The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
This is my go-to site for speeding and parking. There are a few experienced lawyers on it plus a judge or two. Plenty of people in a similar situation every day, so a chance to read up on others' progress through the court. You'll get a good idea of the success of different approaches e.g. police or camera generated tickets.
Given they've had 1 speeding ticket in 60 years, even if they're unable to get the speed awareness course website to work and take the 3 points, it doesn't seem that they'd need to find a loophole to avoid losing their driving license by accumulating another 9 points in the next 3-4 years.
The Belgian equivalent of Palestine Action have apparently destroyed a load of military equipment destined for Ukraine.
Organised international terrorists. Impossible now to charge and try any of them as protesters, when they are traitors. Charge them all with treason to destroy national security and sentence them all to life imprisonment.
Anyhoo, the Russian and/or Iranian nukes cannot come soon enough, we are a nation that deserves to be nuked.
This is worse than pineapple on pizza, strawberries in bread!!!!
Sounds good to me, and reviews suggest it is good.
My wife tells me that the first time she had pineapple on pizza was in a restaurant in Italy whilst there on business.
Where in Italy? The worse restaurant pizza I ever had was in Ravenna. Which makes sense, as Italian food is regional and pizza is as foreign in Ravenna as it is in London
The business trip went to Sardinia and a number of mainland locations, but I'm afraid she can't remember where the restaurant was.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
Sir Ed Davey (or just possibly Daisy Cooper) waves hello!
He's not waving, he's drowning. Or is it just another watery stunt?
Definitely NOT drowning. Where the Lib Dems are credible they are winning even more- as we saw in Edinburgh last night. Your reminder that Reform have 5 MPs, the Lib Dems 72, because it is the concentration of votes that wins, not the national percentage. Nevertheless the Lib Dems are moving up in the national percentage too.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
Maybe I am super saddo, but I actually found it quite interesting (it only lasted 2-3hrs so it wasn't like it was a long time). What was scary was how few people seemed to have any idea of the rules of the road.
I did one back when it was in person, impression I came away with was that most participants drove everywhere at about 40mph, in a 20, 30 and on the motorway. Scarier was the (lack of) hazard perception.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
What was so good about 2003?
The year before we opened the border for mass EU immigration, I think. That's really where it all started.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
What was so good about 2003?
Ocean Nightclub in Nottingham had an 80s night with all drinks £1.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
What was so good about 2003?
Ocean Nightclub in Nottingham had an 80s night with all drinks £1.
The early 2000s, the era of WKD Orange / Blue for £1....
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The British Retail Consortium has said they think 1 in 10 jobs will go because of this change to the threshold. Of might say of course they are a lobby group, so they would say that wouldn't they.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
Right, the NICs changes in isolation are either very good (very small businesses), neutral (small businesses), quite shit (very large employers of NMW staff). It's the other stuff that's more problematic.
It's incorrect to say a new barrier had been put in place. It's been moved a bit, for the better in one respect. I definitely agree on a taper, though a entirely NICs free allowance up to about 40 NMW employees before the taper begins would be ideal based on eyeballing business growth rate by headcount - it's 50 where you start to get serious scales of economy and therefore start to gain some market power.
I'm not sure about just taxing profit. Wouldn't that just incentivise even more zombie firms?
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
What was so good about 2003?
Last time I went on a demo. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The British Retail Consortium has said they think 1 in 10 jobs will go because of this change to the threshold. Of might say of course they are a lobby group, so they would say that wouldn't they.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
Right, the NICs changes in isolation are either very good (very small businesses), neutral (small businesses), quite shit (very large employers of NMW staff). It's the other stuff that's more problematic.
It's incorrect to say a new barrier had been put in place. It's been moved a bit, for the better in one respect. I definitely agree on a taper, though a entirely NICs free allowance up to about 40 NMW employees before the taper begins would be ideal based on eyeballing business growth rate by headcount - it's 50 where you start to get serious scales of economy and therefore start to gain some market power.
I'm not sure about just taxing profit. Wouldn't that just incentivise even more zombie firms?
I am not saying just tax profit, I am saying the balance is wrong. I fully understand why government have gone the way they have, because at the large scale multi-nationals it is too easy to avoid tax on profits, but at the smaller end the burden it too high on turn-over. We have a big problem in the UK with lack of medium-sized companies compared to nations of a similar scale, so of it is government, some of it is mindset e.g. the Americans generally aren't wanting to sell their company when its 50 people, they want to go big.
You really want those 50 people companies to go big and before employers of 1000s of people, go global, etc. For the UK economy it is then great, more jobs, more tax revenue, etc etc etc.
I feel none of you have read the final paragraph in the header.
The most brutal thing in The Spectator article is this observation about Badenoch ‘Another senior Tory concluded: ‘She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist’ which is not something someone aspiring to be Prime Minister should ever audition for in my humble opinion.
In my experience, to become a Spectator columnist - let alone a successful Spectator columnist - you need a lot more brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft than is available to the average British politician ...
...Rod Liddell, Julie Birchill, Toby Young. Not the first people you think of when discussing "brains, talent, imagination and intellectual heft". Or the second.
I like (I think it was) Stephen Daldry, who was the only one who objected out loud to the punishment of that man who tweeted about Captain Tom, but most of them are just media tarts. These days it's all screaming-at-trans and metropolitan elite stuff. That bloke who sends in his travel postcards is sort of OK, but it's a small diamond amongst the very rough
Given his flint knapping inclinations, that bloke is surely more a semi precious stone than a small diamond.
He’s the piece of grit you always get in your Vaseline.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
What was so good about 2003?
The year before we opened the border for mass EU immigration, I think. That's really where it all started.
No, that was the middle of the New Labour crack up boom in house prices. Mass immigration started in the late 90s; EU expansion just meant that more of it came from Europe, temporarily.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
The only one near is probably (Sic) David Blunkett!😂😂😂🦯🦯🦯
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
The only one near is probably (Sic) David Blunkett!😂😂😂🦯🦯🦯
The man who couldn't see any upper limit on immigration.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The British Retail Consortium has said they think 1 in 10 jobs will go because of this change to the threshold. Of might say of course they are a lobby group, so they would say that wouldn't they.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
Right, the NICs changes in isolation are either very good (very small businesses), neutral (small businesses), quite shit (very large employers of NMW staff). It's the other stuff that's more problematic.
It's incorrect to say a new barrier had been put in place. It's been moved a bit, for the better in one respect. I definitely agree on a taper, though a entirely NICs free allowance up to about 40 NMW employees before the taper begins would be ideal based on eyeballing business growth rate by headcount - it's 50 where you start to get serious scales of economy and therefore start to gain some market power.
I'm not sure about just taxing profit. Wouldn't that just incentivise even more zombie firms?
I am not saying just tax profit, I am saying the balance is wrong. I fully understand why government have gone the way they have, because at the large scale multi-nationals it is too easy to avoid tax on profits, but at the smaller end the burden it too high on turn-over. We have a big problem in the UK with lack of medium-sized companies compared to nations of a similar scale, so of it is government, some of it is mindset e.g. the Americans generally aren't wanting to sell their company when its 50 people, they want to go big.
You really want those 50 people companies to go big and before employers of 1000s of people, go global, etc. For the UK economy it is then great, more jobs, more tax revenue, etc etc etc.
I guess I don't think of business success by headcount. I think that's part of the reason we have rubbish productivity figures - an obsession with maximising the number of jobs rather than the total return to labour.
Not sure barely profitable firms with 10,000s of staff is great for the UK. Better to have 100 firms with 100 employees.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
The only one near is probably (Sic) David Blunkett!😂😂😂🦯🦯🦯
The man who couldn't see any upper limit on immigration.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
I think it's the most likely outcome. Still, four years to go, a lot can happen in that time.
'Labour most seats' is the front runner in the betting for the next election, though not by much. Personally I think they are value. I would say at the next government being Labour led, either alone or in coalition is about a 65-70% chance. Reform led, about 20-25% chance. Other outcomes therefore 5-15% chance.
Big unknown at the moment is if SKS is even going to fight it.
On current form I’m beginning to find myself persuaded he will throw in the towel by then.
Thee only hope for Labour, and for renewal of the country is for Starmer to be replaced by someone with vision.
The only one near is probably (Sic) David Blunkett!😂😂😂🦯🦯🦯
The man who couldn't see any upper limit on immigration.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
I'm certainly not a Labour supporter but what else could Reeves do?
To create more headroom would require even more tax rises and spending cuts.
And it's quite clear they aren't going to be able to get any meaningful spending cuts through their backbenchers.
It's obvious that the only thing they can do is raise employers NI - because it is the only really big tax raiser that the average person doesn't understand and therefore doesn't think it impacts them - so it's the only big tax increase that can be made without an outcry.
So expect another really big increase in employers NI - whatever is needed to raise about £15bn to £20bn.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
I think it's only a demand for student visa applicants so far. Visitor and work visa applications don't require it.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
Not just as a strategist, but as an economist. The new cliffedges over when employer NI kicks in is absolutely moronic if you want growth and we also want to get people back into some sort of work.
New cliff edge? They've increased the employment allowance a bit to bring more smaller businesses completely out of it.
If you're talking about the secondary threshold then that affects the number of hours you might employ someone - and again, that's not a new cliff edge, just a change to an existing one from about 14 hours per week to 8, NMW equivalent.
Ok, if you want to get picky, adjusted cliffedges. The 14hr to 8hr is really bad. Loads of people like mothers can do 14hrs a week fitted around the kids, organisations like supermarkets love to employ them, but 8hrs isn't enough for either to make it worthwhile.
As for the employer allowance, they have set the cliffedge as what was it 4-5 employees, so there is a massive disincentive to expand beyond that now.
I've previously looked at how stuff like this affects contracts and there wasn't anything significant. Mandatory breaks were a bigger issue (4 hours) and even then the impact was minuscule. Most employers like to get substantial hours in a week just to reduce training overheads.
You might disagree with the employment allowance edge but you can't deny Labour have improved it significantly - double what it was before. I'd keep going and make it equivalent to 10, 20 employees (I'm sure clever analysts can work out the most dynamic small business size before things get clunky), or some sort of taper.
The British Retail Consortium has said they think 1 in 10 jobs will go because of this change to the threshold. Of might say of course they are a lobby group, so they would say that wouldn't they.
On the second thing, my argument is that this is a classic behavioural economics issue. The situation is slightly better than before economically (although higher minimum wages, higher business rates, etc), but you have now put an artificial barrier in place, which we know people negatively react to. They don't look at the money saved from before, they will look at the extra money due if they expand. Tapering all the way up the scale is the solution.
Its a real problem in the UK economy. One man band isn't too bad, mega corp the government seems to listen to them and not go too hard (and they have scale to adjust), but turn over taxes on small businesses are crippling. Trying to grow from 2-3 people to 50 to 500 is brutal because of all these taxes on just existing rather than profit.
Right, the NICs changes in isolation are either very good (very small businesses), neutral (small businesses), quite shit (very large employers of NMW staff). It's the other stuff that's more problematic.
It's incorrect to say a new barrier had been put in place. It's been moved a bit, for the better in one respect. I definitely agree on a taper, though a entirely NICs free allowance up to about 40 NMW employees before the taper begins would be ideal based on eyeballing business growth rate by headcount - it's 50 where you start to get serious scales of economy and therefore start to gain some market power.
I'm not sure about just taxing profit. Wouldn't that just incentivise even more zombie firms?
I am not saying just tax profit, I am saying the balance is wrong. I fully understand why government have gone the way they have, because at the large scale multi-nationals it is too easy to avoid tax on profits, but at the smaller end the burden it too high on turn-over. We have a big problem in the UK with lack of medium-sized companies compared to nations of a similar scale, so of it is government, some of it is mindset e.g. the Americans generally aren't wanting to sell their company when its 50 people, they want to go big.
You really want those 50 people companies to go big and before employers of 1000s of people, go global, etc. For the UK economy it is then great, more jobs, more tax revenue, etc etc etc.
I guess I don't think of business success by headcount. I think that's part of the reason we have rubbish productivity figures - an obsession with maximising the number of jobs rather than the total return to labour.
Not sure barely profitable firms with 10,000s of staff is great for the UK. Better to have 100 firms with 100 employees.
Surely if they're barely profitable at that scale then management have fucked up and over hired and need to rightsize the company before it starts losing money.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
I think it's only a demand for student visa applicants so far. Visitor and work visa applications don't require it.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
I think it's only a demand for student visa applicants so far. Visitor and work visa applications don't require it.
They're just going for the easy targets first, as autocratic governments always do. Fuck em.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
We just got two aircon units, one for our room and one for the kids room, summers are becoming unbearably hot in the south of the country and not being able to sleep for long periods in the summer is ruining family life, the kids are cranky, my wife is constantly annoyed and I'm always on edge. Just need to install them this evening before the heatwave starts on Sunday.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
Is this to check whether they've said hurtful things about DJT?
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
It makes no sense at all. Air sourced heat pumps are very efficient for heating, and when they're needed for cooling, renewable energy generation is more reliable anyway.
The U.S. is asking those applying for student and exchange visas to “make their social media public” as part of the vetting process.
I wonder how social media is defined or what “make public” means.
You can set profiles to private on Instagram etc... They want profiles set to public viewing so homeland security are able to vet it without getting a court order to force Facebook to hand it over.
So idiotic. Every IT security briefing tells you to make social media accounts private. Now the US government wants every scammer and fraudster to be able to raid your profile for social engineering attacks. I'd probably just delete Facebook if this is a real demand.
Is this to check whether they've said hurtful things about DJT?
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
Which again was in Labour's abandoned Green Growth plan. It would simultaneously given Labour greater credibility on long-term economic planning, and having a central vision.
Nearly all junked now, and Ed Miliband's stock, as one of the most effective Labour ministers, would also be a lot higher than it is now if it hadn't been, as he spent about five years planning it.
Con HAS imploded and Lab ARE imploding - Farage is going to be PM isn't he?
Sir Ed Davey (or just possibly Daisy Cooper) waves hello!
He's not waving, he's drowning. Or is it just another watery stunt?
Definitely NOT drowning. Where the Lib Dems are credible they are winning even more- as we saw in Edinburgh last night. Your reminder that Reform have 5 MPs, the Lib Dems 72, because it is the concentration of votes that wins, not the national percentage. Nevertheless the Lib Dems are moving up in the national percentage too.
Reform need to maintain a high percentage or their potential number of seats will drop dramatically in a non-linear fashion.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
Had we done that we'd probably be further towards net zero anyway.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
Had we done that we'd probably be further towards net zero anyway.
Yes and no. Our emissions over the last 20 years would have been higher, but we'd be better placed for the future in every respect.
I am always struck just how UK politics is so nepotistic. Its always seems like everybody's brother, sister, husband, wife is also involved. I didn't realise Morgan McSwinney's wife was an MP and Jonathan Reynolds wife is a long time special advisor to PMs.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
If the suburbs and rurals use their solar to cool themselves then they're not exporting that energy to the overpopulated urban centres.
I simply don’t recognise this Britain. Why aren’t the other passengers squirming uncomfortably and peering fiercely into their phones.
I absolutely f##king hate how so many people when presented with live music insist on filming it on their cellphones. It feels like 75% of the people at gigs now watch the entire performance through the screen of their phone.
A very good point made on the BBC has been the serious mistake Reeves has made by stubbornly running the Treasury with a vanishingly small amount of fiscal headroom, so that every time a fiscal event comes round she’s run out, and needs to claw some money back from somewhere.
It’s happened once already and it’s already odds on to be happening again in the autumn. In “mid term”, budgets should be dull affairs, a bit of tinkering here, the odd little tweak there, but keeping the overall trajectory broadly on track.
But Reeves has made everything dependant on a very small window being hit. Pretty much any policy reversal or change can knock her off course, and create negative news cycles of tax rises/spending cuts.
SKS is poor, I think we all know that, but Reeves is the really terrible strategist in this government.
I'm certainly not a Labour supporter but what else could Reeves do?
To create more headroom would require even more tax rises and spending cuts.
And it's quite clear they aren't going to be able to get any meaningful spending cuts through their backbenchers.
It's obvious that the only thing they can do is raise employers NI - because it is the only really big tax raiser that the average person doesn't understand and therefore doesn't think it impacts them - so it's the only big tax increase that can be made without an outcry.
So expect another really big increase in employers NI - whatever is needed to raise about £15bn to £20bn.
You want to eliminate growth completely and add to unemployment
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
If the suburbs and rurals use their solar to cool themselves then they're not exporting that energy to the overpopulated urban centres.
Heh. I think that would be more than offset by the use of heat pumps leading more people to get solar.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Just pay the fine and move on. Her Maj doesn't want to waste a day of her life in a room full of boy racers being lectured about the bleeding obvious.
So much bad advice.
Do the course, but do it online. As long as you can work a laptop or phone with a working video camera and mic, you're golden.
No conviction. No need to remember the details of the offence and fine every time you take out car insurance for the next 5 years.
It depends on how much you value time (every minute is precious) compared to money (more than enough, thank the lord). This equation changes as you get older, so anyone who's been driving for 60 years may think differently to someone half their age. Last time I got a ticket I declared it on my insurance renewal and they said it makes no difference. This means the system actually works. With three points on my licence I became a little more cautious, and back in the day when I had six I was very cautious indeed. If I sold car insurance I'd consider offering a discount to anyone with nine points. They'll be the ones crawling along at 20mph in front of you.
Yes, you could say that taking the course keeps you 2 steps away from insurance premium pain, rather than 1.
I've been on 9, in my thirties. I'd like to say I became a good insurance risk, but that would be a lie.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
You pay no VAT on air source heat pumps until 2027. This includes the bi-directional version of air conditioning.
I have these units - they pump heat either way. Touch of a button.
We have one in the bedsit sort of room over our garage, originally installed as wasn't practical to extend the central heating out there. This year I think we will be sleeping out there quite a bit because of the ability to run it in cooling mode.
I simply don’t recognise this Britain. Why aren’t the other passengers squirming uncomfortably and peering fiercely into their phones.
I absolutely f##king hate how so many people when presented with live music insist on filming it on their cellphones. It feels like 75% of the people at gigs now watch the entire performance through the screen of their phone.
On the subject of A, please can someone ask chatgpt what the 50003rd prime number is. It is giving me very strange answers.
Well, you can work out approximately what it will be, because the distribution of primes follows a fairly comprehensible pattern. That is ln(50003) is 10.82 - which means that the 50,003rd prime is going to be about 541,135. (Only that won't be it, because that's divisible by 5. You can could the odd numbers not ending in 5 up and down from there and make a good guess by checking if the other odd numbers nearby - ..1,..3,..7,..8 are divisible by 3 by adding the digits.)
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
You pay no VAT on air source heat pumps until 2027. This includes the bi-directional version of air conditioning.
I have these units - they pump heat either way. Touch of a button.
And the cost even after the grant of getting a dual use heat pump installed is going to start at about 5k where as the cost to put in an aircon unit starts around 500
I simply don’t recognise this Britain. Why aren’t the other passengers squirming uncomfortably and peering fiercely into their phones.
I suppose it's slightly preferable to the image of Britain we were being presented with last night: a place crawling with immigrant rapists and literally everywhere being a no-go area for anyone holding a mobile phone.
I recall George Robertson (former NATO sec general) saying Putin was far more concerned about Ukraine joining the EU than NATO. At the end of the day, NATO is "just" a defence pact, that the likes of Turkey have joined. EU membership implies an existential shift in economic, governance, and societal norms away from the Russian model and sphere. VVP unlikely to be happy...
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
You pay no VAT on air source heat pumps until 2027. This includes the bi-directional version of air conditioning.
I have these units - they pump heat either way. Touch of a button.
Isn't it planning rules which discourage ASHP in London ?
Just looked that up. The rules were amended under the new planning bill, last month. Another small plus from Starmer to set against the rest of the mess.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
My wife has a speeding charge; first for 60+ years, before anyone asks. She's been offered the usual choice; Speed Awareness Course or fine. So, of course, she wants to do the course. BUT the website won't load and the 'advisors' at Essex Police's office are all, it seems, too busy to answer the phone. Grrr
Never do the course, it's an act of submission. Deny, deny, deny. Then pay up if you have to.
do the course, if you can, its quite an interesting cross section of peeps.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Air conditioning in homes simply isn't British. You just have to put up with it.
Just had another day brewing, and I'm still absolutely loving it
I go to a designated AONB and turn bags of grain into mouth parties, what's not to love?
We've just gone past a thousand bottles made this year, for about £700 of ingredients. We've spent over a grand on equipment, including this week a load of new kegs to save us time on bottling
If I don't include my time working in the costs, which I'm not inclined to due to the enjoyment, I'm making delicious cheap beer
If I do include my time at NMW, it's costing about three or four quid a beer
We're planning to scale up so that we can double production with about twenty percent more work, then start selling the surplus to mates to fund the operation, but we'll need to buy a load more expensive kit to get there
I'm rather pleased that the beer we're making is good enough for us to consider scaling up
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Someone else pointed this out last week. Seems crazy to me - having dual use heat pumps would massively incentivise their installation in the south of England, and typically it's hottest when we have loads of solar (9GW today). You'd save loads of carbon in the cooler months while improving people's lives during the summer.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
gov policy refuses to support heat pumps as air conditioning, so no grant. But a competent engineer can reorganise the pipework.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
There was a C19 politician - possibly Irish -who used to end all of his speeches "and furthermore I agree with everything I have just said". Unfortunately this is a fact I remember from the pre-internet era and I can find no evidence of this on the internet.
Did not Jack Straw once add “it says here” to an announcement?
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
Some backbench Labour MPs have concerns that the new proposals will treat people with the same conditions differently, depending on whether they are existing or new claimants. The BBC has been told some have sought legal advice over whether the creation of a "two-tier" system would be allowed. The prime minister's spokesperson declined to say if the government had sought similar legal advice but stressed that it wasn't unusual to have different sets of rules for different benefit claimants.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
There are politicians who will deny they said what they just said.
There are politicians who do not understand what they just said, for instance Boris at that Covid press conference where he said he was looking forward to visiting his mother, just after telling Joe Public to stay at home.
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
If it was ever sold it would cost the new owner about 50p and a packet of organic, fair trade, Quinoa-flavoured crisps
We were talking about quality, not quantity.
Yes, that will be great solace to all the New Statesman writers when the magazine goes bust and they have nowhere to write
"But, we were quality!"
Journalism of this ilk is always the fine art of writing good clever prose that is ALSO readable, entertaining and accessible - ie popular
There's no point in writing "well" if no one wants to read it: indeed, it means you have not written well
It's like saying "that guy that always gets knocked out at the second round of Wimbledon has one of the best backhand spins I've ever seen". That may or may not be true, but he is certainly not good at tennis
Some backbench Labour MPs have concerns that the new proposals will treat people with the same conditions differently, depending on whether they are existing or new claimants. The BBC has been told some have sought legal advice over whether the creation of a "two-tier" system would be allowed. The prime minister's spokesperson declined to say if the government had sought similar legal advice but stressed that it wasn't unusual to have different sets of rules for different benefit claimants.
Andy McDonald of Middlesbrough has already said he'll vote against the latest policy.
The essence of Sir Keir. A vegetarian who eats chicken when he’s a bit hungry.
People welcoming the 'candour' in Starmer's Observer interview. In it, he concedes he gave a major speech on immigration, the number one issue of concern to voters. But admits he hadn't properly read it, didn't believe it, didn't want to do it, and regrets delivering it.
Don't think I've ever heard a politician say they read a speech they didn't agree with. There really is a first time for everything.
There are politicians who will deny they said what they just said.
There are politicians who do not understand what they just said, for instance Boris at that Covid press conference where he said he was looking forward to visiting his mother, just after telling Joe Public to stay at home.
Boris understood the meaning of borrowing a tenner; it was just the implication of paying it back that he didn't.
Health will get a big boost, admittedly at the expense of much else.
What there has been a huge lack of is vision, symbolised by the terrible decision to heavily water down the green growth plan. What he needs to do first is get in a new lot of people around him who can articulste a vision, and get rid of McSweeney.
The tories on here will fucking despise him and all his works no matter what he does as is their right and inclination. His current Red Reform strategy might be his least worst option.
Basically, the British voters hate everything and each other. They keep voting for self-harming nihilism like Brexit and then wondering why everything's fucked. They want lower taxes, better public services, a renewed sense of national purpose and time travel to either 1959 or 2003. If any politician can come up with a compelling vision of how to achieve that, they are laughing.
"China is on track to install ~20 times more solar in 2025 than the United States."
The fact that China gets praised for things like this despite massive increases in its CO2 output suggests that targetting net zero is the wrong approach. We should ignore net emissions (for now) and just focus on building modern infrastructure.
In the words of Mrs Thatcher, just reojoice at that news.
Proof that the western policy of targetting net zero has been a total failure.
No matter what you call it we need to reduce fossil fuel use and increase renewables.
The problem is that if you target net emisisons then you start focusing on the wrong things (like discouraging air conditioning because it uses energy).
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Air conditioning in homes simply isn't British. You just have to put up with it.
Air conditioning is rather energy intensive - which isn't a problem if it's a cooling because the sun is out (we are going to have an insane amount of excess energy from solar panels) but is a problem in winter where cheaper more fuel efficient options are available...
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
If it was ever sold it would cost the new owner about 50p and a packet of organic, fair trade, Quinoa-flavoured crisps
We were talking about quality, not quantity.
Yes, that will be great solace to all the New Statesman writers when the magazine goes bust and they have nowhere to write
"But, we were quality!"
Journalism of this ilk is always the fine art of writing good clever prose that is ALSO readable, entertaining and accessible - ie popular
There's no point in writing "well" if no one wants to read it: indeed, it means you have not written well
It's like saying "that guy that always gets knocked out at the second round of Wimbledon has one of the best backhand spins I've ever seen". That may or may not be true, but he is certainly not good at tennis
That's not true - to sell well you don't just need to write well, you need an editor to commission and edit, an audience willing to spend money and marketing to attract that audience.
The Spectator has done all 4 things well, the New Statesman has at best done 2 of them.
Do those posh stylists like Ferninand Mount, and Theodore Dalrymple still write for the Spectator ?
They could on occasion be reasonably fun.
Mount well into his 80s now. His "Chronicle of Modern Twilight" sequence of novels is well worth seeking out. Not as celebrated as his uncle Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time" but hold a similar addictive appeal. Elegantly written but very realistic about human relations and power plays.
I believe it will be 35 degrees in London this Monday and the government of course penalises residential air con.
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
Air conditioning in homes simply isn't British. You just have to put up with it.
Air conditioning is rather energy intensive - which isn't a problem if it's a cooling because the sun is out (we are going to have an insane amount of excess energy from solar panels) but is a problem in winter where cheaper more fuel efficient options are available...
No words currently exist to describe Starmer's utter unsuitability and hopelessness as Prime Minister
Sirkeirness must be born as an appropriate neologism
It's a bit like Trussness, but her side booted her out. What will Labour do?
It's way harder for Labour members to boot out a leader than the Tories.
Equally I'm not sure who you could replace her with - it's not like they have someone like Rishi who was preferred by MPs in the wings quietly waiting to take over.
The reality is none of the Cabinet look much better..
Comments
Kudos to Mrs OKC for her driving
Scarier was the (lack of) hazard perception.
It's like when someone reads out a well-prepared and specific written apology to the press after losing a high-profile libel case.
It's incorrect to say a new barrier had been put in place. It's been moved a bit, for the better in one respect. I definitely agree on a taper, though a entirely NICs free allowance up to about 40 NMW employees before the taper begins would be ideal based on eyeballing business growth rate by headcount - it's 50 where you start to get serious scales of economy and therefore start to gain some market power.
I'm not sure about just taxing profit. Wouldn't that just incentivise even more zombie firms?
You really want those 50 people companies to go big and before employers of 1000s of people, go global, etc. For the UK economy it is then great, more jobs, more tax revenue, etc etc etc.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/jan/02/housingmarket.houseprices
House prices up 25% in 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3265219.stm
Not sure barely profitable firms with 10,000s of staff is great for the UK. Better to have 100 firms with 100 employees.
To create more headroom would require even more tax rises and spending cuts.
And it's quite clear they aren't going to be able to get any meaningful spending cuts through their backbenchers.
It's obvious that the only thing they can do is raise employers NI - because it is the only really big tax raiser that the average person doesn't understand and therefore doesn't think it impacts them - so it's the only big tax increase that can be made without an outcry.
So expect another really big increase in employers NI - whatever is needed to raise about £15bn to £20bn.
https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1938529615972053157
We’ve just had a “heat dome” here in New York, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees in my neck of the woods. You would be considered mentally unfit if you suggested forsaking air con here.
I might write a letter to my MP. Quite rare for me to be this upset about a policy.
Air sourced heat pumps are very efficient for heating, and when they're needed for cooling, renewable energy generation is more reliable anyway.
Nearly all junked now, and Ed Miliband's stock, as one of the most effective Labour ministers, would also be a lot higher than it is now if it hadn't been, as he spent about five years planning it.
I am always struck just how UK politics is so nepotistic. Its always seems like everybody's brother, sister, husband, wife is also involved. I didn't realise Morgan McSwinney's wife was an MP and Jonathan Reynolds wife is a long time special advisor to PMs.
This isn't just a Labour thing, its all of them.
https://x.com/mcandidate/status/1938309608877011203?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg
I simply don’t recognise this Britain.
Why aren’t the other passengers squirming uncomfortably and peering fiercely into their phones.
It's a view
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/jun/26/uk-businesses-tax-rises-keir-starmer-rachel-reeves-shell-bp-no-bid-business-live?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
You pay no VAT on air source heat pumps until 2027. This includes the bi-directional version of air conditioning.
I have these units - they pump heat either way. Touch of a button.
The EU will launch accession talks with Moldova on July 4th
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1938525603914805399
In the words of Mrs Thatcher, just reojoice at that news.
I've been on 9, in my thirties. I'd like to say I became a good insurance risk, but that would be a lie.
Just looked that up. The rules were amended under the new planning bill, last month.
Another small plus from Starmer to set against the rest of the mess.
https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/draws/ladies-singles/full
There is no comparison
The Spectator - the oldest magazine in the world - has 100,000-120,000 subscribers/readers, and millons online. It is busily expanding into the USA, where Spectator World now has 20,000 rich educated subscribers, reading brilliant articles like this:
https://thespectator.com/life/i-tried-worlds-worst-drink/
Recently it sold for £100m:
"How The Spectator became UK’s most valuable magazine"
https://flashesandflames.com/2024/06/07/how-spectator-became-uks-most-valuable-magazine/
It also has extremely popular podcasts, a TV show, etc
The New Statesman has about 40,000 readers, no international presence, and is in active danger of going under
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/17/publishing-tycoon-pumps-millions-new-statesman-losses-mount/
If it was ever sold it would cost the new owner about 50p and a packet of organic, fair trade, Quinoa-flavoured crisps
I go to a designated AONB and turn bags of grain into mouth parties, what's not to love?
We've just gone past a thousand bottles made this year, for about £700 of ingredients. We've spent over a grand on equipment, including this week a load of new kegs to save us time on bottling
If I don't include my time working in the costs, which I'm not inclined to due to the enjoyment, I'm making delicious cheap beer
If I do include my time at NMW, it's costing about three or four quid a beer
We're planning to scale up so that we can double production with about twenty percent more work, then start selling the surplus to mates to fund the operation, but we'll need to buy a load more expensive kit to get there
I'm rather pleased that the beer we're making is good enough for us to consider scaling up
My apologies to M&S.
Although it was more of a dessert than a sandwich.
gotta love the civil service..
Either way, I imagine the author, whe bears a close resemblance to my stalker, will be rather chuffed with the first comment after that piece:
"Sean, this was beautifully written and made me laugh out loud."
LIONEL SHRIVER
Andrew Sullivan"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html
The BBC has been told some have sought legal advice over whether the creation of a "two-tier" system would be allowed.
The prime minister's spokesperson declined to say if the government had sought similar legal advice but stressed that it wasn't unusual to have different sets of rules for different benefit claimants.
"But, we were quality!"
Journalism of this ilk is always the fine art of writing good clever prose that is ALSO readable, entertaining and accessible - ie popular
There's no point in writing "well" if no one wants to read it: indeed, it means you have not written well
It's like saying "that guy that always gets knocked out at the second round of Wimbledon has one of the best backhand spins I've ever seen". That may or may not be true, but he is certainly not good at tennis
They could on occasion be reasonably fun.
https://www.cambournetowncouncil.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/115/2025/06/Agenda-Pack-30th-June-2025.pdf
Our energy policies are the real austerity.
The Spectator has done all 4 things well, the New Statesman has at best done 2 of them.
Sirkeirness must be born as an appropriate neologism
It's a bit like Trussness, but her side booted her out. What will Labour do?
https://x.com/ferguscraig/status/1938503504970322301?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Equally I'm not sure who you could replace her with - it's not like they have someone like Rishi who was preferred by MPs in the wings quietly waiting to take over.
The reality is none of the Cabinet look much better..