitude to those born in 1950. (Of course that bunch won the property lottery, so I'm not that sympathetic.)
Ha yes true. I know a lovely elderly gay couple who have been together for 50 years. I sometimes try to imagine what it must have been like for them early in their life together. They live in a lovely house by the sea though so yeah I get the mixed sentiments.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
OK Half will do.
They have generally not even raised a tenth of that and resulted in lower tax revenues the following year. Why do you think countries like france abandoned them after a couple of years
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
Except councils get new councillors all the time; heck, there must be cases of big sudden turnovers in membership pretty regularly. Seems more likely that some Reform-run councils just don't fancy having councillors discussing stuff.
He might not get the bill through. At least 2 GOP members have now read the bill they voted through and don't like it. If it comes back from the Senate they are threatening to vote against
Let’s hope so. Because if s899 gets through it will be devastating to any UK multinational with US operations. And to FDI in the USA. Proper existential stuff. Makes the tariffs look piddling.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
OK Half will do.
They have generally not even raised a tenth of that and resulted in lower tax revenues the following year. Why do you think countries like france abandoned them after a couple of years
No, Trump likes the bill but Elon is 100% correct about it as it just pumps govt debt through the roof. Elon has stayed on the Massie/Paul side of the GOP whereas most of the House and Trump himself are stuffing whichever pet projects, raising govt debt and whatever else regular Congress does.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
We’ve already had this discussion. It always ends up with
1) bin stamp duty 2) bin council tax 3) replace them with a land / house price value tax 4) keep it high enough I that it acts as a proxy for a wealth tax 5) allow it to be rolled into a equity loan for those who are asset rich / cash poor
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
I get that: I think those of us born the right side of (around) 1970 have a very different attitude to those born in 1950. (Of course that bunch won the property lottery, so I'm not that sympathetic.)
I love my dad but I do think he’s generally been a lucky b’stard. Born in 1939 so lived through the war but not evacuated as lived in sleepy Trowbridge. Not brilliant at school but good enough to join the Grenadier Guards and rise to decent non com rank. Directly into the police after 8 years (interview was a cake walk for a man of his record). Thirty years, a few promotions and a great deal to retire at 56 with four bed detached house paid off and a pension so good that he’s still taking home more than me a month (I’m only a humble senior lecturer at a top 10 British Uni, but hey). Coming up to more years an ex plod than a plod. Kids and grandkids local. What a life. And even in the last few years when the aches and pains have started to impact on life enough money to just have a new hip, knee and some recent more private surgery (think becoming a Jew late in life…) without worrying about finding the money. At least he doesn’t complain about the WFP withdrawal and he has bought me a a season ticket to the Rec next year (he needs a driver).
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
OK Half will do.
They have generally not even raised a tenth of that and resulted in lower tax revenues the following year. Why do you think countries like france abandoned them after a couple of years
Wealth taxes only work if they’re global (unviable, for now), or levied only on real estate (feasible, but complex).
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
Wealth taxes on equity don't work as stocks are mobile.
Land taxes on the other hand do work as land is not mobile. Land taxes are successfully levied in most countries, including America.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
OK Half will do.
They have generally not even raised a tenth of that and resulted in lower tax revenues the following year. Why do you think countries like france abandoned them after a couple of years
Wealth taxes only work if they’re global (unviable, for now), or levied only on real estate (feasible, but complex).
Land taxes don't have to be complex, indeed they're simply levied in many, many countries.
What's complicated is getting it through Parliament given the British electorate.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were trying to say. On that I agree although I suppose it's a bit hard on independent candidates to fund a check themselves.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were trying to say. On that I agree although I suppose it's a bit hard on independent candidates to fund a check themselves.
And how many more checks would it be? What’s the average number of candidates? We had four round here and that’s probably typical.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
OK Half will do.
They have generally not even raised a tenth of that and resulted in lower tax revenues the following year. Why do you think countries like france abandoned them after a couple of years
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
We’ve already had this discussion. It always ends up with
1) bin stamp duty 2) bin council tax 3) replace them with a land / house price value tax 4) keep it high enough I that it acts as a proxy for a wealth tax 5) allow it to be rolled into a equity loan for those who are asset rich / cash poor
So answer the question I posed a,b and c as to what you think the figures would be to fully fund everything that everyone is demanding?
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
I'm not entirely convinced though DBS checks will be necessary. The new Councillors would have had to go through Members' Induction which is normally held the week after the election. This normally explains to the new Councillors the Services the council provides and a detailed explanation of how the Council works.
In addition, there will be a detailed protocol for Member-Officer contact to be explained along with the rules covering issues of misconduct and complaints against both the Council itself and any particular Member.
The new Cabinet Members would have also received detailed presentations and had initial meetings with the relevant senior officers to pick up what's happening and what's planned and the strategy of the preceding administration and the drivers behind that as well as how the council interacts with other bodies including the NHS and central Government as well as the ongoing local government re-organisation proposals.
Normally, you'd be looking at perhaps 25% turnover but obviously this time it's been much higher - Kent would have been around 80% - there would need to be briefings for the new opposition councillors as well.
The Council CEO and his/her team would have been particularly busy organising all this and one can but hope they had anticipated such an eventuality as Reform winning control.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
We’ve already had this discussion. It always ends up with
1) bin stamp duty 2) bin council tax 3) replace them with a land / house price value tax 4) keep it high enough I that it acts as a proxy for a wealth tax 5) allow it to be rolled into a equity loan for those who are asset rich / cash poor
So answer the question I posed a,b and c as to what you think the figures would be to fully fund everything that everyone is demanding?
Its all very well to try and make it seem people are being unreasonable by listing things they want to bin. I am asking a simple question given we cant massively expand borrowing what do you estimate the tax rates need to be to fund everything the government does. It is not I think a silly question
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
Point of order: a wealth tax requires one to net out liabilities.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
Point of order: a wealth tax requires one to net out liabilities.
The new head of IFS told the Guardian today that she favoured widening VAT to food, children's clothes and books.
Low income and benefit people would be compensated but would still raise billions.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
He's probably right. Certainly if you take Musk's viewpoint, that government is bloated and ought to be slimmed down. "Reduce the deficit by spending cuts", as Peter Manion once said oh so enthusiastically.
Of course Trump was never going to do that. But having splashed his cash to help get Trump into the White House, Musk has rather outlived his usefulness.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Although the various Swiss cantons have successfully used them.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
Point of order: a wealth tax requires one to net out liabilities.
Perhaps we could tax unrealised gains. Like they are going to do in Australia.
Seems a crazy idea to me but they like it in Australia,
No, Trump likes the bill but Elon is 100% correct about it as it just pumps govt debt through the roof. Elon has stayed on the Massie/Paul side of the GOP whereas most of the House and Trump himself are stuffing whichever pet projects, raising govt debt and whatever else regular Congress does.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were trying to say. On that I agree although I suppose it's a bit hard on independent candidates to fund a check themselves.
I don't think a dbs check costs that much and I would be happy enough if they could get the check and spread the payment over a year or two to make sure people could still stand
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
It is clear to us on PB that DOGE has been a disaster. That is at odds with what DOGE claims - which is that it has saved $180bn dollars.
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Multiple media organisations have looked into DOGE’s claims and found them wanting. Now, unless there’s a global conspiracy against DOGE by all these media organisations (which you’d believe obviously), I think it’s pretty clear DOGE has been a massive failure.
On the previous thread, there was a discussion about why we don't have more pumped storage.
And the answer is that there actually aren't that many suitable sites. You need to have two reservoirs that are very close, of sufficient size, and which have enough vertical drop between them.
That's a pretty rare combination.
They also take up a lot of space, are not inexpensive to build, are more convenient if they are close to existing intermittent power sources (and ideally demand) so as to avoid the need to build out transmission capacity, and are far from maintenance free.
Plus they often involve having to compulsory purchase order a bunch of people's property, because the chance that all the space is going to belong to a single landowner is really small.
The pumped storage schemes I mentioned in the Highlands use existing lochs (Ness and Awe) as the lower reservoir. You need to build the upper reservoirs, which are about 1km wide, on the mountain tops, land has no economic value. Drop is 500m. They are close to existing power lines that are being upgraded to handle additional wind farms. They are definitely expensive to build, but on current estimates a fraction of Hinckley C and probably more useful.
See https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959 OK you have to disregard all the location where a receiving reservoir would flood an important road, but there are still plenty of sites at 50GWh and a few at 150 GWh. Pity Glen Doe was wasted on a small scale project.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Although the various Swiss cantons have successfully used them.
They work because the swiss don't have inheritance tax, plus their taxes dont raise anywhere near 120 billion even if you adjust for population
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Although the various Swiss cantons have successfully used them.
They work because the swiss don't have inheritance tax, plus their taxes dont raise anywhere near 120 billion even if you adjust for population
Also the cost of fully funding everything the government does would still be more than 120 billion by a factor of lots. Hell the NHS would probably swallow twice that and people would still say it was underfunded
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were trying to say. On that I agree although I suppose it's a bit hard on independent candidates to fund a check themselves.
I don't think a dbs check costs that much and I would be happy enough if they could get the check and spread the payment over a year or two to make sure people could still stand
Fully enhanced one is £49, and really should take less than a month.
The main thing that people standing for office really ought to know if there are any blots on their copybook.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
On the cancelled meetings, bylinetimes suggested that it could be because large numbers of new (Reform) councillors have to go through DBS checks. Would have been the same with an influx of new councillors from any party.
What a fucking waste, what happens if they fail. If they are disbarred because of failing or otherwise unable to discharge their duties do a dbs check to stand as candidate else you pay for a by election
That's a bizarre attitude to take. Imagine the DBS checks were waived and something horrible happened. Those checks exist for a reason regardless of whether people are on your political wavelength or not.
I didn't suggest they be abandoned I suggested that if you want to stand get a dbs check to be allowed to....learn to read
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were trying to say. On that I agree although I suppose it's a bit hard on independent candidates to fund a check themselves.
I don't think a dbs check costs that much and I would be happy enough if they could get the check and spread the payment over a year or two to make sure people could still stand
Fully enhanced one is £49, and really should take less than a month.
The main thing that people standing for office really ought to know if there are any blots on their copybook.
49£ to stand really shouldnt be a bar to standing then even for an independent
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
Where did I say they couldn't? clue I didn't I just said lawyers are pondscum not that people aren't allowed to vote them in
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
Where did I say they couldn't? clue I didn't I just said lawyers are pondscum not that people aren't allowed to vote them in
So, most legislators are not pondscum and the few lawyers that are elected are presumably not seen as pondscum by the voters. Legislators define what is unlawful.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
Where did I say they couldn't? clue I didn't I just said lawyers are pondscum not that people aren't allowed to vote them in
So, most legislators are not pondscum and the few lawyers that are elected are presumably not seen as pondscum by the voters. Legislators define what is unlawful.
sighs I guess you haven't worked out yet that expressing a personal opinion is not the same as saying everyone thinks the same as me but I guess that is the hive mind socialist thinking
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
It is clear to us on PB that DOGE has been a disaster. That is at odds with what DOGE claims - which is that it has saved $180bn dollars.
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Compared to the massive increases in the budget that Elon is now complaining about - the savings are miniscule..
That may be true, but I wasn't defending the budget bill, just offering an alternative perspective on the success or otherwise of the DOGE project.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Which wont be enough for fully funding everything. I notice you are another that wont answer a) b) c)
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
Where did I say they couldn't? clue I didn't I just said lawyers are pondscum not that people aren't allowed to vote them in
So, most legislators are not pondscum and the few lawyers that are elected are presumably not seen as pondscum by the voters. Legislators define what is unlawful.
sighs I guess you haven't worked out yet that expressing a personal opinion is not the same as saying everyone thinks the same as me but I guess that is the hive mind socialist thinking
You haven’t worked out that probing someone’s personal opinions is a key form of political discourse?
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Tax and spend and regulate is exactly what got us where we are. If we keep on doing it, we will continue our slow decline.
Instead, we should be generating economic growth through deregulation, in particular, but not only, planning reform together with a tight rein on spending.
It is almost tautological, but evidently beyond our current political class, that a stronger economy is the way to generate more money, both for the public and the private sectors. But at the end of the day it's only the private sector that can generate more money, and it won't if you tax it to death. And increasing public spending reduces productivity in the economy as a whole (because the public sector is generally so much worse at generating productivity improvements than the private sector).
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
No. Because pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if it wasn’t women could be sacked for getting pregnant. I don’t favour that. Do you?
It goes without saying that nobody should be unfairly sacked, whatever the reason is.
The law has to define what “unfairly” means.
The law is an ass and the last people I would trust to define it
That’s all very well and good but it still needs to be defined if you want to make it unlawful.
It shouldn't be defined by pondscum....sorry I meant lawyers
It’s not. It’s defined by legislators (and interpreted by lawyers).
A lot of legislators are lawyers cf our supposed leader
We live in a democracy. The voters can vote for candidates from any employment background they choose.
Where did I say they couldn't? clue I didn't I just said lawyers are pondscum not that people aren't allowed to vote them in
So, most legislators are not pondscum and the few lawyers that are elected are presumably not seen as pondscum by the voters. Legislators define what is unlawful.
sighs I guess you haven't worked out yet that expressing a personal opinion is not the same as saying everyone thinks the same as me but I guess that is the hive mind socialist thinking
You haven’t worked out that probing someone’s personal opinions is a key form of political discourse?
You however implied my opinion of lawyers and politicians I felt should be binding on the electorate. I don't ask you to share my opinion any more than I can explain the colour red to the sightless from birth
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Although the various Swiss cantons have successfully used them.
They work because the swiss don't have inheritance tax, plus their taxes dont raise anywhere near 120 billion even if you adjust for population
I don't think that's true. While there's no Federal inheritance tax, there are inheritance taxes at the Canton level (just like wealth taxes are at the Canton level).
Of courser, the Swiss government is able to levy lower taxes overall, not least because healthcare is essentially privatized.
That said, on OECD numbers, the Swiss pay an average of $23,500 in tax (CHF 21,500) per person. While in the UK, it's $18,000 on average. So, I don't think the second part of your assertion holds up either.
Does anyone have any gen on how our Reform Councils are doing?
When I least heard hit-the-ground-running Kent and Notts have cancelled/postponed all of the first month's committee meetings, except perhaps one in Kent.
They all seem to be deprioritising supervision of flood defences, rolling the committees into "Environment". Is it too woke (whatever woke means today?) Good luck with that one in Lincs when it floods.
Reform councils will end up getting sued for several times more than they manage to save in all likelihood
But when that happens (and it probably will), there will be lots of Reformy snowflakery, and claims that suing Reform will just plays into their hands. And at some level "Reform could have saved you so much if it weren't for EVUL LEFTY LAWYERS" is a useful story for Nige.
why do we have to copy america like this? British DOGE. It's pathetic. It's clear US DOGE is a disaster and allegedly unlawful in various actions.
It is clear to us on PB that DOGE has been a disaster. That is at odds with what DOGE claims - which is that it has saved $180bn dollars.
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Compared to the massive increases in the budget that Elon is now complaining about - the savings are miniscule..
That may be true, but I wasn't defending the budget bill, just offering an alternative perspective on the success or otherwise of the DOGE project.
Oh I wasn't comment on DOGE because I don't know enough to say if it's a success or a failure.
I suspect it's a complete failure when it came to saving money but it's probably been great in collecting data that could be weaponised later.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Tax and spend and regulate is exactly what got us where we are. If we keep on doing it, we will continue our slow decline.
Instead, we should be generating economic growth through deregulation, in particular, but not only, planning reform together with a tight rein on spending.
It is almost tautological, but evidently beyond our current political class, that a stronger economy is the way to generate more money, both for the public and the private sectors. But at the end of the day it's only the private sector that can generate more money, and it won't if you tax it to death. And increasing public spending reduces productivity in the economy as a whole (because the public sector is generally so much worse at generating productivity improvements than the private sector).
Is there really any correlation between deregulation and economic growth, though?
The US is massively more regulated than Europe in most things, and yet has grown far quicker. That said, the area the US is more deregulated is the labour market - so maybe that's the biggest factor.
Noticed that some central London restaurants have increased their automatic tip percentage to 13.5% or 14.5%.
I noticed that today . I just happened to travel upto the city for lunch with family and completely forgot they even added service charge and didn’t really check the breakdown so they did very well out of me as I also left my normal 15% . Hospitality is such a hard job and the public can be very annoying so I don’t begrudge them !
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Which wont be enough for fully funding everything. I notice you are another that wont answer a) b) c)
To be honest, I hadn't taken much notice of them.
Do I have specific numbers for income tax? No - I have mentioned raising basic rate to 25p and higher rate to 50p but unfreezing thresholds and in year one raising them by twice RPIX.
The target is just to get the public finances back in balance - the infrastructure repair backlog will never be cleared, we all know that.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
Although the various Swiss cantons have successfully used them.
They work because the swiss don't have inheritance tax, plus their taxes dont raise anywhere near 120 billion even if you adjust for population
I don't think that's true. While there's no Federal inheritance tax, there are inheritance taxes at the Canton level (just like wealth taxes are at the Canton level).
Of courser, the Swiss government is able to levy lower taxes overall, not least because healthcare is essentially privatized.
That said, on OECD numbers, the Swiss pay an average of $23,500 in tax (CHF 21,500) per person. While in the UK, it's $18,000 on average. So, I don't think the second part of your assertion holds up either.
How much does swiss wealth tax raise
answer 7.329 million Swiss francs = 6.6 million pounds
divide by 8.9 million pop = 0.74157 multiply by 68 million = 50.426 million
now I may not be a maths genius but I suspect thats a little short of the 130 billion someone was claiming it would raise
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Well I just think parroting ‘wealth taxes’ when they’re easy for the wealthy to avoid is pointless. It just tells people,there is an easy solution and they won’t have to pay. People favour taxes others pay. I’m only opposed as I think they won’t work.
Land value tax, fine, I wouldn’t consider that a wealth tax no more than I’d consider council tax a wealth tax.
I’d probably combine NI and income tax for one.
I’d stay the course of WFA and PIP and reform the triple lock too.
I’d scrap stamp duty on shares and homes. Homes to get people, like myself, trading down. Shares to encourage investing.
I’d reduce the amount you could put in a cash ISA too.
Look at people funding their own care costs.
We have major problems but I doubt this govt has the will to do,what is needed.
The system of international law/human rights either needs to be changed or it will be overturned entirely.
The legal/activist class across Europe are like the monks and priests of the Catholic Church in northern and Western Europe circa 1500. Parasitic, doctrinaire, vain, myopic and greedy. And you can feel the resentment building and building. A Reformation is coming to sweep them away and it might be violent
That's a great analogy.
But it goes wider. Full on Pride shite at work today with some events stretching into August. A queer quiz. A gay tapestry. Marches all over the place. A fans for trans social.
Who wants this shit?
I am totally ungay, but your workplace sounds like fun.
Did you realise the company was this "right on" when you joined?
All companies are like this now. All of them.
The only acceptable response is to cheer and amplify it. To do anything else risks you being labelled as a homophobe, and we all know what that means.
So, this absurd foghorning goes on - despite most people not really caring and being somewhat fed up with it all.
That’s not my experience at double digit organisations across both engineering and law. You can delete DEI emails. You can refuse to put pronouns in email signatures. You don’t have to attend pride events. Nobody cares. It’s all in your head.
I do all of those things and nobody thinks I am a homophobe because, well, I’m not.
No, it's not all in my head - this is simple denialism by you.
It's on every call I go to, and I have to listen to it all.
You said upthread you loved this stuff, and now you say you don't do any of it.
Which one is it?
Where I've worked there's emails to 'Pride' events . . . and emails inviting to football games, basketball games, chess clubs, book clubs, craft clubs, and plenty of other things.
The general thing with social emails is to pick the ones you're interested in and ignore the rest.
So what if some people in your work want to do Pride activities? How is that affecting you whatsoever? If others are playing 5-a-side is that affecting you? Don't hear you moaning about that, but I imagine that's happening too?
If Pride is the only social stuff being organised, then it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work, but if its one amongst many, then why have a bee in your bonnet about what others choose to do?
You really don't get this, do you?
You have to be seen to champion, echo and be enthusiastic about this stuff, from a career perspective, or else you are suspect. It's a required belief. There is no choice.
This is the entire problem with Wokery. Which people like you and @Gallowgate cannot understand.
[PS. I don't have people talking to me about 5-a-side on every call for every day for a full month every year, and requiring me to applaud it or I'm seen as bigot. It's not remotely comparable.]
Why don't you resign? I've got friends who feel like this about Gaza and have turned down good jobs at arms companies as a result.
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY IS LIKE THIS. You can't escape.
The solution is political: either Woke is reined in, or it ends.
For example: Pride could go back to being a fun weekend and a march, fine, but no that wasn't enough. Now, its all of June and July and August at 110dB every single year and rainbow lanyards and flags all year round. It bores people at best and p1sses people off at worst.
Why? Because people don't like to be hectored but it's politically incorrect - and dangerous - to object so people feel even more frustrated because they can't say anything.
If you're not proportionate on anything and set rules around the right thing to say, or not say, you get a backlash.
The religious adherents can never see it, because they love it.
Companies are free to take on whatever policies they see fit; you're free to take on whatever job you fancy.
You're right that the solution is political - but I don't think you'll find much support for banning woke activity in private companies across wider society.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I feel this way about our lack of cycle infrastructure. Write to your MP, put up posters, make the argument here and elsewhere. Explain why it harms your business and/or society. Good luck, I guess.
Companies are not free to take on whatever policies they see fit. They have to comply with all sorts of regulations on diversity and equality.
Like what? They have to not discriminate on protected characteristics, but I can’t think of much they have to comply with in terms of “regulations on diversity and equality”. Cite some legislation if this is true.
Don't you find the whole concept of "protected characteristics" ridiculous?
When taken alone, yes, ridiculous. But it is a clunky means to a end without which we would be a more horrible place - where you could employ 10,000 people and stipulate that they are all white, or destroy careers because women have babies, or refuse to employ them at all.
Drafting law is hard. Sometimes what you want to achieve is simple and obvious, until you try to draft laws that actually cover it. Try drafting the 'Compelling Reluctant People to Behave In A Civilized Manner Act 2025'.
Please define civillized, I am sure for example most of isis think they are civillised
Thanks for making my point. 'Civilized' will be defined in section 47 of Schedule 9 and will be further refined in the transitional provisions in Schedule 10. Schedule 14 will allow the Secretary of State following consultation with 47 named bodies to issue guidance as to how to interpret the definition, which shall not be binding.
Welcome to ways of modern statutes.
And politicians wonder why we despise them
'Despise' is quite a strong word. Do you really despise them? I sometimes find myself disappointed, annoyed, exasperated, etc. But despise - no.
Jimmy Saville - yes. That schoolteacher I remember who locked a pupil in a cupboard, forgot about them, then when they remembered opened the door and shouted so loudly in their ear and clapped them with a wooden ruler that they literally burst the pupils ear-drum - yes.
(The schoolteacher in question went on to become a Tory MP - but that's not what I despise them for)
I said despise and meant it, politicians of the last 5 decades or so have flushed most of the country down the drain and turned us into slaves in practice if not in name. In theory we can change jobs, for many though its either not an option as they can't do without the wage or in fact the only other employment they could get would be equally shitty.
But its that or be homeless
I think that we get the politicians we want rather than the politicians we need. For decades people have wanted higher living standards, higher property prices, more leisure all with less taxes and and less state spending on things that don't benefit them. As soon as a politician sticks their head above the parapet to try and change things they get shot down. See Theresa May over care and Starmer over the Winter Fuel allowance. Perfectly understandable to despise politicians but ultimately it's the voters who put them there.
We won't get the politicians we need ever though because sadly too many are wedded to handouts must continue
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60 b) 80 c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
The value of the UK housing stock is £9 trillion. The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP. That should cover it.
No it wouldnt because reality shows us every country that has tried wealth taxes has failed to raise anywhere near that
I don't get this leftie arsehole obsession with wealth taxes, its failed everywhere its been tried. It seems to have replaced the obession with socialism which also failed everywhere it was tried. Lefties doomed to failure
Isn’t Barnesian an LD so a centrist not a lefty ?
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
It's all very well being opposed to wealth taxes though I think land value taxation is an idea whose time has come (and it's not as though you can hide land very easily to evade).
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
Well I just think parroting ‘wealth taxes’ when they’re easy for the wealthy to avoid is pointless. It just tells people,there is an easy solution and they won’t have to pay. People favour taxes others pay. I’m only opposed as I think they won’t work.
Land value tax, fine, I wouldn’t consider that a wealth tax no more than I’d consider council tax a wealth tax.
I’d probably combine NI and income tax for one.
I’d stay the course of WFA and PIP and reform the triple lock too.
I’d scrap stamp duty on shares and homes. Homes to get people, like myself, trading down. Shares to encourage investing.
I’d reduce the amount you could put in a cash ISA too.
Look at people funding their own care costs.
We have major problems but I doubt this govt has the will to do,what is needed.
This sadly is where you get stupidity, we get people going on about the reduction of ni by hunt, despite the fact that freezing the allowance more than offset it and bought in more tax overall. They should have welcomed it because it meant more of those rich pensioners were paying more. Regular reductions of ni while freezing the personal allowance are probably the most pain free way of folding ni into income tax
Got a feeling I'm going to enjoy this week's issue:
Why exactly? Is it really that difficult to leave the gays to celebrate their own thing and get on with your own life. If it's because of all of the corporate posturing on social media i agree with that but I can tell you that I and no other gay person I know asked for that.
I've not been to a Pride event for at least 40 years. I've nothing against them but I know of no gay friends who'd dream of going . I don't believe they reflect the reality of life for most gay people.
I think I said this yesterday but of my gay friends the ones who are most attached to Pride are the slightly older ones for whom it is still intensely liberating to be out and proud amongst crowds who celebrate that fact. It means more if you've spent a lot of your adult life having to downplay your sexuality for fear of abuse.
I get that: I think those of us born the right side of (around) 1970 have a very different attitude to those born in 1950. (Of course that bunch won the property lottery, so I'm not that sympathetic.)
Gay people are like the population at large. The vast majority don't go on marches. They never have done. They don't have special attitudes. They get on with life just like everyone else.
Comments
The head of the Kerch bridge security must be putting his affairs in order this evening...
People even here are always going on about x,y,z are underfunded. Its even more extreme if you go btl on the guardian.
Now simple question and I doubt anyone will answer it
If we fully funded everything the government currently does plus all the infrastructure repairs necessary what do you think that (~given we know from the truss debacle we can't massively expand borrowing)
a) the basic rate of income tax would have to be
b) what do you think the higher rate would have to be
c) what do you think the top rate would have to be
My estimates are
a) 60
b) 80
c) 90
Yet whenever I have suggested maybe we need to be looking at what the government actually does and cut some of it while fully funding what we actually still do its howls of protest
(Said as a proud Derbian)
I know it's confusing as quite a few Spectator contributors have some very peculiar pecadillos.
@SpencerHakimian
·
1h
“With all due respect, Elon is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill.” - Mike Johnson
The girls are fighting!
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1929976753554108882
===
Johnson gonna be primaried?
https://doge.gov/savings
We are asked to believe that DOGE has utterly failed to save a penny, EXCEPT in the cutting off of US Aid to the starving kiddies, where it has quickly and efficiently set about killing the innocents of the Third World. That dichotomy of outcomes is in itself somewhat suspicious.
As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
The value of UK equities is about £3 trillion.
A 1% wealth tax would raise £120 billion or about 4% of GDP.
That should cover it.
1) bin stamp duty
2) bin council tax
3) replace them with a land / house price value tax
4) keep it high enough I that it acts as a proxy for a wealth tax
5) allow it to be rolled into a equity loan for those who are asset rich / cash poor
And even in the last few years when the aches and pains have started to impact on life enough money to just have a new hip, knee and some recent more private surgery (think becoming a Jew late in life…) without worrying about finding the money.
At least he doesn’t complain about the WFP withdrawal and he has bought me a a season ticket to the Rec next year (he needs a driver).
real estate (feasible, but complex).
Land taxes on the other hand do work as land is not mobile. Land taxes are successfully levied in most countries, including America.
https://x.com/restispolitics/status/1929886173414977589
What's complicated is getting it through Parliament given the British electorate.
"It said as much as $31bn a year would be raised from the UK."
source https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/aug/19/wealth-tax-on-super-rich-could-raise-15tn-globally-campaigners-say
not even going to scratch the surface of fully funding everything that people think the government should be doing
https://www.economist.com
In addition, there will be a detailed protocol for Member-Officer contact to be explained along with the rules covering issues of misconduct and complaints against both the Council itself and any particular Member.
The new Cabinet Members would have also received detailed presentations and had initial meetings with the relevant senior officers to pick up what's happening and what's planned and the strategy of the preceding administration and the drivers behind that as well as how the council interacts with other bodies including the NHS and central Government as well as the ongoing local government re-organisation proposals.
Normally, you'd be looking at perhaps 25% turnover but obviously this time it's been much higher - Kent would have been around 80% - there would need to be briefings for the new opposition councillors as well.
The Council CEO and his/her team would have been particularly busy organising all this and one can but hope they had anticipated such an eventuality as Reform winning control.
There is probably a lot of votes for Reform in England watching Scotland separate.
After all there was the joke that if the Scottish Referendum had been UK wide Independence would have won...
Low income and benefit people would be compensated but would still raise billions.
Of course Trump was never going to do that. But having splashed his cash to help get Trump into the White House, Musk has rather outlived his usefulness.
Trouble is if they listen to him and change tack then the mid-terms might not be the bloodbath we need to control Trump.
Wealth taxes seem to be the latest fad. People support the concept, by and large, as they don’t think they’d have to pay.
They’ve never worked before but that won’t stop people from advocating it.
Seems a crazy idea to me but they like it in Australia,
The twattlesnake.
Being a Russian peasant looking attractive. What with driving a lorry, not being as sound as it used to be.
HTF did they paint themselves into this corner?
And if your boss is your enemy, how do they get out of that?
I’m almost feeling sorry for them, but I’d still welcome their total civilisational collapse.
Mass murderous thugs that they are..
The main thing that people standing for office really ought to know if there are any blots on their copybook.
NEW: The White House says US tariffs on UK steel and aluminium will remain at 25% for now
The UK has failed to get the 0% tariffs promised in the US ‘deal’ last month implemented in time for tomorrow
Still, all other countries will be hit by 50% tariffs
So everyone’s a loser
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1930003444250927130
The truth is we need to reduce both the debt and borrowing by around £100 billion to get the public finances back into some shape and at a time when we are looking for more spending on defence for example, simply suggesting spending cuts can do all the heavy lifting is just foolish.
What would you propose?
His first pro wrestling outing was 38 years ago today.
I expect no one here to give a shit but it’s ace
https://x.com/officialtaz/status/1929986738224529634?s=61
Instead, we should be generating economic growth through deregulation, in particular, but not only, planning reform together with a tight rein on spending.
It is almost tautological, but evidently beyond our current political class, that a stronger economy is the way to generate more money, both for the public and the private sectors. But at the end of the day it's only the private sector that can generate more money, and it won't if you tax it to death. And increasing public spending reduces productivity in the economy as a whole (because the public sector is generally so much worse at generating productivity improvements than the private sector).
Of courser, the Swiss government is able to levy lower taxes overall, not least because healthcare is essentially privatized.
That said, on OECD numbers, the Swiss pay an average of $23,500 in tax (CHF 21,500) per person. While in the UK, it's $18,000 on average. So, I don't think the second part of your assertion holds up either.
I suspect it's a complete failure when it came to saving money but it's probably been great in collecting data that could be weaponised later.
The US is massively more regulated than Europe in most things, and yet has grown far quicker. That said, the area the US is more deregulated is the labour market - so maybe that's the biggest factor.
Do I have specific numbers for income tax? No - I have mentioned raising basic rate to 25p and higher rate to 50p but unfreezing thresholds and in year one raising them by twice RPIX.
The target is just to get the public finances back in balance - the infrastructure repair backlog will never be cleared, we all know that.
answer 7.329 million Swiss francs = 6.6 million pounds
divide by 8.9 million pop = 0.74157
multiply by 68 million = 50.426 million
now I may not be a maths genius but I suspect thats a little short of the 130 billion someone was claiming it would raise
Land value tax, fine, I wouldn’t consider that a wealth tax no more than I’d consider council tax a wealth tax.
I’d probably combine NI and income tax for one.
I’d stay the course of WFA and PIP and reform the triple lock too.
I’d scrap stamp duty on shares and homes. Homes to get people, like myself, trading down. Shares to encourage investing.
I’d reduce the amount you could put in a cash ISA too.
Look at people funding their own care costs.
We have major problems but I doubt this govt has the will to do,what is needed.
@elonmusk
·
2h
In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people