There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Denmark literally bulldozes ethnic ghettoes. Do you want that in the UK? I do. Glad to have you on board
That Danish "parallel societies" Law has been in since 2018 aiui, and is essentially traditional slum clearance (education, income, employment etc) with an added race hygiene element.
Serious Q: is there any evidence that introducing the race hygiene elements made any difference? How many "ghettoes" have been demolished for race reasons? If such evidence does not exist, then there is no reason to consider it.
Denmark, like other countries in Scandinavia and some others in Europe, has a history of policies around eugenics, such as forced sterilisation.
In another [partial] u-turn, Labour have now announced £750m in funding for a supercomputer at Edinburgh University, reversing the decision last summer to axe the then £800m project. A year wasted.
No strategy. Completely clueless. Absolute fucking morons.
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
If I was a US tech company, I’d be looking to buy a UK company given the unstable situation in the US with tariffs and big cuts to research spending.
I know of at least one 'small' tech company that is suddenly heavily recruiting in the UK, and looking to open at least one dev centre.
Is it correct that Cola Cola are relocating their headquarters out of the USA? I've seen chatter but not seen it confirmed.
The public now largely recognise that our economy is structurally broken. The question is what to do about it. LabCon governments - despite the rhetoric - get stuck with Treasury orthodoxy which dictates “solutions” which continue the structural issues. We need some outside the box thinking, and at the moment only Reform are doing that.
Set partisan positions aside - this is far too serious an issue to talk about narrow party positions. Unless a mainstream party sees the light and starts proposing something big - think Edwardian era reforms or the post war governments building the modern welfare state - then we are getting Reform UK as our next government.
Whether they have answers or not they are asking the right questions - and for many voters that will be enough…
The two issues are:
(1) Demographics (2) Debt
No-one wants to talk about the latter - presumably because politicians have calculated that no-one wants to hear it - even though we're projected to spend over £100 billion a year on debt interest this year, compared to about £48 billion in 2011.
Have a think about where else that £52 billion could otherwise have gone had interest rates stayed the same.
Come to think of it, no-one wants to talk much about the former either- preferring to maintain the gerontocracy and slipping in high immigration each year to try and maintain the worker ratio - but we need to.
The demographics and debt are two problems that go hand-in-hand, of course. Britain's post-WWII debt burden was much easier to manage because the demographics were favourable.
That's one reason why many British governments have ended up being pro-immigration - the economic models show that it makes handling the debt burden easier.
The whole issue of debt in a global economy when the global population starts to shrink is going to cause all sorts of difficulties later in the century. Somehow we need to get ahead of those problems.
We are not so much a Nanny State as a Granny State.
The over 65s are 20% of the population and more than that as a percentage of the voters. We let the dead tree press set the political agenda, but that too is aimed at the elderly readership.
That's the political demographics of the country. We will only get real change when young people turn out to vote for parties willing to tackle the generational inequality.
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
US Equity Houses votes of confidence in UK economy and technology. Are you a half-full sort of person or a half-empty?
Morning all. Bit of pre cash in Rachels Attic polling from MiC, little change (6 to 9 Jun) Ref 28 (=) Lab 24 (+1) Con 20 (-1) LD 14 (=) Green 7 (-1) SNP 3 (+1)
All very stable lately
Gives a hung parliament albeit with Reform most seats
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
That's because UK pension funds don't have something an order of magnitude (or two) larger than the Business Growth Fund, which could finance the follow on stages of private equity venture capital. It's well within their financial capacity, and might have transformed the UK economy (and their investment returns) had it been around for the last couple of decades.
Again, to be fair to Reeves, she's attempting to get them to do something along those lines. But I'm not sure she's up to the task.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
The public now largely recognise that our economy is structurally broken. The question is what to do about it. LabCon governments - despite the rhetoric - get stuck with Treasury orthodoxy which dictates “solutions” which continue the structural issues. We need some outside the box thinking, and at the moment only Reform are doing that.
Set partisan positions aside - this is far too serious an issue to talk about narrow party positions. Unless a mainstream party sees the light and starts proposing something big - think Edwardian era reforms or the post war governments building the modern welfare state - then we are getting Reform UK as our next government.
Whether they have answers or not they are asking the right questions - and for many voters that will be enough…
Outside the box? Start at the other end with a realistic budget for the people on low incomes/benefits to demonstrate either how they can manage or that government is expecting the impossible.
That will reveal a lot that is currently unknown about the actual economy and inform realistic policies & decisions.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
There just happens to be a 100% negative correlation.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
Unless you want grannies lugging bricks a lot of building requires a lot of immigrant labour. We don't have the numbers of construction workers otherwise.
The public now largely recognise that our economy is structurally broken. The question is what to do about it. LabCon governments - despite the rhetoric - get stuck with Treasury orthodoxy which dictates “solutions” which continue the structural issues. We need some outside the box thinking, and at the moment only Reform are doing that.
Set partisan positions aside - this is far too serious an issue to talk about narrow party positions. Unless a mainstream party sees the light and starts proposing something big - think Edwardian era reforms or the post war governments building the modern welfare state - then we are getting Reform UK as our next government.
Whether they have answers or not they are asking the right questions - and for many voters that will be enough…
The two issues are:
(1) Demographics (2) Debt
No-one wants to talk about the latter - presumably because politicians have calculated that no-one wants to hear it - even though we're projected to spend over £100 billion a year on debt interest this year, compared to about £48 billion in 2011.
Have a think about where else that £52 billion could otherwise have gone had interest rates stayed the same.
Come to think of it, no-one wants to talk much about the former either- preferring to maintain the gerontocracy and slipping in high immigration each year to try and maintain the worker ratio - but we need to.
The demographics issue is a bit overblown, mainly because we've had significant inward migration as you point out. We're not South Korea or Japan.
Both of whom are starting to encourage inward migration.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
There just happens to be a 100% negative correlation.
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
US Equity Houses votes of confidence in UK economy and technology. Are you a half-full sort of person or a half-empty?
But many more benefits accrue overseas than ti the U.K. under this pattern.
It's increasingly urgent for our economy that it changes.
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
How?
Don't tax poor people close to 100% if they work more than 18-20 hours per week.
Get people to work full time rather than part time, and able to keep more of their money they earn.
The state gets more in taxes and pays less in benefits, even if it doesn't get 100% of the effort people put in.
Laffer Curve in action. And the right thing to do.
I start from the position some people such as carers can only work part time. The public sector employs a lot of part time workers and they do vital work. We need to see more private sector companies employing carers and others on a part time basis and there should be incentives to facilitate that.
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
Massive amount of building going on in Essex. AIUI some firms have trouble selling them. What we need are Council Houses at reasonable rents. And NOT for sale
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
In another [partial] u-turn, Labour have now announced £750m in funding for a supercomputer at Edinburgh University, reversing the decision last summer to axe the then £800m project. A year wasted.
No strategy. Completely clueless. Absolute fucking morons.
OTOH, it will be built with a newer generation of processors. Computing capacity isn't like nuclear power stations - it obsoletes much faster.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
I think that jusr would result in much of Britain resembling the worst parts of the urban U.S., not the Singaporean paradise some are imagining.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Indeed but it also has no minimum wage and gets energy, infrastructure and housing right where we fail spectacularly. It's just about possible to grow with high taxes if you get everything else right but you grow despite them not because of them.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
The problem is also that the costs of compliance - and the culture of over-regulation - is now incredibly deeply embedded at the heart of the state. This has been done for largely altruistic reasons over the years (though some of it performative governance) but it has a negative effect. We have lost a balanced relationship with risk, and have gained an overconfidence in what government can (or should) do. Covid and the energy crisis has not helped this.
We can afford to pay people properly, cut regulation and have a fully functioning and stable society, but that requires rewiring the public mindset, and I am afraid little can be done in that area now without significant societal upheaval similar to the 1980s.
Have faith. We are going to get a Reform UK government - or a mainstream party grows a pair and proposes reforms that actually work and they win.
The status quo is no longer sustainable. People are absolutely sick of it.
Well, people say they are sick of it, but then we see the furore when WFP was cut.
People want services that other people use to be cut, not ones that they use themselves.
The problem is that a very high proportion of spending is on a small minority of people. The 10% of elderly in institutional social care, children with major physical, behavioral and other needs, the 100 000 convicts. Most of us don't come into contact with these, so we see the money as wasted. But if we cut these, what do we expect instead? Should we leave people in the snow to die instead?
Things will not change until we go Full Argentina. Which won’t happen for a couple of decades, at least.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
There just happens to be a 100% negative correlation.
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
US Equity Houses votes of confidence in UK economy and technology. Are you a half-full sort of person or a half-empty?
But many more benefits accrue overseas than ti the U.K. under this pattern.
It's increasingly urgent for our economy that it changes.
Was changing the regulation of Private Equity not one of the Starmer Election 2024 proposals, that afaics the Govt have chickened-out on?
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
I'm starting to think very slightly better of the Treasury. Miliband was reported to have stormed out of talks with Reeves’s deputy, Darren Jones, who conducted the bulk of the negotiations..
Reeves trumpeting her own horn this morning that we are 'investing' (twit) in our security, health and economy. So cash for Healey and that small ruddy cheeked boy in charge of Health and participation certificates for the rest.
The grocers daughter speech was derided for years by those who claimed it was so much more complicated than that, the sort of people who got us into this current mess. The truth is, it really isn’t. Pretending that there is some infinite source of other people’s money, that is the menace. And I don’t see any acknowledgement of that from any of our parties, mainstream or Reform.
Of the main party leaders Kemi Badenoch is closest to that
In another [partial] u-turn, Labour have now announced £750m in funding for a supercomputer at Edinburgh University, reversing the decision last summer to axe the then £800m project. A year wasted.
No strategy. Completely clueless. Absolute fucking morons.
OTOH, it will be built with a newer generation of processors. Computing capacity isn't like nuclear power stations - it obsoletes much faster.
You can always delay a computer and get a faster one next year, but that's an argument for never buying a computer.
It's a year's delay in having the computer, being able to use it, and seeing the benefits that follow from it.
It's yet another sign of the government not having a plan and not knowing what they're doing.
I don't mind a government doing things I disagree with if I can trust that they have a plan that I can get behind. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the details. Unfortunately this government is all over the place and give no sign of having a plan.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
How?
Don't tax poor people close to 100% if they work more than 18-20 hours per week.
Get people to work full time rather than part time, and able to keep more of their money they earn.
The state gets more in taxes and pays less in benefits, even if it doesn't get 100% of the effort people put in.
Laffer Curve in action. And the right thing to do.
I assume you will vote for Farage again then given he has said he will raise the threshold for the basic rate of income tax to £20000?
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Denmark literally bulldozes ethnic ghettoes. Do you want that in the UK? I do. Glad to have you on board
So what?
The question was whether it was possible have fiscally responsible social democratic government.
People will not accept the high taxes necessary for welfare states if they feel they are being abused by outsiders. This is a known human phenomenon
If you want social democracy then you either have low immigration or you have incredibly strict rules - enforced - around immigration and who gets what
Britain now has the worst of all worlds. See Westminster council giving away central london council housing for life - when 2/3 of the people benefiting were born overseas
If you want to brew civil unrest - keep doing THAT
There's also fairness from the other end though. One of the consequences of Blair era welfare reforms was that a lot of objectively well off people started getting benefits. Winter Fuel Allowance and Child Benefit being two examples. When I worked a dead end retail job on a Sunday I used to sit on the bus and watch all of the well to do pensioners using their free bus pass to go into Cambridge for breakfast and a morning's shopping. Sometimes I was the only one who paid for a ticket. Then, when a government tries to means test things they get accused of attacking pensioners or children.
People remember slights more than gifts.
The Government actions on WFA has been a masterclass in politically screwing up while at the same time achieving almost no useful policy outcomes (saving cash in this cash).
The grocers daughter speech was derided for years by those who claimed it was so much more complicated than that, the sort of people who got us into this current mess. The truth is, it really isn’t. Pretending that there is some infinite source of other people’s money, that is the menace. And I don’t see any acknowledgement of that from any of our parties, mainstream or Reform.
Of the main party leaders Kemi Badenoch is closest to that
Kemi is at her low today with MiC (-30) still ahead of SKS (-39) also Farage is back at pre LE levels (-13), even Sir Ed and his Hobby horse are at -9. We hate em all
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
The public now largely recognise that our economy is structurally broken. The question is what to do about it. LabCon governments - despite the rhetoric - get stuck with Treasury orthodoxy which dictates “solutions” which continue the structural issues. We need some outside the box thinking, and at the moment only Reform are doing that.
Set partisan positions aside - this is far too serious an issue to talk about narrow party positions. Unless a mainstream party sees the light and starts proposing something big - think Edwardian era reforms or the post war governments building the modern welfare state - then we are getting Reform UK as our next government.
Whether they have answers or not they are asking the right questions - and for many voters that will be enough…
The two issues are:
(1) Demographics (2) Debt
No-one wants to talk about the latter - presumably because politicians have calculated that no-one wants to hear it - even though we're projected to spend over £100 billion a year on debt interest this year, compared to about £48 billion in 2011.
Have a think about where else that £52 billion could otherwise have gone had interest rates stayed the same.
Come to think of it, no-one wants to talk much about the former either- preferring to maintain the gerontocracy and slipping in high immigration each year to try and maintain the worker ratio - but we need to.
The demographics and debt are two problems that go hand-in-hand, of course. Britain's post-WWII debt burden was much easier to manage because the demographics were favourable.
That's one reason why many British governments have ended up being pro-immigration - the economic models show that it makes handling the debt burden easier.
The whole issue of debt in a global economy when the global population starts to shrink is going to cause all sorts of difficulties later in the century. Somehow we need to get ahead of those problems.
The only way out of our debt crisis is inflation. It is simply too large a drag on our economy now to make growth as a way of escaping it anything more than a fantasy. Of course this inflation will impoverish many of us ( or at least expose our true lack of wealth) and cause great pain. But we are out of other options. We may avoid a technical default but only by taking a soft default.
I’m not rich enough to care but buying non inflation linked gilts is only for the courageous and the generous.
Certainly a big problem. It's not specific to us though. Our debt is similar to the Euro average and it's a fair bit higher in some countries (eg France).
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Denmark literally bulldozes ethnic ghettoes. Do you want that in the UK? I do. Glad to have you on board
So what?
The question was whether it was possible have fiscally responsible social democratic government.
People will not accept the high taxes necessary for welfare states if they feel they are being abused by outsiders. This is a known human phenomenon
If you want social democracy then you either have low immigration or you have incredibly strict rules - enforced - around immigration and who gets what
Britain now has the worst of all worlds. See Westminster council giving away central london council housing for life - when 2/3 of the people benefiting were born overseas
If you want to brew civil unrest - keep doing THAT
There's also fairness from the other end though. One of the consequences of Blair era welfare reforms was that a lot of objectively well off people started getting benefits. Winter Fuel Allowance and Child Benefit being two examples. When I worked a dead end retail job on a Sunday I used to sit on the bus and watch all of the well to do pensioners using their free bus pass to go into Cambridge for breakfast and a morning's shopping. Sometimes I was the only one who paid for a ticket. Then, when a government tries to means test things they get accused of attacking pensioners or children.
I remember having to stand up on a bus when I was one of the few people who actually paid for it, whereas all the people sitting down hadn't paid because they had free bus passes.
Yeah me too and it really annoyed me which in turn made me feel ungenerous. I think the perception of fairness is a really important driver in politics that explains a lot of contrary positions that people hold.
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day ... Alphawave, a rare example of a semiconductor company listed in the UK, has moved another step closer to being taken over by US rival Qualcomm after the board recommended the deal to shareholders based on a valuation of just under £2bn.
Then came news that the UK listed precision equipment specialist Spectris received a takeover bid from US private equity outfit Advent, valuing the firm at around £3.5bn. Open for business, indeed.
Meanwhile, an Oxford university spinout, quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics, has agreed to a $1.1bn takeover by US-based rival IonQ. This trio of tech takeovers comes just days after UK fintech darling Wise announced it would shift its primary listing to the US in search of growth. ... This isn’t a problem of Starmer’s making, but it’s getting worse on his watch and it must be confronted. https://www.cityam.com/three-tech-firms-bail-out-of-the-uk-in-a-single-day/
US Equity Houses votes of confidence in UK economy and technology. Are you a half-full sort of person or a half-empty?
But many more benefits accrue overseas than ti the U.K. under this pattern.
It's increasingly urgent for our economy that it changes.
Was changing the regulation of Private Equity not one of the Starmer Election 2024 proposals, that afaics the Govt have chickened-out on?
Under continual attack from a press funded by large vested financial interests, I think you're right that the government are too scared to take on some of these fundamental, hugely structurally significant issues, so far.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Denmark literally bulldozes ethnic ghettoes. Do you want that in the UK? I do. Glad to have you on board
That Danish "parallel societies" Law has been in since 2018 aiui, and is essentially traditional slum clearance (education, income, employment etc) with an added race hygiene element.
Serious Q: is there any evidence that introducing the race hygiene elements made any difference? How many "ghettoes" have been demolished for race reasons? If such evidence does not exist, then there is no reason to consider it.
Denmark, like other countries in Scandinavia and some others in Europe, has a history of policies around eugenics, such as forced sterilisation.
“Race hygiene” - do give over. They just deconstruct ghettoes that are in danger of becoming parallel and separate enclaves in Danish society. It’s very sensible - especially as they can see what has happened in neighbouring Sweden. Or the UK
The centre left government is quite popular and the hard right has been vanquished
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
What taxes would Reform put up?
Do you think they are going to tell you that!!?? However, even if they don't put up taxes, Reform in government will inherit a high tax, high spend economy. What I am saying is that Reform will not significantly cut TME (the public sector spending). They will not be trusted to borrow at a higher rate than now (or even that).
If sensible(!!) they would tax pensioners (me) more, reform council tax to raise it, put VAT at 5% on food and introduce a 'luxury' rate of VAT. And increase fuel and alcohol duty.
As Asquith wisely said, we shall have to wait and see.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Its easier to advocate fiscal responsibility in theory than when it requires advocating actual policies.
To advocate fiscal responsibility requires advocating the end of the triple lock, winter fuel allowance and pension credits.
Plus an increase in the state retirement age to 70 and the ending of DB pensions in the public sector.
It also requires advocating the reform and increase of council tax, especially for the more expensive properties.
And freezing hospital spending and redirecting to public health and primary care. Effectively a brutal assault on the Conservative's only remaining voter cohort.
That's far too crude imo. Hospitals are heavily involved in preventative and public health work.
And a shift to prevention / public health has been the direction for decades.
Yes, you're right about some hospital work being in that area - but there is serious definition creep when it comes to preventative policy. Preventing someone's Type 2 diabetes from killing them is sometimes called secondary or tertiary prevention.
What you want is primary prevention - an environment where people's diets and lifestyle don't lead to it in the first place. Otherwise, NHS spending will continue to explode.
(I'm not convinced that public health has been increasing as a proportion of spending. My understanding was it's been cut significantly - I'll check later once I've sorted my emails out)
I haven't gone into % of money; but I do see a *lot* of prevention programmes - even starting with things as simple as a prope health check when joiningg a new GP practice, and default checks for diabetes etc.
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
What taxes would Reform put up?
Do you think they are going to tell you that!!?? However, even if they don't put up taxes, Reform in government will inherit a high tax, high spend economy. What I am saying is that Reform will not significantly cut TME (the public sector spending). They will not be trusted to borrow at a higher rate than now (or even that).
If sensible(!!) they would tax pensioners (me) more, reform council tax to raise it, put VAT at 5% on food and introduce a 'luxury' rate of VAT. And increase fuel and alcohol duty.
As Asquith wisely said, we shall have to wait and see.
IMO Reform are pure marketing, as they have no significant or practical policies that I can detect, just Nigel with a magaphone and a kaleidoscope.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
Unless you want grannies lugging bricks a lot of building requires a lot of immigrant labour. We don't have the numbers of construction workers otherwise.
Don't train new workers as migrant workers are cheaper.
Then demand more migrant workers as nobody has trained new workers for a decade.
Rinse and repeat.
Then employ illegal migrants to keep costs down and profits up.
The end result is that all the workers in a sector are migrants so no locals would want to work in it.
F1; ah, Ladbrokes has championship markets without McLaren. I shall have to peruse these.
Edited extra bit: hmm... probably not betting. Mercedes at 3 is the only thing that might appeal. Ferrari are just barely ahead of them but the Mercs been chewing its tyres and its engines have been failing lately.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
It is housing costs that are crushing the economy, not taxes.
At least for anyone under 40 without inherited wealth.
And I can think of absolutely loads of places on the outskirts of London that have tonnes of space to build out or build up. We've already seen it in areas like Battersea that must have added many thousands of homes in recent years.
Build, build, and then build some more.
A lot of building has to be done when the population is going up by half a million a year.
I'm starting to think very slightly better of the Treasury. Miliband was reported to have stormed out of talks with Reeves’s deputy, Darren Jones, who conducted the bulk of the negotiations..
£39bn sounds like a good number, but its over 10 years so less than £4bn a year, and would guess the amounts are nominal rather than indexed and back loaded away from the current parliament. So perhaps closer to £3bn a year, or about £10k per house we need to build to hit their manifesto target.
If they can quickly sort out planning its not terrible but its not particularly exciting either.
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
What taxes would Reform put up?
Do you think they are going to tell you that!!?? However, even if they don't put up taxes, Reform in government will inherit a high tax, high spend economy. What I am saying is that Reform will not significantly cut TME (the public sector spending). They will not be trusted to borrow at a higher rate than now (or even that).
If sensible(!!) they would tax pensioners (me) more, reform council tax to raise it, put VAT at 5% on food and introduce a 'luxury' rate of VAT. And increase fuel and alcohol duty.
As Asquith wisely said, we shall have to wait and see.
You seem to be assuming that they will avoid a sovereign debt crisis, rather than drive straight into one.
Yes Reform would be a low tax and big spend party. Their supporters may back that but voters overall want a bit more prudence
No they won't they would (hoping they don't get the chance) be a high tax and high spend government, like every other wealthy European country. It is completely delusional to think otherwise.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
What taxes would Reform put up?
Do you think they are going to tell you that!!?? However, even if they don't put up taxes, Reform in government will inherit a high tax, high spend economy. What I am saying is that Reform will not significantly cut TME (the public sector spending). They will not be trusted to borrow at a higher rate than now (or even that).
If sensible(!!) they would tax pensioners (me) more, reform council tax to raise it, put VAT at 5% on food and introduce a 'luxury' rate of VAT. And increase fuel and alcohol duty.
As Asquith wisely said, we shall have to wait and see.
Reform are going to have to commit seppuku with their core vote then. Another one-term government. Then what?
Of course, we have four years for this to sink in with the voters...
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
Yep. My girlfriend is now on a locum bank because she can’t find even a fixed term contract in a wide geographical area. No wonder many of her friends from university are now in Australia - there’s no jobs for them here!
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
DOGE without the drama. Will never happen, too many vested interests.
We are a nation of lawyers, sub-contractors, gold platers and people who schedule meetings for the sake of meetings.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
internet. People find out about the world and it is not to their liking. Algorithmic feeds engender unease and discontent. Hence political instability.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
France/Netherlands/Sweden all have a signifcantly higher tax burden than we do, and their economies have on a per capita basis grown faster than ours over the last 10 years. There isn't much of a correlation but the idea a low tax economy is the only one that can grow is wrong.
It's probably what we tax and what we spend on that is the issue.
There's also space for sensible changes to regulation of the economy, to make productive business investment easier, and to discourage investment being funnelled into rentier capitalism. Like, FFS, why is leasehold still a thing in England?
There's so much more that could be done that isn't about tax or spending.
“Like, FFS, why is leasehold still a thing in England?”
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
PB could be blacklisted too, though, under this plan.Too much flab created.
In another [partial] u-turn, Labour have now announced £750m in funding for a supercomputer at Edinburgh University, reversing the decision last summer to axe the then £800m project. A year wasted.
No strategy. Completely clueless. Absolute fucking morons.
OTOH, it will be built with a newer generation of processors. Computing capacity isn't like nuclear power stations - it obsoletes much faster.
You can always delay a computer and get a faster one next year, but that's an argument for never buying a computer.
It's a year's delay in having the computer, being able to use it, and seeing the benefits that follow from it.
It's yet another sign of the government not having a plan and not knowing what they're doing.
I don't mind a government doing things I disagree with if I can trust that they have a plan that I can get behind. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the details. Unfortunately this government is all over the place and give no sign of having a plan.
That's as maybe. But the Edinburgh carry on is at least an order of magnitude less consequential than, for example, the decade and half delay in making the Sizewell decision.
All governments make mistakes. This one at least was quite quickly reversed.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
Yep. My girlfriend is now on a locum bank because she can’t find even a fixed term contract in a wide geographical area. No wonder many of her friends from university are now in Australia - there’s no jobs for them here!
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
PB could be blacklisted too, though, under this plan.Too much flab created.
We attend to enable our moaning, not for happiness.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
PB could be blacklisted too, though, under this plan.Too much flab created.
Probably be for the best, would improve productivity for the nation..
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
A focus on security, thereby reducing people's cortisol levels, would also help. Security of tenure, security of employment, security of public spaces.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
Yep. My girlfriend is now on a locum bank because she can’t find even a fixed term contract in a wide geographical area. No wonder many of her friends from university are now in Australia - there’s no jobs for them here!
What on earth are Newcastle NHS managers doing ?!
Not just Newcastle. The North East, Yorkshire, Cumbria
The public now largely recognise that our economy is structurally broken. The question is what to do about it. LabCon governments - despite the rhetoric - get stuck with Treasury orthodoxy which dictates “solutions” which continue the structural issues. We need some outside the box thinking, and at the moment only Reform are doing that.
Set partisan positions aside - this is far too serious an issue to talk about narrow party positions. Unless a mainstream party sees the light and starts proposing something big - think Edwardian era reforms or the post war governments building the modern welfare state - then we are getting Reform UK as our next government.
Whether they have answers or not they are asking the right questions - and for many voters that will be enough…
The two issues are:
(1) Demographics (2) Debt
No-one wants to talk about the latter - presumably because politicians have calculated that no-one wants to hear it - even though we're projected to spend over £100 billion a year on debt interest this year, compared to about £48 billion in 2011.
Have a think about where else that £52 billion could otherwise have gone had interest rates stayed the same.
Come to think of it, no-one wants to talk much about the former either- preferring to maintain the gerontocracy and slipping in high immigration each year to try and maintain the worker ratio - but we need to.
1 is bigger than 2. We remain a huge economy which outside investors want to spend money in. Give them things to invest in which deliver a clear ROI and debt is manageable.
Debt interest is a problem predominantly because our economic output per worker is poor and our growth is sluggish. Invest to drive productivity and you fix 1 and 2.
But “debt” gets used as the excuse for why we can’t afford police officers and doctors and teachers and roads and so we slide further into the mire.
China in building roads globally. We can’t because everything costs £1bazillion per mile in this wretched place. We can’t - like china - invest in positive ROI things like transport. But it needs to be a long term plan and we need to scrap the high cost barriers.
A starter for 10. Create regional road building units. Competitively tendered to experienced construction companies who have to recruit and train local people as part of their contract. With a rolling 10 year program to improve and build new roads. positive ROI all the way through - so they pay for themselves - and we get an army of trained and productive construction workers which again we need.
Debt is a reality I'm afraid, and not an excuse. It can't simply be waved away.
I see China come up a lot. Fine, if you don't want health and safety, sustainability, very lax attitudes to public safety, or any private property or democratic rights.
I agree, we could then get a lot done rather quickly. At a cost, mind - one we wouldn't like.
I’m not suggesting we ignore the debt. far from it - we need to shrink it. But we have to stop being afraid of it. We say we can’t afford teachers because of the debt. So cut teacher numbers and pay MORE for supply cover and mopping up the chaos. We need police officers but can’t afford those either. Crime is free apparently.
I want to train and hire more police and teachers and medics. that will allow us to take an axe to much of the money bleeding out the system in administrative waste. Spend a little more now invested properly to then cut spending long term.
Debt is going up right now, and if we cut the wrong things it will keep going up. We need to borrow to invest. And then the return on that vestment is slashing costs - and debt - as that investment pays out. Like a retail business borrowing to invest in new fridges which slash its energy costs.
You are Tories. Why has investment ceased to be a thing you believe in? Not you personally, your political movement. I don’t get it.
One issue is the debasement of the term 'investment'. So often now it is used when it is actually just 'spending'.
On crime, my dad, the ex police superintendent, always believed that it wasn't police numbers (or lack of) driving crime, it was the economy. So in times of stress on the economy, people without enough money will turn to petty crime.
And here we are. Shoplifting. I suspect a lot is people in genuine need. And some is people who have discovered how easy it is. Like on the tube - if its so easy to not pay, and you see others not paying, then a lot of people will do the same. I don't believe more police is the while answer, although its probable that there is a 'right' number of officers per population, and we are probably below that.
On education - I have had the pleasure to visit schools in the recent past for various reasons. Uniformly they are equipped way beyond what was there in my time at school. I'm thinking huge electronic screens rather than black/white boards and so on. I think money has been spent on schools. There has almost certainly been a failure to maintain school estates - you can extend the life of buildings to some extent but you will eventually extend too long. That said I attended a school in temporary classes that were meant to be for a few years but had been there twenty plus. Didn't harm my actual learning.
And as for spending on education - schools have suffered from the energy price increases and inflation in the same way we all have. Its not just salaries and so on. Add in the new things in teaching - all those classroom assistants, and all these children needing extra care (for some, I am sure, essential, not convinced for all) and then education is going to cost far more (after inflation) than 40 years ago.
As a roughly centre right chap I believe in a smaller state and a safety net for people. I believe in equality of opportunity, not outcome. And I believe in personal responsibility. Education of children starts at home. Many healthcare issues start with lifestyle. And people should work if at all possible.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
A focus on security, thereby reducing people's cortisol levels, would also help. Security of tenure, security of employment, security of public spaces.
Almost like we could learn something from the Scandis.
Interesting vid from a structural engineer of civil engineering foundations evaluating the strength of the Kerch Bridge.
TLDR: it was build several times stronger than normally seen as necessary, so will be very difficult to damage the foundations to the point it become4s unusable or maybe even requires repair.
I linked to that yesterday. I'm quite pleased he seems to agree with what I said about it after the attack.
One interesting feature of the Kerch Bridge is how shallow it is. The channel under the main span is only up to about 8m - which makes sense given the shallowness of the Sea of Azov, and is about 3m deeper than a competition diving pool.
I'm inclined to the thought that it is really down to either taking out the decks, or sailing a boat through with several hundred tons of explosive and sinking it next to the pillars, then a big boom to take out as much as possible including the decks as well. If they can smuggle drones 3000 miles into Russia ...
You want to get the connections, which tend to be the weakest points. Say he point where deck meets pier, or where the arch elements meet the deck. But that requires a demo team or some very accurately placed drones.
Yes, a massive explosion next to a pier could bring it down. But it would need to be much more than 1100kg. And we should also remember it is *two* bridges, not one. You could bring down the road bridge and still leave the rail bridge. Bringing down both is even more difficult - though the initial truck explosion did damage both.
Bridges can be very weak in certain circumstances - see the Baltimore collapse, when a bridge got a nudge from a container ship. But generally they are much stronger than people make out. And sadly in the case of the Kerch Bridge, 'quality' Russian engineering apparently caused them to have a massive safety factor in the pile design.
(There is one other thing to consider: ice. The Soviets apparently built a much smaller bridge across the strait, but that was brought down by floating ice. I can imagine the pile system has also been designed to deal with that - which might be why the dolphins alongside the pier are so massive.)
Thee are some very large ships that through the Kerch Bridge - up to 10s of thousands of tons.
So a couple of hundred tons of TNT on a decent sized fishing boat, for example.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
The irony is that Poland is in some cases (eg armoured vehicles) getting far better kit, and for less money, with that approach. And getting help from Korea to set up manufacturing into the bargain - something that might work well for us if we were to do a shipbuilding deal.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
Get people fitter. Restrict social media. Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
Well I agree - esp the 3rd point. Spreading wealth and opportunity more equally is for me just about the point of politics. If I have an ideology that is it. Seems to be out of fashion atm. People are getting suckered by demagogues, fantasists and con merchants.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
Yep. My girlfriend is now on a locum bank because she can’t find even a fixed term contract in a wide geographical area. No wonder many of her friends from university are now in Australia - there’s no jobs for them here!
The British taxpayer is paying about 90% of the fees to train a doctor and then they're going elsewhere. Another massive fail for the UK.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Its easier to advocate fiscal responsibility in theory than when it requires advocating actual policies.
To advocate fiscal responsibility requires advocating the end of the triple lock, winter fuel allowance and pension credits.
Plus an increase in the state retirement age to 70 and the ending of DB pensions in the public sector.
It also requires advocating the reform and increase of council tax, especially for the more expensive properties.
And freezing hospital spending and redirecting to public health and primary care. Effectively a brutal assault on the Conservative's only remaining voter cohort.
That's far too crude imo. Hospitals are heavily involved in preventative and public health work.
And a shift to prevention / public health has been the direction for decades.
Yes, you're right about some hospital work being in that area - but there is serious definition creep when it comes to preventative policy. Preventing someone's Type 2 diabetes from killing them is sometimes called secondary or tertiary prevention.
What you want is primary prevention - an environment where people's diets and lifestyle don't lead to it in the first place. Otherwise, NHS spending will continue to explode.
(I'm not convinced that public health has been increasing as a proportion of spending. My understanding was it's been cut significantly - I'll check later once I've sorted my emails out)
The best primary prevention, I'll naturally argue, in England is opening up and maintaining the public footpath network (and the other non-PROW footpath networks) to the extent that they become available and practical for local journeys.
The average is that in England we have 2-3 miles of recognised Public Footpaths, Bridleways etc per square mile of country. And at least another mile which is not recognised.
One that I want numbers on is the effect of 1-3 million more dog owners since COVID on public health, Fido demands walkies, which means that 1-3 million more people have to walk every day. Sedentary people can be identified by their cat.
On rich and poor, I'm most of the way into this hour long video on three empires (USA, China, Europe) and one thing singled out as different for Europe is how equal societies are in terms of wealth distribution (I think the definition is the percentage of national wealth owned by the top 10%).
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Being a social democrat and wanting the government to be fiscally responsible aren't exclusive.
No, but - if spending cuts aren't part of the mix - that means the Liberal Democrats will end up advocating for much higher taxes.
There isn't much of a political space for that at the expense of the Conservatives.
We are spending money on the wrong things. We have persuaded ourselves that we can’t afford to pay for teachers and medics and yet cannot function without them. So we pay more for short term cover and crisis management. “That’s a different budget” I’ve been sternly told when I pointed out that the “cut” cost more than it saved. Madness!
How is it that we tip record amounts into things like the NHS only for front-line healthcare to be starved of cash? Why is nobody willing to face the truth - the system is grossly inefficient and a significant part is the “marketised” structure installed under successive LabCon governments. Same in education.
We’re spending more. And getting less. The cut that is needed is to the money which evaporates before it gets to the actual service. Hire more teachers. Dismantle the 704 separate academy businesses.
Yep. My girlfriend is now on a locum bank because she can’t find even a fixed term contract in a wide geographical area. No wonder many of her friends from university are now in Australia - there’s no jobs for them here!
What on earth are Newcastle NHS managers doing ?!
Not just Newcastle. The North East, Yorkshire, Cumbria
What's the process of hiring various bods. Being a SME company we obviously (Well my boss) does it via recruitment agencies because we obviously don't have the heft or visibility to set up a bespoke system. But the NHS could set up a portal where the prospective doctor or nurse uploads their CV and then it's free to view by the recruiters in various trusts bypassing the inefficiency that smaller employers have to use with recruitment agencies and so forth.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
It's easy to generate resentment in a population. Give people small freebies and they won't be particularly impressed, but take them away and they'll be very annoyed. Any government will any understanding of human nature wouldn't risk making this type of mistake, but regrettably most of them only care about attempting to win the next election, so they keep doing it.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Its easier to advocate fiscal responsibility in theory than when it requires advocating actual policies.
To advocate fiscal responsibility requires advocating the end of the triple lock, winter fuel allowance and pension credits.
Plus an increase in the state retirement age to 70 and the ending of DB pensions in the public sector.
It also requires advocating the reform and increase of council tax, especially for the more expensive properties.
And freezing hospital spending and redirecting to public health and primary care. Effectively a brutal assault on the Conservative's only remaining voter cohort.
That's far too crude imo. Hospitals are heavily involved in preventative and public health work.
And a shift to prevention / public health has been the direction for decades.
Yes, you're right about some hospital work being in that area - but there is serious definition creep when it comes to preventative policy. Preventing someone's Type 2 diabetes from killing them is sometimes called secondary or tertiary prevention.
What you want is primary prevention - an environment where people's diets and lifestyle don't lead to it in the first place. Otherwise, NHS spending will continue to explode.
(I'm not convinced that public health has been increasing as a proportion of spending. My understanding was it's been cut significantly - I'll check later once I've sorted my emails out)
The best primary prevention, I'll naturally argue, in England is opening up and maintaining the public footpath network (and the other non-PROW footpath networks) to the extent that they become available and practical for local journeys.
The average is that in England we have 2-3 miles of recognised Public Footpaths, Bridleways etc per square mile of country. And at least another mile which is not recognised.
One that I want numbers on is the effect of 1-3 million more dog owners since COVID on public health, Fido demands walkies, which means that 1-3 million more people have to walk every day. Sedentary people can be identified by their cat.
That's such a massive generalisation. We have two cats, are both of us are (ahem) somewhat active, and far from sedentary...
I'd also query the assumption that those people who got dogs during Covid are giving them anywhere near enough exercise.
Switch on Radio 5 Live's phone-in programme and it's someone calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. Next caller: "There's plenty of money but it isn't being fairly distributed". Cakeism as usual.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
DOGE without the drama. Will never happen, too many vested interests.
We are a nation of lawyers, sub-contractors, gold platers and people who schedule meetings for the sake of meetings.
No, it’s not DOGE. DOGE just went in & cut programs left right & centre without thought or logic. Programs were cut just because they could be cut, not because they should be cut.
Most of the things the British state want to do are perfectly reasonable - the problem is not the programs, it is that every single time we do anything it seems to cost two to three times as much as it should because of the way we approach doing, well, everything. We can’t go on simultaneously acting as if we can afford to simultaneously delay & gold-plate every project whilst cutting other services to the bone so that we can afford to pay the inflated costs we impose on ourselves.
Switch on Radio 5 Live's phone-in programme and it's someone calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. Next caller: "There's plenty of money but it isn't being fairly distributed". Cakeism as usual.
The old refrain - higher taxes on other people to pay for things I want.
Switch on Radio 5 Live's phone-in programme and it's someone calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. Next caller: "There's plenty of money but it isn't being fairly distributed". Cakeism as usual.
A key question is how to raise taxes on the wealthy, but in other ways keep the country attractive enough for many wealthy people to stay.
Many other European countries have managed this, since the postwar era.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Its easier to advocate fiscal responsibility in theory than when it requires advocating actual policies.
To advocate fiscal responsibility requires advocating the end of the triple lock, winter fuel allowance and pension credits.
Plus an increase in the state retirement age to 70 and the ending of DB pensions in the public sector.
It also requires advocating the reform and increase of council tax, especially for the more expensive properties.
And freezing hospital spending and redirecting to public health and primary care. Effectively a brutal assault on the Conservative's only remaining voter cohort.
That's far too crude imo. Hospitals are heavily involved in preventative and public health work.
And a shift to prevention / public health has been the direction for decades.
Yes, you're right about some hospital work being in that area - but there is serious definition creep when it comes to preventative policy. Preventing someone's Type 2 diabetes from killing them is sometimes called secondary or tertiary prevention.
What you want is primary prevention - an environment where people's diets and lifestyle don't lead to it in the first place. Otherwise, NHS spending will continue to explode.
(I'm not convinced that public health has been increasing as a proportion of spending. My understanding was it's been cut significantly - I'll check later once I've sorted my emails out)
The best primary prevention, I'll naturally argue, in England is opening up and maintaining the public footpath network (and the other non-PROW footpath networks) to the extent that they become available and practical for local journeys.
The average is that in England we have 2-3 miles of recognised Public Footpaths, Bridleways etc per square mile of country. And at least another mile which is not recognised.
One that I want numbers on is the effect of 1-3 million more dog owners since COVID on public health, Fido demands walkies, which means that 1-3 million more people have to walk every day. Sedentary people can be identified by their cat.
That's such a massive generalisation. We have two cats, are both of us are (ahem) somewhat active, and far from sedentary...
I'd also query the assumption that those people who got dogs during Covid are giving them anywhere near enough exercise.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
TBH I think that there are large elements of that in what the current Govt are (tentatively) doing, especially around longer term policy, but there are also certain elements in what Cameron & co did that have been shown to fail - especially around stop-panic-start.
And the risk as I see it is that if Kemi-Kaze & co get back in without having had a brain transplant in the meantime, they'll just repeat all the craziness. For me, one really important element is that the Conservatives get over their USA-fetish.
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
There's little point in being fiscally responsible if they aren't going to reform the supply side of the economy. Remorselessly imposing higher and higher taxes to fund ever higher spending is fiscally responsible and politically easy, but it strangles enterprise and destroys economic growth in the medium-long term.
Low taxes, low spending and light regulation on the other hand generates it. THAT'S the gap in the political market at the moment, not yet another high tax, high spending, enterprise-crushing component of the uniparty.
Denmark has high taxes, but enterprise flourishes and growth is good.
Denmark literally bulldozes ethnic ghettoes. Do you want that in the UK? I do. Glad to have you on board
So what?
The question was whether it was possible have fiscally responsible social democratic government.
You're expecting sequiturs from Leon all of a sudden?
There's a natural space here for the Conservatives to grab the mantle of fiscal responsibility from Reform and Labour, as Matthew Parris wrote over the weekend. However, Kemi seems more interested in picking (and losing) peripheral fights on free speech and culture.
If they don't, then the Liberal Democrats in theory could move into this space - but that'd require them to drop much of the social democrat bit, and given the party is built on beards and sandals that might be a stretch.
Its easier to advocate fiscal responsibility in theory than when it requires advocating actual policies.
To advocate fiscal responsibility requires advocating the end of the triple lock, winter fuel allowance and pension credits.
Plus an increase in the state retirement age to 70 and the ending of DB pensions in the public sector.
It also requires advocating the reform and increase of council tax, especially for the more expensive properties.
And freezing hospital spending and redirecting to public health and primary care. Effectively a brutal assault on the Conservative's only remaining voter cohort.
That's far too crude imo. Hospitals are heavily involved in preventative and public health work.
And a shift to prevention / public health has been the direction for decades.
Yes, you're right about some hospital work being in that area - but there is serious definition creep when it comes to preventative policy. Preventing someone's Type 2 diabetes from killing them is sometimes called secondary or tertiary prevention.
What you want is primary prevention - an environment where people's diets and lifestyle don't lead to it in the first place. Otherwise, NHS spending will continue to explode.
(I'm not convinced that public health has been increasing as a proportion of spending. My understanding was it's been cut significantly - I'll check later once I've sorted my emails out)
The best primary prevention, I'll naturally argue, in England is opening up and maintaining the public footpath network (and the other non-PROW footpath networks) to the extent that they become available and practical for local journeys.
The average is that in England we have 2-3 miles of recognised Public Footpaths, Bridleways etc per square mile of country. And at least another mile which is not recognised.
One that I want numbers on is the effect of 1-3 million more dog owners since COVID on public health, Fido demands walkies, which means that 1-3 million more people have to walk every day. Sedentary people can be identified by their cat.
That's such a massive generalisation. We have two cats, are both of us are (ahem) somewhat active, and far from sedentary...
I'd also query the assumption that those people who got dogs during Covid are giving them anywhere near enough exercise.
Broad based assumptions? On PB?
That can't possibly be true (I assume ).
That dogs are under exercised is very possibly true. My house is on a 1-3 mile dog-walking circuit (which I sometimes walk without a dog) - I have not even tried to work out how much PROW distance we have around here. And there are scores and scores of dogs every day.
A couple of comments from the article and the comments:
1) It is not at all clear to me that the economy is broken. As a GDP we remain 6th in the world. There are imbalances and problems but we remain as a country OK. GDP per capita is comparable with France and Germany. We are talking ourselves down. There are political and redistributist solutions to many of the messes.
The starting point for serious discussion should not be: 'We are a broken third world disaster zone'. We aren't.
2) I don't support Reform, on competence grounds and on then grounds of the company they keep. And some other reasons. But it is delusional to think that they plan to enter 2029 with a Trussplus manifesto. We have to wait and see but a certainty is that they will produce a centrist, socially conservative, gimmick filled, as costed as any other party, social democrat, high tax, high spend programme, reflecting very precisely the socially conservative welfarist opinions of the people of Clacton.
Those arguing that we're Argentina and need a Millei are just idiots wishing catastrophe on the country.
What need to be is Poland.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
DOGE without the drama. Will never happen, too many vested interests.
We are a nation of lawyers, sub-contractors, gold platers and people who schedule meetings for the sake of meetings.
No, it’s not DOGE. DOGE just went in & cut programs left right & centre without thought or logic. Programs were cut just because they could be cut, not because they should be cut.
Most of the things the British state want to do are perfectly reasonable - the problem is not the programs, it is that every single time we do anything it seems to cost two to three times as much as it should because of the way we approach doing, well, everything. We can’t go on simultaneously acting as if we can afford to simultaneously delay & gold-plate every project whilst cutting other services to the bone so that we can afford to pay the inflated costs we impose on ourselves.
At least we’re talking about the substantive issues this morning.
Like many others, I’d prefer a much reduced deficit and reduced borrowing but the impact of reducing public services is disproportionately felt by those with less and generally not those demanding either overt tax cuts or the euphemism of “supply side reforms”.
Yet the Lafferites have a valid point - how do we get long term sustainable growth? Anyone can buy a boom and bust but long term growth? It’s often come from innovation and ingenuity which often means new jobs create those which no longer exist.
We remain a wealthy country and many, though by no means all, live a comfortable existence. Land Value Taxation has to be on the horizon as must a recognition we must do more to get groups such as carers and those with physical disabilities into work and that requires all sectors to look at how they operate.
We also need to redouble our efforts to mitigate long term sickness impact - there is ill health which is a barrier to work and ill health which isn’t.
There’s also another term not used much these days - education. Training and improving the skills of existing workers seems an obvious step.
If we are determined to wean ourselves off using cheap imported labour (as distinct from skilled imported labour), we need to rethink on getting our economically inactive back into some form of productive employment and that requires much more carrot than stick.
That’s more of the problem. For most people, life ranges from okay to very good. Our concerns would seem laughable to most people, in most times, and places.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
This is true. Compared to previous times and to most other countries the UK today is a more than decent place to eke out your years. Yet a significant and growing proportion of the public feel sufficiently pissed off about life to reject all the mainstream political parties. People eh. What can you do.
It's easy to generate resentment in a population. Give people small freebies and they won't be particularly impressed, but take them away and they'll be very annoyed. Any government will any understanding of human nature wouldn't risk making this type of mistake, but regrettably most of them only care about attempting to win the next election, so they keep doing it.
Some truth in this. But I wouldn't lump all the blame on the politicians. Surely the people deserve some too.
Comments
Serious Q: is there any evidence that introducing the race hygiene elements made any difference? How many "ghettoes" have been demolished for race reasons? If such evidence does not exist, then there is no reason to consider it.
Denmark, like other countries in Scandinavia and some others in Europe, has a history of policies around eugenics, such as forced sterilisation.
No strategy. Completely clueless. Absolute fucking morons.
The over 65s are 20% of the population and more than that as a percentage of the voters. We let the dead tree press set the political agenda, but that too is aimed at the elderly readership.
That's the political demographics of the country. We will only get real change when young people turn out to vote for parties willing to tackle the generational inequality.
It's well within their financial capacity, and might have transformed the UK economy (and their investment returns) had it been around for the last couple of decades.
Again, to be fair to Reeves, she's attempting to get them to do something along those lines. But I'm not sure she's up to the task.
That will reveal a lot that is currently unknown about the actual economy and inform realistic policies & decisions.
Good morning, everybody.
It's increasingly urgent for our economy that it changes.
Their spending policies will mirror the wishes of the people of Clacton. Take as guess as to their opinions: we want more NHS, more pensions, more disability payments, and a proper army.
@MattGertz
1. I'm going to thread out the very odd sequence of events that led Fox News anchor John Robert, theoretically a "straight news" guy, to pretend the early hours of June 7 actually happened a day ago in order to avoid pointing out that Donald Trump was wrong about something.
https://x.com/MattGertz/status/1932514155216425269
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/britain-has-handed-over-all-as-90-self-propelled-artillery-systems-to-ukraine/
Computing capacity isn't like nuclear power stations - it obsoletes much faster.
Perhaps LG doesn't understand percentages.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/10/rachel-reeves-to-unveil-39bn-housing-boost-in-spending-review-shake-up
I'm starting to think very slightly better of the Treasury.
Miliband was reported to have stormed out of talks with Reeves’s deputy, Darren Jones, who conducted the bulk of the negotiations..
So cash for Healey and that small ruddy cheeked boy in charge of Health and participation certificates for the rest.
It's a year's delay in having the computer, being able to use it, and seeing the benefits that follow from it.
It's yet another sign of the government not having a plan and not knowing what they're doing.
I don't mind a government doing things I disagree with if I can trust that they have a plan that I can get behind. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the details. Unfortunately this government is all over the place and give no sign of having a plan.
So, kicking the can down the road remains the preferred option.
We hate em all
Sorry, I realise this was a non sequitur post!
America as it exists today was founded as a result of an armed insurrection in protest at the capricious acts of a Mad King
What is the end-game for the current people in charge?
Do they really think they are starting a thousand year Reich, and that nobody will object in any meaningful way to all the shit they are doing?
And eating Faroes Island smoked salmon - absolutely delicious. Supposed to be the best in the world
Morning!
They also have a blueprint. The manner in which the Redeemers took back power in the 1870’s and 1880’s.
I hope they might discover the will soon.
The centre left government is quite popular and the hard right has been vanquished
If sensible(!!) they would tax pensioners (me) more, reform council tax to raise it, put VAT at 5% on food and introduce a 'luxury' rate of VAT. And increase fuel and alcohol duty.
As Asquith wisely said, we shall have to wait and see.
Is there a difference for eg England vs Scotland?
Then demand more migrant workers as nobody has trained new workers for a decade.
Rinse and repeat.
Then employ illegal migrants to keep costs down and profits up.
The end result is that all the workers in a sector are migrants so no locals would want to work in it.
Edited extra bit: hmm... probably not betting. Mercedes at 3 is the only thing that might appeal. Ferrari are just barely ahead of them but the Mercs been chewing its tyres and its engines have been failing lately.
We need to think as if we are a growing, successful eastern European economy: That means when we spend we don’t try and pretend we’re the most powerful country in the world that can afford the best of everything. No, we buy the optimal £/outcome option & accept that it’s not cutting edge, nor will it be perfect in terms of environmental or other concerns: getting a good enough outcome quickly is more important than a more perfect outcome that arrives late& expensive.
That means spending much, much less on endless legal niceties (see HS2, the proposed Thames Crossing, Nuclear plants). It means spending much less on local customisation (see every MoD project ever, HS2, Nuclear plants, etc etc). It means buying cheap & working over buying expensive & might work sometime in the future.
We need a bunch of warships for the Navy? We buy them off-the-peg from South Korea or Japan. We need a new large nuclear plant? We buy a few of the ones South Korea is turning out at the rate of one every two or three years, with no customisations or changes. etc etc etc. We need a Thames Crossing? We do it, or we don’t, without faffing about for fifteen years racking up enormous legal bills. We need to electrify the rail network? We set an annual budget & just get on with it at a steady pace, instead of endless stop-start Treasury angst which just ends up delaying the project & tripling the cost. And so on & on & on.
The problem is that doing all of this cuts into the income & raison d’être of a whole swathe of special interests, both inside & outside government. All of whom have got very used to justifying their absolute necessity to every project this country ever undertakes.
There’s a weird double-think in this country that budgets are limited, but simultaneously we must only have the best. New projects end up enormously expensive, squeezing budgets for the maintenance of existing infrastructure & often ending up with the new project itself being cheese pared back in order to fit within what is financially viable.
If they can quickly sort out planning its not terrible but its not particularly exciting either.
I admire your optimism.
Of course, we have four years for this to sink in with the voters...
They are also counting on public support which is the bit that makes an unreliable press so dangerous
"The King is infallible" is not a blueprint for a functional democracy
Restrict social media.
Narrow gap between rich and poor.
People will end up significantly happier. All are achievable, more achievable than the fig leafs of substantially higher growth by tinkering with our tax code.
We are a nation of lawyers, sub-contractors, gold platers and people who schedule meetings for the sake of meetings.
Must finish header on blobism
PB could be blacklisted too, though, under this plan.Too much flab created.
But the Edinburgh carry on is at least an order of magnitude less consequential than, for example, the decade and half delay in making the Sizewell decision.
All governments make mistakes. This one at least was quite quickly reversed.
On crime, my dad, the ex police superintendent, always believed that it wasn't police numbers (or lack of) driving crime, it was the economy. So in times of stress on the economy, people without enough money will turn to petty crime.
And here we are. Shoplifting. I suspect a lot is people in genuine need. And some is people who have discovered how easy it is. Like on the tube - if its so easy to not pay, and you see others not paying, then a lot of people will do the same. I don't believe more police is the while answer, although its probable that there is a 'right' number of officers per population, and we are probably below that.
On education - I have had the pleasure to visit schools in the recent past for various reasons. Uniformly they are equipped way beyond what was there in my time at school. I'm thinking huge electronic screens rather than black/white boards and so on. I think money has been spent on schools. There has almost certainly been a failure to maintain school estates - you can extend the life of buildings to some extent but you will eventually extend too long. That said I attended a school in temporary classes that were meant to be for a few years but had been there twenty plus. Didn't harm my actual learning.
And as for spending on education - schools have suffered from the energy price increases and inflation in the same way we all have. Its not just salaries and so on. Add in the new things in teaching - all those classroom assistants, and all these children needing extra care (for some, I am sure, essential, not convinced for all) and then education is going to cost far more (after inflation) than 40 years ago.
As a roughly centre right chap I believe in a smaller state and a safety net for people. I believe in equality of opportunity, not outcome. And I believe in personal responsibility. Education of children starts at home. Many healthcare issues start with lifestyle. And people should work if at all possible.
So a couple of hundred tons of TNT on a decent sized fishing boat, for example.
(Of course, I'm just shooting the breeze.)
And getting help from Korea to set up manufacturing into the bargain - something that might work well for us if we were to do a shipbuilding deal.
The average is that in England we have 2-3 miles of recognised Public Footpaths, Bridleways etc per square mile of country. And at least another mile which is not recognised.
One that I want numbers on is the effect of 1-3 million more dog owners since COVID on public health, Fido demands walkies, which means that 1-3 million more people have to walk every day. Sedentary people can be identified by their cat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfDw96JnNSM
But the NHS could set up a portal where the prospective doctor or nurse uploads their CV and then it's free to view by the recruiters in various trusts bypassing the inefficiency that smaller employers have to use with recruitment agencies and so forth.
I'd also query the assumption that those people who got dogs during Covid are giving them anywhere near enough exercise.
Most of the things the British state want to do are perfectly reasonable - the problem is not the programs, it is that every single time we do anything it seems to cost two to three times as much as it should because of the way we approach doing, well, everything. We can’t go on simultaneously acting as if we can afford to simultaneously delay & gold-plate every project whilst cutting other services to the bone so that we can afford to pay the inflated costs we impose on ourselves.
Many other European countries have managed this, since the postwar era.
And the risk as I see it is that if Kemi-Kaze & co get back in without having had a brain transplant in the meantime, they'll just repeat all the craziness. For me, one really important element is that the Conservatives get over their USA-fetish.
Ha! Yes. The Russian SPG appeared to have been designed by someone with a profound hatred of SPG crews.
That can't possibly be true (I assume
That dogs are under exercised is very possibly true. My house is on a 1-3 mile dog-walking circuit (which I sometimes walk without a dog) - I have not even tried to work out how much PROW distance we have around here. And there are scores and scores of dogs every day.