A cryptocurrency company made an ad making fun of the mess Britain finds itself. The ad was banned by the ASA
Promoting a financial investment without highlighting the risks?
That would be illegal that would
Is it not just promoting the platform ?
No different to how investment platforms advertise ?
But investment platforms have the text at the end “investments can go up and down and you may not get all your money back, etc etc”
I have managed to accumulate a few hundred thousands in pensions. I am thinking about retiring in maybe 4 years once I get the old age pension. I am increasingly anxious about where to put this money over the next few years. Our economy is a mess and getting poorer by the day. It is hard to see much growth that is not generated (short term) by debt. Very few opportunities for growth.
The western economy as a whole is not in a good place. That moron is in the White House with his ridiculous tariffs, his attack on the statistics, his appalling Big Beautiful Bill which threatens even the US's stability and financial strength, the damage he is doing is incalculable. China is wildly overexposed to a debt bubble and in danger of a collapse. Safe havens are hard to find.
If my pension funds are worth more than they are today in 4 years time I will be pleasantly surprised. If the environment for pensions is as favourable then as it is today with a major tax free lump sum and generous contributions to my pension fund on payments I would be astonished. The numbers simply do not add up.
So how do I protect myself from the chaos and crisis that is coming? It keeps me awake at night.
I am a doctor, not a pensions advisor, so take my advice with a shovel full of salt.
I think it likely that bond yields will remain high, and interest rates positive, though if you are particularly risk adverse then consider index linked bonds, the UK government ones being RPI linked. A return to real positive interest rates bodes well for annuity, which are now a better buy than they have been for years when you do cash in.
In short, the government paying out a lot of interest is good news for savers like you, if not for the taxpayer.
I think the possibility of a financial crash in the next few years is significant. While in the short term US stocks are on a sugar rush, underlying economic news is not good there, the indicators are being manipulated by Trump. The Crypto-bubble is an obvious Ponzi scheme that will pop at some point, and bubbles typically expand fastest just before they do.
AI may well be the future, though I am not the only one who is sceptical about it being over-hyped, but even if it is, that doesn't mean current companies will benefit. With many transformative technologies there was a bubble with many losing their shirt before the transformation happened. Think dot-com and the Victorian railway boom.
I have money in equities that are moderately risky, but that is part of wider savings, property and of course my NHS pension, so an acceptable level of risk. Depending on your own assets elsewhere this may well not suit you.
Sleep well!
"I am not the only one skeptical about it being over-hyped" is doing a of confusing there
It sounds like you think it DESERVES to be hyped, but that is surely not what you meant to say. Is it?
I think it is being over-hyped as an investment, but perhaps not as a technology.
Sorry if I wasn't very clear, just having a cuppa as a break from cutting my lawn for only the second time in 2 months. The drought seems over in Leics with more rain tomorrow and Monday.
Fair enough. And that's probably a politer response than I deserve after being quite feisty. I blame the lack of booze, I have discovered that being more sober actually makes me MORE combative - alcohol mellows me
I agree that it is a risky investment. I've looked at the early years of electricity, and power companies rose and fell with dramatic speed in the first decades. It was not obvious who would survive
Like electrcity, however (only more so) the technological revolution is real and will change all our lives
The glaring problem is that inference takes real resources which cost real money, and doesn't much benefit from economies of scale once you get beyond a trivial level.
The $300bn valuation of OpenAI based on yesterday's raise doesn't seem so terrifying when measured by the standards of Facebook or Google 15 years ago... it's "only" 23x their $13bn ARR, after all. But once Facebook and Google scaled enough to cover their (admittedly huge) overheads, the rest was pure profit.
OpenAI are nowhere near that - even if they sell $200 of tokens a month to everyone on the planet, their margins will still be negative for the foreseeable future.
The tech is real, and I'm sure someone will eventually work out how to pay for it. But we've not had an economic boom based on a linear cost of scaling for a very long time - not semiconductors, not personal computing, not networking, not dot com, not web 2.0, not crypto. Does anyone really know how to value it?
OpenAI make a profit on inference. Not quite the 70%-ish that Anthropic make - but still a decent chunk of change.
If/when they stop massive training runs of their 'next big thing' - then they'll stop burning cash.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
Did a cycling holiday along the Loire three decades ago. Before kids. It was great.
Part 1: He delves into the history of the chamber, esp the original use of the chamber as St Stephen's Chapel.
Part 2: He says that there is yearning in Britain for meaning. He points out that secular states cannot provide this and it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: The intercedent (name?) points out that the multifaith society we have is made possible by Britain being a Christian state as it provides the framework for secular/non-Christian spaces
Part 4: he points out that two religions are moving in: Islam and Woke. He skips over Islam but attacks Woke as a power hostile to family, communities and nations, and belives with some force that it should be destroyed and it should be a function of Parliament to destroy it
Part 5: He says that the strong gods are back, that worship of the Christian god is necessary to underpin rights and the nation
Part 6: A religious revival is necessary and that the state should be explicitly based on Christian teaching.
My first response is
Part 1: I disagree that the Church of England is the religion of "the country", as every Scot can attest. I'm not sure that England was the first Christian nation. He elides Britain and England.
Part 2: I agree that there is a yearning in Britain for meaning. I'm not sure that a secular state cannot provide this. I agree it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: I was interested in this. It's plausible, but I don't know if it's true
Part 4: I disagree that Woke should be destroyed. I disagree that it should be a function of the state to destroy it.
Part 5: If pressed, I'd disagree with this
Part 6: I'd disagree with this. Give Caesar that which is Caesar's, give God that which is God's
Overall: Christian Nationalism in Britain, with Islam taking the place of Judaism as "tolerated ally" in the American version.
The speech deserves a longer response which I may not be in a position to give. Normally I would consider an article but RSS Conference is in September and I have no headspace. In the meantime I refer you to @Hyufd and @MattW's comments below[1][2]
Why do you disagree that Woke should be destroyed?
Coercion. People objected to woke because it violated free speech and preferred one group to another. Anti-woke, the "Woke Right", and other incarnations wish to violate free speech in the other direction and prefer another group. Both are two sides of the same coin: the wish to make society into what one side wants thru coercion. The better option is to enforce free speech and nondiscriminatory hiring, thereby letting woke wither without installing another plaster god in its place. But Britain being what it is, I doubt this will happen.
Catching up after a day racing at Henley.
“Plaster god”???
Hmmm
Drift away Fade away, little tin goddess Ash to ash Dust to dust Fade to black Fortune, fame Mirror, vain Gone insane Fortune, fame Mirror, vain Gone insane But the memory remains
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
Did a cycling holiday along the Loire three decades ago. Before kids. It was great.
Two of us (a school mate) do a cycle trip in France every year. Non stop laughing. This year the Canal du Midi. The best one was Bordeaux to Biarritz. It takes me longer to organise than to do.
Part 1: He delves into the history of the chamber, esp the original use of the chamber as St Stephen's Chapel.
Part 2: He says that there is yearning in Britain for meaning. He points out that secular states cannot provide this and it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: The intercedent (name?) points out that the multifaith society we have is made possible by Britain being a Christian state as it provides the framework for secular/non-Christian spaces
Part 4: he points out that two religions are moving in: Islam and Woke. He skips over Islam but attacks Woke as a power hostile to family, communities and nations, and belives with some force that it should be destroyed and it should be a function of Parliament to destroy it
Part 5: He says that the strong gods are back, that worship of the Christian god is necessary to underpin rights and the nation
Part 6: A religious revival is necessary and that the state should be explicitly based on Christian teaching.
My first response is
Part 1: I disagree that the Church of England is the religion of "the country", as every Scot can attest. I'm not sure that England was the first Christian nation. He elides Britain and England.
Part 2: I agree that there is a yearning in Britain for meaning. I'm not sure that a secular state cannot provide this. I agree it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: I was interested in this. It's plausible, but I don't know if it's true
Part 4: I disagree that Woke should be destroyed. I disagree that it should be a function of the state to destroy it.
Part 5: If pressed, I'd disagree with this
Part 6: I'd disagree with this. Give Caesar that which is Caesar's, give God that which is God's
Overall: Christian Nationalism in Britain, with Islam taking the place of Judaism as "tolerated ally" in the American version.
The speech deserves a longer response which I may not be in a position to give. Normally I would consider an article but RSS Conference is in September and I have no headspace. In the meantime I refer you to @Hyufd and @MattW's comments below[1][2]
Why do you disagree that Woke should be destroyed?
Coercion. People objected to woke because it violated free speech and preferred one group to another. Anti-woke, the "Woke Right", and other incarnations wish to violate free speech in the other direction and prefer another group. Both are two sides of the same coin: the wish to make society into what one side wants thru coercion. The better option is to enforce free speech and nondiscriminatory hiring, thereby letting woke wither without installing another plaster god in its place. But Britain being what it is, I doubt this will happen.
I hadn't come across the "Woke Right" before. Which PBers fit that description?
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
It's such a disingenuous question and no surprise that the slum lord Matt W is asking about it.
How dare we question your all-purpose ambiguous rhetoric ?
So disingenuous...
I wouldn't worry.
As a general observation, people who are not sure about what they are opposed to are on a random walk shouting at.clouds.
Left the pub and there were two families admiring the Cobra. On chap said he would love a ride in it so I said get in. I don't think he believed I was going to give him a spin. I love doing that.
I took it to a car show a few weeks ago and let kids sit in it while dad's took photos. I think it made the dad's day more than the kids.
I was speaking to a friend this afternoon at a local beer festival who has restored an Alfasud. Has anyone ever seen an Alfasud with no rust!
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
A cryptocurrency company made an ad making fun of the mess Britain finds itself. The ad was banned by the ASA
Promoting a financial investment without highlighting the risks?
That would be illegal that would
Is it not just promoting the platform ?
No different to how investment platforms advertise ?
But investment platforms have the text at the end “investments can go up and down and you may not get all your money back, etc etc”
I have managed to accumulate a few hundred thousands in pensions. I am thinking about retiring in maybe 4 years once I get the old age pension. I am increasingly anxious about where to put this money over the next few years. Our economy is a mess and getting poorer by the day. It is hard to see much growth that is not generated (short term) by debt. Very few opportunities for growth.
The western economy as a whole is not in a good place. That moron is in the White House with his ridiculous tariffs, his attack on the statistics, his appalling Big Beautiful Bill which threatens even the US's stability and financial strength, the damage he is doing is incalculable. China is wildly overexposed to a debt bubble and in danger of a collapse. Safe havens are hard to find.
If my pension funds are worth more than they are today in 4 years time I will be pleasantly surprised. If the environment for pensions is as favourable then as it is today with a major tax free lump sum and generous contributions to my pension fund on payments I would be astonished. The numbers simply do not add up.
So how do I protect myself from the chaos and crisis that is coming? It keeps me awake at night.
I am a doctor, not a pensions advisor, so take my advice with a shovel full of salt.
I think it likely that bond yields will remain high, and interest rates positive, though if you are particularly risk adverse then consider index linked bonds, the UK government ones being RPI linked. A return to real positive interest rates bodes well for annuity, which are now a better buy than they have been for years when you do cash in.
In short, the government paying out a lot of interest is good news for savers like you, if not for the taxpayer.
I think the possibility of a financial crash in the next few years is significant. While in the short term US stocks are on a sugar rush, underlying economic news is not good there, the indicators are being manipulated by Trump. The Crypto-bubble is an obvious Ponzi scheme that will pop at some point, and bubbles typically expand fastest just before they do.
AI may well be the future, though I am not the only one who is sceptical about it being over-hyped, but even if it is, that doesn't mean current companies will benefit. With many transformative technologies there was a bubble with many losing their shirt before the transformation happened. Think dot-com and the Victorian railway boom.
I have money in equities that are moderately risky, but that is part of wider savings, property and of course my NHS pension, so an acceptable level of risk. Depending on your own assets elsewhere this may well not suit you.
Sleep well!
Yes, if it's money for a core retirement income, and someone's outlook is pessimistic or risk averse, there's a strong argument for looking for an annuity (for at least a good proportion of it), rates being relatively high at the moment compared with recent decades. Indeed if you anticipate some sort of collapse, to which a return to near zero rates would be very predictable, then an annuity is almost a no-brainer, unless you wish to retain significant flexibility over how and when you take the money.
In the latter case, there are a stack of funds that don't aim for stellar returns but should offer some protection on the downside; examples include Troy Trojan, BNY Mellon real return, Ruffer, the Rothschild RIT fund, and others. Or research a mix of steady well established companies that aren't going to go under, and pay a reliable dividend, and just sit and wait. But always DYOR.
Personally, I'd avoid putting significant money in the US right now, but then that's been my stance all year, so far not a hugely profitable one except for a few short bursts of profit when Trump was at his worst.
I honestly think he’s best off consulting an IFA.
All of us are different and have different domestics situations and different priorities.
I think as well as individual financial circumstances, one needs to consider what you actually want to do in retirement.
Firstly you need to be coldly actuarial on how long you will live. Of course no one can be certain, but actuaries are actually quite good at these things, better in many ways than my own profession. Then consider how many of those years are going to be in good health. It is important to have some idea of this for planning.
My experience (and I have many older patients) is that once over 80 the desire for travel and consumer goods is pretty much gone, though health related expenditure may rise. I would therefore recommend front loading the pension withdrawals so that you have a higher income between the ages of 67-80 than afterwards.
The huge unknown is the cost of any social care. If you have a partner/spouse who lives in the same house then you may sadly need maybe ≈ £125K stashed to fund two years in a care home near the end. Otherwise you are reliant on either selling the property and spouse downsizing or face the local council paying and therefore choosing the care home you will be in. It will not be good unless you can top up fees and persuade them to send you elsewhere. Two years is the rough average time iirc you will require. V hard to plan for longer as Reeves ditched the cap that had cross-party agreement as soon as she took office.
Sorry to be bleak but this is the reality of the current situation.
And when planning for care, please do NOT expect any more help to come from the State in terms of capping fees etc cos it's not going to happen. It will cost too much and both major parties are unwilling to address it for that reason.
Yep. Dilnott has sailed into the sunset.
It's a disgrace as Wes Streeting told Laura K just days before the election that the cap would be honoured and would go ahead in October 2025.
But it 'aint coming back.
The ball is now in the long grass for after next election and as things stand it will be Farage's problem.
My phone has just reminded me that 9 years ago, this week, I was happily sitting in my glamping tent in Zambesi National Park reading Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa, when I looked up and saw this, passing my personal plunge pool
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
That's what you want it to mean, because it appeals to your vanity.
My phone has just reminded me that 9 years ago, this week, I was happily sitting in my glamping tent in Zambesi National Park reading Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa, when I looked up and saw this, passing my personal plunge pool
My phone has just reminded me that 9 years ago, this week, I was happily sitting in my glamping tent in Zambesi National Park reading Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa, when I looked up and saw this, passing my personal plunge pool
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
That is, the white cloud that Danny Kruger MP wishes to push out of publIC life and deny Government funding.
On both progressive and conservative sides there is a phenomenon - the prioritizing of ideology over truth. When it is on the progressive side it is described as "Woke" by conservatives. When it is on the conservative side it is described as "conspiracy theories" by progressives.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
What ghastly chairs.
Really, that's what you see 😮
Never parked my bike in a posher place. If you blow up the picture you can see my bike and fellow traveler.
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
I have no idea whether I am woke, since no one seems to be able to explain what it means (unless I have missed a reply that clarifies).
It seems to be a fairly generic boo-word that some people like to use, based on their assumptions about other people.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
What ghastly chairs.
Really, that's what you see 😮
Aren't those £12.50 stackable chairs? The sort that do the splits when sat on by a larger person from the USA? And that get thrown in swimming pools in Ibitha?
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
It won’t be easy but it must be done or else we are finished
Parliament is sovereign and can repeal all employment laws, if needs be
But the HoL remains - they need to win with a very clear plan laid out in the manifesto to neutralize them. Can they craft such a manifesto, and can they then win upon it?
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
What ghastly chairs.
Really, that's what you see 😮
Aren't those £12.50 stackable chairs? The sort that do the splits when sat on by a larger person from the USA? And that get thrown in swimming pools in Ibitha?
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
Woke means all of that, only you have to add “but really really really overdone in a ludicrous and obsessive way, by morally narcissistic wankers, such that it corrodes and then destroys western society”
That is, the white cloud that Danny Kruger MP wishes to push out of publIC life and deny Government funding.
On both progressive and conservative sides there is a phenomenon - the prioritizing of ideology over truth. When it is on the progressive side it is described as "Woke" by conservatives. When it is on the conservative side it is described as "conspiracy theories" by progressives.
That's interesting, but it asks questions about how to evaluate truth, or sometimes "Truth", and when alleged truth (or "Truth") becomes ideology, which takes us back to who provides the "big table of cultural assumpions" on which society's conversations take place - perhaps also viewed as an "umbrella" or "firmament" (to use Genesis language for the whole human environment).
Part 1: He delves into the history of the chamber, esp the original use of the chamber as St Stephen's Chapel.
Part 2: He says that there is yearning in Britain for meaning. He points out that secular states cannot provide this and it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: The intercedent (name?) points out that the multifaith society we have is made possible by Britain being a Christian state as it provides the framework for secular/non-Christian spaces
Part 4: he points out that two religions are moving in: Islam and Woke. He skips over Islam but attacks Woke as a power hostile to family, communities and nations, and belives with some force that it should be destroyed and it should be a function of Parliament to destroy it
Part 5: He says that the strong gods are back, that worship of the Christian god is necessary to underpin rights and the nation
Part 6: A religious revival is necessary and that the state should be explicitly based on Christian teaching.
My first response is
Part 1: I disagree that the Church of England is the religion of "the country", as every Scot can attest. I'm not sure that England was the first Christian nation. He elides Britain and England.
Part 2: I agree that there is a yearning in Britain for meaning. I'm not sure that a secular state cannot provide this. I agree it can go horribly wrong.
Part 3: I was interested in this. It's plausible, but I don't know if it's true
Part 4: I disagree that Woke should be destroyed. I disagree that it should be a function of the state to destroy it.
Part 5: If pressed, I'd disagree with this
Part 6: I'd disagree with this. Give Caesar that which is Caesar's, give God that which is God's
Overall: Christian Nationalism in Britain, with Islam taking the place of Judaism as "tolerated ally" in the American version.
The speech deserves a longer response which I may not be in a position to give. Normally I would consider an article but RSS Conference is in September and I have no headspace. In the meantime I refer you to @Hyufd and @MattW's comments below[1][2]
Why do you disagree that Woke should be destroyed?
Coercion. People objected to woke because it violated free speech and preferred one group to another. Anti-woke, the "Woke Right", and other incarnations wish to violate free speech in the other direction and prefer another group. Both are two sides of the same coin: the wish to make society into what one side wants thru coercion. The better option is to enforce free speech and nondiscriminatory hiring, thereby letting woke wither without installing another plaster god in its place. But Britain being what it is, I doubt this will happen.
I hadn't come across the "Woke Right" before. Which PBers fit that description?
I'm not answering that question, neither directly nor via innuendo. What I can do is describe the phrase "Woke Right". it is a 2024 coinage by James Lindsay (but it predates him as these things always do), which was then adopted by people such as Konstantin Kisin.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
What ghastly chairs.
Really, that's what you see 😮
Aren't those £12.50 stackable chairs? The sort that do the splits when sat on by a larger person from the USA? And that get thrown in swimming pools in Ibitha?
Tee hee. Just joking KJH. It's a very nice room.
The feel reminds me of my favourite crypt, which is at Winchester Cathedral with an Antony Gormley figure.
It's even more magical when flooded, as happens there.
It's been 20- years since I first saw it, and I still shiver.
That is, the white cloud that Danny Kruger MP wishes to push out of publIC life and deny Government funding.
On both progressive and conservative sides there is a phenomenon - the prioritizing of ideology over truth. When it is on the progressive side it is described as "Woke" by conservatives. When it is on the conservative side it is described as "conspiracy theories" by progressives.
That's interesting, but it asks questions about how to evaluate truth, or sometimes "Truth", and when alleged truth (or "Truth") becomes ideology, which takes us back to who provides the "big table of cultural assumpions" on which society's conversations take place - perhaps also viewed as an "umbrella" or "firmament" (to use Genesis language for the whole human environment).
Well science used to be a pretty good starting point. It is still fairly easy if you are objective to identify "real" science and science that has been suborned by the progressive prioritization of ideology over truth (if only we had a name for that). We could possibly use wikipedia c. 2010 as a baseline truth, and do a really rigorous analysis of deltas off that to see where science has been corrupted. Identify things in science 2025 that would be unthinkable in 2010 without some enormous discovery (of the order of the discovery of quantum effects) that would lead to such a recalibration.
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
That's what you want it to mean, because it appeals to your vanity.
Gay used to mean happy, too
So what does killing it mean?
Exterminating people like me or political re-education in Cultural Revolution style?
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
That's what you want it to mean, because it appeals to your vanity.
Gay used to mean happy, too
So what does killing it mean?
Exterminating people like me or political re-education in Cultural Revolution style?
For me, it means excluding people like you from any meaningful role in western politics for at least a decade. The method to be determined
That’s the only way to rinse Woke out of the system
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
Woke means all of that, only you have to add “but really really really overdone in a ludicrous and obsessive way, by morally narcissistic wankers, such that it corrodes and then destroys western society”
There. We have a definition of woke
So it's just someone on the left who behaves like you.
For my cycle trip in France it looks like I am going to have to spend a night in Calais (agggh, cock up by me). I asked for bike friendly hotels in Calais. It quite specifically identified in Calais Premier Inn (no they are not there, but they are bike friendly) and a Spanish hotel.
I usually just roll up and ask for a room. Then ask if there is anywhere to store the bike. Every hotel has a nook somewhere - sometimes a ballroom. I've cycled 7 European countries end-to-end and only had a problem once.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
What ghastly chairs.
Really, that's what you see 😮
Aren't those £12.50 stackable chairs? The sort that do the splits when sat on by a larger person from the USA? And that get thrown in swimming pools in Ibitha?
Tee hee. Just joking KJH. It's a very nice room.
I know @Luckyguy1983 . A shed would have been ample. You should have seen the rest of the chateau.
As we turned up a couple arrived in their range rover with their springer spaniel, pink trousers and cravat (the driver not the dog). We were oily, scruffy, smelly and sweaty. Felt a little out of place.
I need to understand this, so I know what will be removed from my society, or unfunded.
Drop kerbs for wheel chair users are about supporting people with Diverse needs to be Included Equitably.
Are they all going to be dug up and replaced with normal kerbs at pedestrian crossings when Danny Kruger is PM?
(The question still stands, btw.)
I am not sure what you want people to tell you.
How about defining the meaning of 'racism'? It means something completely different to every single person, from narrow definitions to vastly stretched all-encompassing ones, yet there is a widespread effort to 'kick it out' of society and make all expressions of it or that might be construed as expressions of it unacceptable and even illegal. Nobody stops to ask how we should define it as if that's a kind of argument for doing nothing about it.
If you were building a successful society in a computer game simulation, would you build one where the population was encouraged to view itself as defined by its 'section' and encouraged in a sense of grievance and underprivilege relative to other groups? Would you build a society that felt guilty enough to borrow money on behalf of its own children to give to other countries whose ancestors its own ancestors were perceived to have wronged? Would you build a society focused on what divides it not what unites it, and produce citizens focused on what compensation they might be entitled to rather than what they could contribute? That refused to control its borders because to do so was perceived as racist? That refused to apply the law equally without favour because that was also perceived as racist? It would be game over pretty quickly.
If building a society in a computer game I would probably reflect on the success criteria.
To answer you on racism, it is as you say a matter of opinion. As a democracy we have public debate like this. And our law around discrimination focuses on acts not attitudes or opinions, which is imo important for how we regulate public life. We also have race as aggravating factors etc, which is a linked but different debate.
I think as a society we have perfectly serviceable and robust definitions in law in the Equality Act 2010, as developed over half a century by a process starting from the Race Relations Act 1965. We have not changed it since 2010 so that seems quite settled. We have:
"The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race (EHRC summary).
elucidated by Section 9:
(1)Race includes— (a)colour; (b)nationality; (c)ethnic or national origins. (2)In relation to the protected characteristic of race— (a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a person of a particular racial group; (b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same racial group.
That seems clear to me. I'd define racism as an attitude or opinion which could provide justification for such conduct.
Moving on to "oke", I'm looking for a definition of "woke" that I can interrogate and evaluate, sparked by the video you posted. There nobody i have seen commenting, including Kruger himself, seems to have the foggiest idea what he is talking about. Unless he is relying on a trope such as "I'll know it when I see it".
I'll have to have a look at who says "woke" most in Parliament, and to see if it has much meaning.
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
That's what you want it to mean, because it appeals to your vanity.
Gay used to mean happy, too
So what does killing it mean?
Exterminating people like me or political re-education in Cultural Revolution style?
For me, it means excluding people like you from any meaningful role in western politics for at least a decade. The method to be determined
That’s the only way to rinse Woke out of the system
Ah, so like with the Nazis after WW2 in Germany?
And - if you think about it - gassing Jews and using peoples' preferred pronouns are actually very similar.
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
A cryptocurrency company made an ad making fun of the mess Britain finds itself. The ad was banned by the ASA
Promoting a financial investment without highlighting the risks?
That would be illegal that would
Is it not just promoting the platform ?
No different to how investment platforms advertise ?
But investment platforms have the text at the end “investments can go up and down and you may not get all your money back, etc etc”
I have managed to accumulate a few hundred thousands in pensions. I am thinking about retiring in maybe 4 years once I get the old age pension. I am increasingly anxious about where to put this money over the next few years. Our economy is a mess and getting poorer by the day. It is hard to see much growth that is not generated (short term) by debt. Very few opportunities for growth.
The western economy as a whole is not in a good place. That moron is in the White House with his ridiculous tariffs, his attack on the statistics, his appalling Big Beautiful Bill which threatens even the US's stability and financial strength, the damage he is doing is incalculable. China is wildly overexposed to a debt bubble and in danger of a collapse. Safe havens are hard to find.
If my pension funds are worth more than they are today in 4 years time I will be pleasantly surprised. If the environment for pensions is as favourable then as it is today with a major tax free lump sum and generous contributions to my pension fund on payments I would be astonished. The numbers simply do not add up.
So how do I protect myself from the chaos and crisis that is coming? It keeps me awake at night.
I am a doctor, not a pensions advisor, so take my advice with a shovel full of salt.
I think it likely that bond yields will remain high, and interest rates positive, though if you are particularly risk adverse then consider index linked bonds, the UK government ones being RPI linked. A return to real positive interest rates bodes well for annuity, which are now a better buy than they have been for years when you do cash in.
In short, the government paying out a lot of interest is good news for savers like you, if not for the taxpayer.
I think the possibility of a financial crash in the next few years is significant. While in the short term US stocks are on a sugar rush, underlying economic news is not good there, the indicators are being manipulated by Trump. The Crypto-bubble is an obvious Ponzi scheme that will pop at some point, and bubbles typically expand fastest just before they do.
AI may well be the future, though I am not the only one who is sceptical about it being over-hyped, but even if it is, that doesn't mean current companies will benefit. With many transformative technologies there was a bubble with many losing their shirt before the transformation happened. Think dot-com and the Victorian railway boom.
I have money in equities that are moderately risky, but that is part of wider savings, property and of course my NHS pension, so an acceptable level of risk. Depending on your own assets elsewhere this may well not suit you.
Sleep well!
Yes, if it's money for a core retirement income, and someone's outlook is pessimistic or risk averse, there's a strong argument for looking for an annuity (for at least a good proportion of it), rates being relatively high at the moment compared with recent decades. Indeed if you anticipate some sort of collapse, to which a return to near zero rates would be very predictable, then an annuity is almost a no-brainer, unless you wish to retain significant flexibility over how and when you take the money.
In the latter case, there are a stack of funds that don't aim for stellar returns but should offer some protection on the downside; examples include Troy Trojan, BNY Mellon real return, Ruffer, the Rothschild RIT fund, and others. Or research a mix of steady well established companies that aren't going to go under, and pay a reliable dividend, and just sit and wait. But always DYOR.
Personally, I'd avoid putting significant money in the US right now, but then that's been my stance all year, so far not a hugely profitable one except for a few short bursts of profit when Trump was at his worst.
I honestly think he’s best off consulting an IFA.
All of us are different and have different domestics situations and different priorities.
I think as well as individual financial circumstances, one needs to consider what you actually want to do in retirement.
Firstly you need to be coldly actuarial on how long you will live. Of course no one can be certain, but actuaries are actually quite good at these things, better in many ways than my own profession. Then consider how many of those years are going to be in good health. It is important to have some idea of this for planning.
My experience (and I have many older patients) is that once over 80 the desire for travel and consumer goods is pretty much gone, though health related expenditure may rise. I would therefore recommend front loading the pension withdrawals so that you have a higher income between the ages of 67-80 than afterwards.
The huge unknown is the cost of any social care. If you have a partner/spouse who lives in the same house then you may sadly need maybe ≈ £125K stashed to fund two years in a care home near the end. Otherwise you are reliant on either selling the property and spouse downsizing or face the local council paying and therefore choosing the care home you will be in. It will not be good unless you can top up fees and persuade them to send you elsewhere. Two years is the rough average time iirc you will require. V hard to plan for longer as Reeves ditched the cap that had cross-party agreement as soon as she took office.
Sorry to be bleak but this is the reality of the current situation.
It would be an earthquake if Reform and the Conservatives, combined, had a majority in the Senedd next year.
I have a feeling the useless Tories wouldn't join REFORM in a coalition. I think they would still prefer a left wing coalition, because they have some false pretense they can still get back to the main right wing party status
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more lile California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
“A second man, Mohammad Kabir, also 23, has been charged with aiding and abetting rape, as well as strangulation and kidnap of the girl, who is now receiving specialist care.
Despite the huge interest the incident has caused in Nuneaton, sources have told the Mail on Sunday that Warwickshire Police advised local councillors and officials not to reveal the asylum seeker background of the two suspects, for fear of 'inflaming community tensions”
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more lile California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
If you want a young, telegenic Democrat, with a record of electoral success in a Purple State, I would personally go with Jon Ossoff. Like Buttigieg, he's a great TV performer. But he's also been elected against a well funded Republican opponent in a must win State for the Democrats. I think he'll cruise to victory in Georgia next year, and that might well be enough to put him into contention.
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more lile California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Easy to explain. The polls get the political contests wrong all the time. Even in 2024 they said Labour would win by 20 but actually it was 10. In terms of bigger samples the ONS for example are seeing a much lower response rates, and hence having to do massive revisions recently so much so the BoE do not trust their data. low info/low trust voters are simply no longer doing polls which crime survey's are built on. I would bet low trust voters are more likely to be victims of crime. Also in the local elections reform were underestimated.
Why would Verian (formerly Kantar public) who do The crime survey be immune to this phenomenon of not getting enough low trust voters to respond?
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
I agree with you that so-called "lived experience" shouldn't trump the objective facts. Of course, that has to apply in all cases, not just some.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Cyclefree made the point that the problem is not the rape, but rather the people doing the raping. Those who are noisiest about it often have no history of concern about sexual assault, and those that took part in the riots often had a long criminal record of domestic abuse and so on. But even if sexual assault has fallen significantly, and continues to do so, this particular type of incident is likely to be increasing, even if simply as a function of having more people from these countries here than we did before.
This latest - alleged - incident fits this narrative and is almost perfectly designed to undermine social cohesion in the UK. The Daily Mail are reporting that the accused came across on a small boat, it's a twelve year old, the additional details are horrifying, and it's a classic UK town like Nuneaton. I don't want to go full tin hat, but if I were the Russians and wanted to disrupt UK democracy and institutions, this this is the sort of thing they would be arranging.
It's now a national security issue and I think the government should start to treat it as such. I don't think we'll have mass rioting or whatever just because British people are just too nice, but there is a risk a lone individual does something horrific in response.
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more lile California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
If you want a young, telegenic Democrat, with a record of electoral success in a Purple State, I would personally go with Jon Ossoff. Like Buttigieg, he's a great TV performer. But he's also been elected against a well funded Republican opponent in a must win State for the Democrats. I think he'll cruise to victory in Georgia next year, and that might well be enough to put him into contention.
Buttigieg is excellent on tv but I’m afraid his sexuality would be a big problem in swing states . The Dems need to be realistic . Ossoff would be the safer choice . Newsom would be a disaster in the swing states .
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Easy to explain. The polls get the political contests wrong all the time. Even in 2024 they said Labour would win by 20 but actually it was 10. In terms of bigger samples the ONS for example are seeing a much lower response rates, and hence having to do massive revisions recently so much so the BoE do not trust their data. low info/low trust voters are simply no longer doing polls which crime survey's are built on. I would bet low trust voters are more likely to be victims of crime. Also in the local elections reform were underestimated.
Why would Verian (formerly Kantar public) who do The crime survey be immune to this phenomenon of not getting enough low trust voters to respond?
They do over 30,000 in-person interviews a year. It's quite different to an online or phone poll.
A better point is that if there has been a massive increase in sexual assaults from a particularly demographic, that wouldn't show up in the stats because it would be swamped by the overall trend of people simply not being sexually assaulted to the extent that they used to. Indeed, the same scale issue is why my female friends haven't picked up on the race element, because they've been harassed or assaulted by plenty of white men in the past.
If you are going to carry this political point, you need to start asking the Government about the race or nationality of those carrying out the assaults, where they publish the data, is the sample large enough to provide statistically valid stats on race etc etc
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more lile California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
If you want a young, telegenic Democrat, with a record of electoral success in a Purple State, I would personally go with Jon Ossoff. Like Buttigieg, he's a great TV performer. But he's also been elected against a well funded Republican opponent in a must win State for the Democrats. I think he'll cruise to victory in Georgia next year, and that might well be enough to put him into contention.
Buttigieg is excellent on tv but I’m afraid his sexuality would be a big problem in swing states . The Dems need to be realistic . Ossoff would be the safer choice . Newsom would be a disaster in the swing states .
Would it 75% of Americans back gay marriage now, only conservative evangelicals opposed. If O'Rourke wins the Texas governor or Senate race next year he might also run
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Easy to explain. The polls get the political contests wrong all the time. Even in 2024 they said Labour would win by 20 but actually it was 10. In terms of bigger samples the ONS for example are seeing a much lower response rates, and hence having to do massive revisions recently so much so the BoE do not trust their data. low info/low trust voters are simply no longer doing polls which crime survey's are built on. I would bet low trust voters are more likely to be victims of crime. Also in the local elections reform were underestimated.
Why would Verian (formerly Kantar public) who do The crime survey be immune to this phenomenon of not getting enough low trust voters to respond?
My new mega millionaire friend just sent me this tweet - not by him - to illustrate his thesis that Britain is fiscally fucked and a crash is coming soon
“The UK spent £16.4bn in debt interest (not repayment) in June
That’s £438.50 for each taxpayer- for one month. £5,260 per taxpayer per year
The UK avg salary is £37,000. On that they’ll pay £4,884 of income tax
It's not as bad as that, the £16.4bn figure was high for a single month, the year will probably come in at £120bn in debt interest. If you'd been reading on the day plenty of us pointed out how unsustainable this is and that the government seems intent on increasing spend not cutting it which will make everything worse.
The Tories have to start telling the unpopular truth that the UK is no longer a rich country, we're a middle income country pretending to be rich and we need to start living in that reality if we're ever going to become a rich nation again.
Kemi has said she will slash spending as Milei has. Reform will cut civil servants and local government. Labour will raise tax of course yet further including capital gains tax
My new mega millionaire friend just sent me this tweet - not by him - to illustrate his thesis that Britain is fiscally fucked and a crash is coming soon
“The UK spent £16.4bn in debt interest (not repayment) in June
That’s £438.50 for each taxpayer- for one month. £5,260 per taxpayer per year
The UK avg salary is £37,000. On that they’ll pay £4,884 of income tax
It's not as bad as that, the £16.4bn figure was high for a single month, the year will probably come in at £120bn in debt interest. If you'd been reading on the day plenty of us pointed out how unsustainable this is and that the government seems intent on increasing spend not cutting it which will make everything worse.
The Tories have to start telling the unpopular truth that the UK is no longer a rich country, we're a middle income country pretending to be rich and we need to start living in that reality if we're ever going to become a rich nation again.
Kemi has said she will slash spending as Milei has. Reform will cut civil servants and local government. Labour will raise tax of course yet further including capital gains tax
Has Kemi said what will be cut otherwise its a promise without any foundation in reality. As for Reform - they've been in charged of councils now for coming on for 3 months and I don't see any mass redundancies being announced as they promised and are promising.
Two hours later - during which time I've sunbathed, eaten a custard tart, done an hour's hard writing, emailed several friends, and checked the refurb of my flat - and basically all you've done is talk about me
As a narcissist, this pleases me
As an observer of human nature, I say FFS get a life you losers and stop wanking on about someone you've never even met. You're pitifully obsessed, especially @IanB2, @kjh and @occasionalranter
There is literally something wrong with you, and I mean that in a kind way
I don't think you get how every one of your posts is so ironic.
I haven't posted for 1 hr and 25 min, during which time I have been busy with a chain saw.
You are President Javier Milei, and I claim my £5.
@taz beat you to it. In the pub now so have put the chainsaw down. I can't be the only one on PB to wield a chainsaw and axe.
That is, the white cloud that Danny Kruger MP wishes to push out of publIC life and deny Government funding.
Yes. (Slightly less than 60 words).
“An ideology underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is produced in the context of linguistic and cultural frameworks, that knowledge is a construct of power wielded oppressively through language, and therefore censorship and other authoritarian measures are necessary to reshape society.”
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
I thought I'd have a look into this, as I can't sleep and have read this repeatedly here. I also had a theory that declines in incidents could potentially be due to technology (we go out less than we used to) and demographics (fewer young men proportionately).
So I was quite surprised to see that the crime survey has reported an increase in sexual offences over the past decade.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) self-completion module provides a more reliable measure of long-term trends for sexual offences than police recorded crime data. Latest estimates from the CSEW for year ending (YE) June 2024 showed that 2.2% of people aged 16 years and over had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences).
Although there is year-to-year volatility in these estimates, over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault. The CSEW for YE March 2024 estimated 2.6% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences) in the last year compared with 1.5% in YE March 2014. For sexual assault long-term trend data, see our Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2024 bulletin.
From 1.5% to 2.6% in a decade is a remarkably significant increase. Proportionately that is a 73% increase in the number of victims the crime survey is finding from a decade ago, which confounded my expectations.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Trump has essentially used patronage to override them. Our HoL is largely immune, having jobs for life, but on their own they can’t do that much. We should be wary in thinking that some sort of magical cultural inhibition unique to these isles would stop the civil service being perverted in the same way as has happened in the US. History is full of examples as to how quickly democratic institutions can be undermined, and the safest defence is always not to support or pander to extremist politicians in the first place.
That is, the white cloud that Danny Kruger MP wishes to push out of publIC life and deny Government funding.
Yes. (Slightly less than 60 words).
“An ideology underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is produced in the context of linguistic and cultural frameworks, that knowledge is a construct of power wielded oppressively through language, and therefore censorship and other authoritarian measures are necessary to reshape society.”
I have never met or heard of anyone who believes that. Not even my oldest friend who is the most "right on" person I know, a Professor of Gender Studies at a major university!
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Easy to explain. The polls get the political contests wrong all the time. Even in 2024 they said Labour would win by 20 but actually it was 10. In terms of bigger samples the ONS for example are seeing a much lower response rates, and hence having to do massive revisions recently so much so the BoE do not trust their data. low info/low trust voters are simply no longer doing polls which crime survey's are built on. I would bet low trust voters are more likely to be victims of crime. Also in the local elections reform were underestimated.
Why would Verian (formerly Kantar public) who do The crime survey be immune to this phenomenon of not getting enough low trust voters to respond?
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Trump has essentially used patronage to override them. Our HoL is largely immune, having jobs for life, but on their own they can’t do that much. We should be wary in thinking that some sort of magical cultural inhibition unique to these isles would stop the civil service being perverted in the same way as has happened in the US. History is full of examples as to how quickly democratic institutions can be undermined, and the safest defence is always not to support or pander to extremist politicians in the first place.
Yes, a Reform government that fires most of the Civil Service* is also going to have a substantial number of ministers that are not MPs.
So they see the future as an all powerful PM who promotes his cronies, purges his enemies and acts without restraint from Parliament, Civil Service or the Law. It sounds to me at least as destructive as Trump in terms of constitutionality.
*does he really mean this? Most Civil Servants are doing mundane things like collating government statistics, making payments of pensions etc.
“A second man, Mohammad Kabir, also 23, has been charged with aiding and abetting rape, as well as strangulation and kidnap of the girl, who is now receiving specialist care.
Despite the huge interest the incident has caused in Nuneaton, sources have told the Mail on Sunday that Warwickshire Police advised local councillors and officials not to reveal the asylum seeker background of the two suspects, for fear of 'inflaming community tensions”
STRANGULATION
I'm entirely unsurprised, in every way, by the reaction of Warwickshire Police and, in fact, I predicted it before I clicked on the article to read it.
"But last night, Warwickshire Police defended its position, saying in a statement: 'Where relevant, sensitive information around locations, details of the crime and policing activity to catch offenders can be shared, with a warning that this is sensitive or confidential information and disclosure by those being briefed could affect future court hearings.'"
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Trump has essentially used patronage to override them. Our HoL is largely immune, having jobs for life, but on their own they can’t do that much. We should be wary in thinking that some sort of magical cultural inhibition unique to these isles would stop the civil service being perverted in the same way as has happened in the US. History is full of examples as to how quickly democratic institutions can be undermined, and the safest defence is always not to support or pander to extremist politicians in the first place.
Yes, a Reform government that fires most of the Civil Service* is also going to have a substantial number of ministers that are not MPs.
So they see the future as an all powerful PM who promotes his cronies, purges his enemies and acts without restraint from Parliament, Civil Service or the Law. It sounds to me at least as destructive as Trump in terms of constitutionality.
*does he really mean this? Most Civil Servants are doing mundane things like collating government statistics, making payments of pensions etc.
Perhaps he just has a very narrow definition of 'civil servant' as 'executive people at the top of major government departments.'
To be fair there are quite a few people in those roles whom we wouldn't miss if they went. Susan Acland-Hood, who makes Humza Yusuf look like Sir John Anderson, springs to mind.
Or perhaps he just has the classic 'cut bureaucracy' mentality so beloved of not over-bright opposition politicians who think the key to getting rid of paperwork is to get rid of the people doing it, without realising that it's actually the other way around.
It would be an earthquake if Reform and the Conservatives, combined, had a majority in the Senedd next year.
I have a feeling the useless Tories wouldn't join REFORM in a coalition. I think they would still prefer a left wing coalition, because they have some false pretense they can still get back to the main right wing party status
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
It would be an earthquake if Reform and the Conservatives, combined, had a majority in the Senedd next year.
I have a feeling the useless Tories wouldn't join REFORM in a coalition. I think they would still prefer a left wing coalition, because they have some false pretense they can still get back to the main right wing party status
Yes, that's possible.
I think they would prefer not to be Reform's bitches because looking at the Welsh Reform party it's hard to see their government being anything other than a train crash.
Not that this would be much different from the current situation under Labour.
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Trump has essentially used patronage to override them. Our HoL is largely immune, having jobs for life, but on their own they can’t do that much. We should be wary in thinking that some sort of magical cultural inhibition unique to these isles would stop the civil service being perverted in the same way as has happened in the US. History is full of examples as to how quickly democratic institutions can be undermined, and the safest defence is always not to support or pander to extremist politicians in the first place.
Yes, a Reform government that fires most of the Civil Service* is also going to have a substantial number of ministers that are not MPs.
So they see the future as an all powerful PM who promotes his cronies, purges his enemies and acts without restraint from Parliament, Civil Service or the Law. It sounds to me at least as destructive as Trump in terms of constitutionality.
*does he really mean this? Most Civil Servants are doing mundane things like collating government statistics, making payments of pensions etc.
Perhaps he just has a very narrow definition of 'civil servant' as 'executive people at the top of major government departments.'
To be fair there are quite a few people in those roles whom we wouldn't miss if they went. Susan Acland-Hood, who makes Humza Yusuf look like Sir John Anderson, springs to mind.
Or perhaps he just has the classic 'cut bureaucracy' mentality so beloved of not over-bright opposition politicians who think the key to getting rid of paperwork is to get rid of the people doing it, without realising that it's actually the other way around.
He’s saying he won’t put the people who will actually be running the country up for election, or tell us who they are in advance, but pick them himself afterwards. And, absent any political base of their own, such people will be entirely subject to his whim and hence compliant. That’s halfway to Trumpism already.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
Partly demographics, of course, in the same way that revolutions tend to occur when societies have large numbers of underemployed young men. Those earlier decades coincide with the period when the baby boom was going through the adolescent and young adult years.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
From Rat Trap ( Bob Geldof's best song btw) written in 1973
There was a lot of rocking going on that night Cruising time for the young bright lights Just down past the gasworks by the meat factory door The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong The Saturday night city beat had already started And the pulse of the corner boys just sprang into action And young Billy watched it under the yellow street light And said "Tonight of all nights, there's gonna be a fight"
I would agree that there is a lot less violence. Also much less football related violence than I remember from my youth. Other crime, specifically theft, is spiralling out of control.
Today’s Sunday Rawnsley, brought to you from a warm and majestic Stockholm:
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
The definition of rape in Scotland was greatly widened by the 2009 Act to include both oral and anal as well as vaginal rape. I must say I find the findings of the BCS very surprising. When I started at the bar rape was a relatively rare charge, not least because without DNA it was very difficult to prove. Now it is more than 80% of High Court cases.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
The definition of rape in Scotland was greatly widened by the 2009 Act to include both oral and anal as well as vaginal rape. I must say I find the findings of the BCS very surprising. When I started at the bar rape was a relatively rare charge, not least because without DNA it was very difficult to prove. Now it is more than 80% of High Court cases.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
Presumably the ‘gap’ in prosecutions during the covid years also means that this and the next few years will be ‘catch up’ - I.e. there will be an apparent surge in the number of prosecutions not because reported/alleged crime has risen but because each court year will be handling more than a year of reported offences?
We have been warned. Reform will be mini-me Trump 2.0 for the UK. DOGE, corrupting the civil service to rig the figures, crony business mates in the Cabinet etc etc.
How is the country to be administered if the "majority" of civil servants are fired?
Zia Yusuf
@ZiaYusufUK · 3h Enough talk of hiring in the civil service. The majority will be fired.
Reform cannot be a mini me Trump 2.0 because the civil service is very different to that of the US. In the US the new president appoints their own whereas here they continue to serve even if there is a change of party.
And REFORM will not be able to fire any one who disagrees with them as that will bring masses of employment tribunals.
The blob cannot be so easily defeated in Britain.
Then there's the matter of the House of Lords, and REFORM won't have anywhere near a majority there, whereas the GOP controls Congress as well as the presidency and more or less the political SCOTUS.
REFORM will have many more checks and balances.
... which is ironic given how much Americans drivel on about the checks and balances in their crappy constitution.
Trump has essentially used patronage to override them. Our HoL is largely immune, having jobs for life, but on their own they can’t do that much. We should be wary in thinking that some sort of magical cultural inhibition unique to these isles would stop the civil service being perverted in the same way as has happened in the US. History is full of examples as to how quickly democratic institutions can be undermined, and the safest defence is always not to support or pander to extremist politicians in the first place.
Yes, a Reform government that fires most of the Civil Service* is also going to have a substantial number of ministers that are not MPs.
So they see the future as an all powerful PM who promotes his cronies, purges his enemies and acts without restraint from Parliament, Civil Service or the Law. It sounds to me at least as destructive as Trump in terms of constitutionality.
*does he really mean this? Most Civil Servants are doing mundane things like collating government statistics, making payments of pensions etc.
Perhaps he just has a very narrow definition of 'civil servant' as 'executive people at the top of major government departments.'
To be fair there are quite a few people in those roles whom we wouldn't miss if they went. Susan Acland-Hood, who makes Humza Yusuf look like Sir John Anderson, springs to mind.
Or perhaps he just has the classic 'cut bureaucracy' mentality so beloved of not over-bright opposition politicians who think the key to getting rid of paperwork is to get rid of the people doing it, without realising that it's actually the other way around.
He’s saying he won’t put the people who will actually be running the country up for election, or tell us who they are in advance, but pick them himself afterwards. And, absent any political base of their own, such people will be entirely subject to his whim and hence compliant. That’s halfway to Trumpism already.
Don't Departmental Boards already have external non-execs to provide 'guidance'. So each department has external NEDs and SPADs. The IoG has an explainer and Matt Han-cock gets an honourable mention.
Today’s Sunday Rawnsley, brought to you from a warm and majestic Stockholm:
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
Stockholm is a lovely city, perhaps my favourite European capital, but in your photo it is quite hard to judge the scale of the harbour.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
Partly demographics, of course, in the same way that revolutions tend to occur when societies have large numbers of underemployed young men. Those earlier decades coincide with the period when the baby boom was going through the adolescent and young adult years.
Large numbers of bored young men are essentially bad news.
Woke people will still be asking, "yeah, but, what does 'Woke' mean?" when it lies totally dead and prostrate on the floor with more knives in its back than Julius Caesar.
I really don't understand what you mean by this. I am Woke.* so how does this work? Am I to be killed, or just sent to a re-education camp until I am brainwashed into singing the RefCon party line?
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
That's what you want it to mean, because it appeals to your vanity.
Gay used to mean happy, too
So what does killing it mean?
Exterminating people like me or political re-education in Cultural Revolution style?
For me, it means excluding people like you from any meaningful role in western politics for at least a decade. The method to be determined
That’s the only way to rinse Woke out of the system
Ah, so like with the Nazis after WW2 in Germany?
And - if you think about it - gassing Jews and using peoples' preferred pronouns are actually very similar.
That's a bit provocative.
But it's fair to ask what are the boundaries of Leon's "method to be determined", and what he means by "excluding from any meaningful role for at least a decade".
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
From Rat Trap ( Bob Geldof's best song btw) written in 1973
There was a lot of rocking going on that night Cruising time for the young bright lights Just down past the gasworks by the meat factory door The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong The Saturday night city beat had already started And the pulse of the corner boys just sprang into action And young Billy watched it under the yellow street light And said "Tonight of all nights, there's gonna be a fight"
I would agree that there is a lot less violence. Also much less football related violence than I remember from my youth. Other crime, specifically theft, is spiralling out of control.
I remember men who'd try and initiate a fight with you just for looking in their general direction: "wha'chew looking at you f-ing c--t?" etc.
Generally speaking, if you ignored it, smiled, walked or ran away, you could avoid it - but not always.
Today’s Sunday Rawnsley, brought to you from a warm and majestic Stockholm:
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
Stockholm is a lovely city, perhaps my favourite European capital, but in your photo it is quite hard to judge the scale of the harbour.
It’s my first time - and one of the last European capitals for me still to visit (outside the former USSR I think I only have Sofia and the former Yugoslav ones left, except I have been to Belgrade and Ljubljana). Even though both are sizeable settlements, both Oslo and Helsinki have a compact, small town feel, whereas Stockholm feels like a large city and the centre is full of majestic, imperial and imposing buildings. First impressions very positive (except for the usual Swedish failure on the dog friendly front); today Mr Dog and I are about to go out by boat into the archipelago)
Today’s Sunday Rawnsley, brought to you from a warm and majestic Stockholm:
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
Stockholm is a lovely city, perhaps my favourite European capital, but in your photo it is quite hard to judge the scale of the harbour.
If only there was an element that could be added to provide visual context for that scale.
My new mega millionaire friend just sent me this tweet - not by him - to illustrate his thesis that Britain is fiscally fucked and a crash is coming soon
“The UK spent £16.4bn in debt interest (not repayment) in June
That’s £438.50 for each taxpayer- for one month. £5,260 per taxpayer per year
The UK avg salary is £37,000. On that they’ll pay £4,884 of income tax
It's not as bad as that, the £16.4bn figure was high for a single month, the year will probably come in at £120bn in debt interest. If you'd been reading on the day plenty of us pointed out how unsustainable this is and that the government seems intent on increasing spend not cutting it which will make everything worse.
The Tories have to start telling the unpopular truth that the UK is no longer a rich country, we're a middle income country pretending to be rich and we need to start living in that reality if we're ever going to become a rich nation again.
Kemi has said she will slash spending as Milei has. Reform will cut civil servants and local government. Labour will raise tax of course yet further including capital gains tax
A real terms cut of 30% plus in pensions, for example ? That would need a bit more than getting rid of the triple lock.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
The definition of rape in Scotland was greatly widened by the 2009 Act to include both oral and anal as well as vaginal rape. I must say I find the findings of the BCS very surprising. When I started at the bar rape was a relatively rare charge, not least because without DNA it was very difficult to prove. Now it is more than 80% of High Court cases.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
Presumably the ‘gap’ in prosecutions during the covid years also means that this and the next few years will be ‘catch up’ - I.e. there will be an apparent surge in the number of prosecutions not because reported/alleged crime has risen but because each court year will be handling more than a year of reported offences?
Not really. We kept going throughout Covid with remote juries watching trials from cinemas. The number of trials was reduced but not by much. 25 years ago the staple of the High Court was drugs and murder. Drugs trials that run are comparatively rare these days, most plead out when the trial diet is reached. Even murder is more often a plea because of the ubiquity of CCTV. I had a murder at the beginning of last week where the whole thing was caught on CCTV and there was nothing more needed so he pled.
There has been a lot of money spent on public awareness and positive encouragement to come forward for rape victims. The attitude of the police and the prosecution service has really changed. I also find from my cases that there are a lot of vulnerable young women wandering about drunk or on drugs who end up being taken advantage of. I repeat I find the drop in the BCS really hard to reconcile with what I see from day to day.
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more like California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
If this were a normal electoral cycle, those would be fair comments, but it's clearly not.
It might be the case that someone like Beshear will look attractive as the nominee by the time of the primaries. But in the meantime, those leading the opposition to Trump are going to make the running.
I wouldn't like to guess who will be the nominee until much closer to the election. But it might be a good market to trade.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
The definition of rape in Scotland was greatly widened by the 2009 Act to include both oral and anal as well as vaginal rape. I must say I find the findings of the BCS very surprising. When I started at the bar rape was a relatively rare charge, not least because without DNA it was very difficult to prove. Now it is more than 80% of High Court cases.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
Presumably the ‘gap’ in prosecutions during the covid years also means that this and the next few years will be ‘catch up’ - I.e. there will be an apparent surge in the number of prosecutions not because reported/alleged crime has risen but because each court year will be handling more than a year of reported offences?
Not really. We kept going throughout Covid with remote juries watching trials from cinemas. The number of trials was reduced but not by much. 25 years ago the staple of the High Court was drugs and murder. Drugs trials that run are comparatively rare these days, most plead out when the trial diet is reached. Even murder is more often a plea because of the ubiquity of CCTV. I had a murder at the beginning of last week where the whole thing was caught on CCTV and there was nothing more needed so he pled.
There has been a lot of money spent on public awareness and positive encouragement to come forward for rape victims. The attitude of the police and the prosecution service has really changed. I also find from my cases that there are a lot of vulnerable young women wandering about drunk or on drugs who end up being taken advantage of. I repeat I find the drop in the BCS really hard to reconcile with what I see from day to day.
Explanation?
1. Pollsters not asking the right people the right questions. 2. Shy responders 3. Crime within only certain hard to identify communities 4. Something else?
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
From Rat Trap ( Bob Geldof's best song btw) written in 1973
There was a lot of rocking going on that night Cruising time for the young bright lights Just down past the gasworks by the meat factory door The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong The Saturday night city beat had already started And the pulse of the corner boys just sprang into action And young Billy watched it under the yellow street light And said "Tonight of all nights, there's gonna be a fight"
I would agree that there is a lot less violence. Also much less football related violence than I remember from my youth. Other crime, specifically theft, is spiralling out of control.
But still not very good; Bob and the Rats were a kind of Tesco version of punk. Mind you, it’s all gone a bit that way, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock currently doing selfies of being served pie & mash on a private jet to whichever concert they’re performing to swell their pensions. Don’t begrudge them it but piss off with that anarchy stuff, eh.
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
I don't think Newsom has much support outside California. That said, he is lucky that he gets to be the Democrat that fights with Trump. That's a huge advantage as far as name recognition goes. His problem is that most Americans don't want their country to be more like California. And therefore, he's a poor pick for Presidential nominee.
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
If this were a normal electoral cycle, those would be fair comments, but it's clearly not.
It might be the case that someone like Beshear will look attractive as the nominee by the time of the primaries. But in the meantime, those leading the opposition to Trump are going to make the running.
I wouldn't like to guess who will be the nominee until much closer to the election. But it might be a good market to trade.
The main reason I'm dubious about Beshear as the nominee is he has consistently said he doesn't want to run. Most politicians say something like that of course, but he really does seem to want to stay in Kentucky.
He could change his mind of course.
Ossoff would be a good shout, if only to watch him duffing up whatever patsy the Trump Mafia put up as nominee.
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
It’s time that you retired this discourse
People will want to interpret crime statistics and figures to tell the story they want.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
From Rat Trap ( Bob Geldof's best song btw) written in 1973
There was a lot of rocking going on that night Cruising time for the young bright lights Just down past the gasworks by the meat factory door The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong The Saturday night city beat had already started And the pulse of the corner boys just sprang into action And young Billy watched it under the yellow street light And said "Tonight of all nights, there's gonna be a fight"
I would agree that there is a lot less violence. Also much less football related violence than I remember from my youth. Other crime, specifically theft, is spiralling out of control.
But still not very good; Bob and the Rats were a kind of Tesco version of punk.
Incidentally, I note @rcs1000 that you made comparisons with 20 years ago, but I can't find the comparable data from 20 years ago so I don't know what you're looking at. The survey was changed 12 years ago it seems to expand how it asked about sexual offences. So comparisons with a decade ago seem to be comparing like for like (and surprisingly this shows a significant increase) while comparisons with 20 years ago are not, since the methodology and questioning is significantly different.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
That's actually a really interesting point: rape has come down sharply, from 1.2% of women having reported being raped to 0.4%. On the other hand, sexual assault has increased quite markedly.
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
The definition of rape in Scotland was greatly widened by the 2009 Act to include both oral and anal as well as vaginal rape. I must say I find the findings of the BCS very surprising. When I started at the bar rape was a relatively rare charge, not least because without DNA it was very difficult to prove. Now it is more than 80% of High Court cases.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
Presumably the ‘gap’ in prosecutions during the covid years also means that this and the next few years will be ‘catch up’ - I.e. there will be an apparent surge in the number of prosecutions not because reported/alleged crime has risen but because each court year will be handling more than a year of reported offences?
Not really. We kept going throughout Covid with remote juries watching trials from cinemas. The number of trials was reduced but not by much. 25 years ago the staple of the High Court was drugs and murder. Drugs trials that run are comparatively rare these days, most plead out when the trial diet is reached. Even murder is more often a plea because of the ubiquity of CCTV. I had a murder at the beginning of last week where the whole thing was caught on CCTV and there was nothing more needed so he pled.
There has been a lot of money spent on public awareness and positive encouragement to come forward for rape victims. The attitude of the police and the prosecution service has really changed. I also find from my cases that there are a lot of vulnerable young women wandering about drunk or on drugs who end up being taken advantage of. I repeat I find the drop in the BCS really hard to reconcile with what I see from day to day.
Explanation?
1. Pollsters not asking the right people the right questions. 2. Shy responders 3. Crime within only certain hard to identify communities 4. Something else?
I suspect with rape it could be a difference between a significant proportion of women going to trial now against almost none of them twenty years ago
That's how you can get a vastly higher number of trials while victimisation has dropped - which I do believe: more awareness of bad behaviour and less alcohol.
Today’s Sunday Rawnsley, brought to you from a warm and majestic Stockholm:
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
Stockholm is a lovely city, perhaps my favourite European capital, but in your photo it is quite hard to judge the scale of the harbour.
It’s my first time - and one of the last European capitals for me still to visit (outside the former USSR I think I only have Sofia and the former Yugoslav ones left, except I have been to Belgrade and Ljubljana). Even though both are sizeable settlements, both Oslo and Helsinki have a compact, small town feel, whereas Stockholm feels like a large city and the centre is full of majestic, imperial and imposing buildings. First impressions very positive (except for the usual Swedish failure on the dog friendly front); today Mr Dog and I are about to go out by boat into the archipelago)
I highly recommend the Vasa museum if you can.
Its an amazingly intact find, as the Baltic preserves wood quite well.
There is one song that is sort of Woke that I like - Your Woman by Whitetown:
It's sung by Jyoti Prakash Mishra (who is a straight edge British Indian Marxist, who grew up in Derby) who wrote that the themes of the song include: "Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist/Marxist movement. Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian. Being a gay guy in love with a straight man. Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-arse Marxist. The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals."
I must say, all of that passed me by at the time. I just thought it catchy, and slightly odd that a bloke was singing pretending to be a woman.
Comments
If/when they stop massive training runs of their 'next big thing' - then they'll stop burning cash.
Yep it was more a comment on AI rather than accommodation. This is a picture of the most exclusive bike store I have ever used. A chateau last year on our Loire ride.
The early numbers (nb they are early, so don't yet mean all that much) look encouraging for Buttigieg and Newsom.
New filings reveal how top Dems are preparing possible 2028 runs
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/02/democrats-2028-fundraising-digital-ads-fec-00490402
Those who like to trade this market at least have some names who will be in the ring.
Before kids. It was great.
“Plaster god”???
Hmmm
Drift away
Fade away, little tin goddess
Ash to ash
Dust to dust
Fade to black
Fortune, fame
Mirror, vain
Gone insane
Fortune, fame
Mirror, vain
Gone insane
But the memory remains
As a general observation, people who are not sure about what they are opposed to are on a random walk shouting at.clouds.
* Woke means to me "aware of the systemic injustices in society, particularly but not exclusively relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and social class"
It's a disgrace as Wes Streeting told Laura K just days before the election that the cap would be honoured and would go ahead in October 2025.
But it 'aint coming back.
The ball is now in the long grass for after next election and as things stand it will be Farage's problem.
Gay used to mean happy, too
Never parked my bike in a posher place. If you blow up the picture you can see my bike and fellow traveler.
It seems to be a fairly generic boo-word that some people like to use, based on their assumptions about other people.
There. We have a definition of woke
Links
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/woke-right/681716/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slX9z5hbSH0
https://newdiscourses.com/2025/07/a-beginners-guide-to-the-woke-right/
It's even more magical when flooded, as happens there.
It's been 20- years since I first saw it, and I still shiver.
https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/event/crypt-tour/
Exterminating people like me or political re-education in Cultural Revolution style?
That’s the only way to rinse Woke out of the system
As we turned up a couple arrived in their range rover with their springer spaniel, pink trousers and cravat (the driver not the dog). We were oily, scruffy, smelly and sweaty. Felt a little out of place.
To answer you on racism, it is as you say a matter of opinion. As a democracy we have public debate like this. And our law around discrimination focuses on acts not attitudes or opinions, which is imo important for how we regulate public life. We also have race as aggravating factors etc, which is a linked but different debate.
I think as a society we have perfectly serviceable and robust definitions in law in the Equality Act 2010, as developed over half a century by a process starting from the Race Relations Act 1965. We have not changed it since 2010 so that seems quite settled. We have:
"The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race (EHRC summary).
elucidated by Section 9:
(1)Race includes—
(a)colour; (b)nationality; (c)ethnic or national origins.
(2)In relation to the protected characteristic of race—
(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a person of a particular racial group;
(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same racial group.
That seems clear to me. I'd define racism as an attitude or opinion which could provide justification for such conduct.
Moving on to "oke", I'm looking for a definition of "woke" that I can interrogate and evaluate, sparked by the video you posted. There nobody i have seen commenting, including Kruger himself, seems to have the foggiest idea what he is talking about. Unless he is relying on a trope such as "I'll know it when I see it".
I'll have to have a look at who says "woke" most in Parliament, and to see if it has much meaning.
Thanks for your reply.
And - if you think about it - gassing Jews and using peoples' preferred pronouns are actually very similar.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14965559/Afghan-asylum-seekers-charged-alleged-rape-girl-Warwickshire-town.html
These stories are happening every day now.
They will tell us crime is going down. Liars
(And, by the way, some crime clearly has risen. There's clearly massively more shoplifting and identity theft than there was. But the proportion of women reporting having been raped in the British Crime Survey is down about 75% from what it was twenty years ago.)
Buttigieg's problems are two-fold: Firstly, he doesn't really have much of a track record as an elected (or even appointed) politician. Secondly, he's gay. Now, the second could - I believe - be overcome, if that was his sole issue. But together, he's more of a Party Chairman type figure, who can enthuse the faithful.
“A second man, Mohammad Kabir, also 23, has been charged with aiding and abetting rape, as well as strangulation and kidnap of the girl, who is now receiving specialist care.
Despite the huge interest the incident has caused in Nuneaton, sources have told the Mail on Sunday that Warwickshire Police advised local councillors and officials not to reveal the asylum seeker background of the two suspects, for fear of 'inflaming community tensions”
STRANGULATION
I would bet low trust voters are more likely to be victims of crime.
Also in the local elections reform were underestimated.
Why would Verian (formerly Kantar public) who do The crime survey be immune to this phenomenon of not getting enough low trust voters to respond?
This latest - alleged - incident fits this narrative and is almost perfectly designed to undermine social cohesion in the UK. The Daily Mail are reporting that the accused came across on a small boat, it's a twelve year old, the additional details are horrifying, and it's a classic UK town like Nuneaton. I don't want to go full tin hat, but if I were the Russians and wanted to disrupt UK democracy and institutions, this this is the sort of thing they would be arranging.
It's now a national security issue and I think the government should start to treat it as such. I don't think we'll have mass rioting or whatever just because British people are just too nice, but there is a risk a lone individual does something horrific in response.
A better point is that if there has been a massive increase in sexual assaults from a particularly demographic, that wouldn't show up in the stats because it would be swamped by the overall trend of people simply not being sexually assaulted to the extent that they used to. Indeed, the same scale issue is why my female friends haven't picked up on the race element, because they've been harassed or assaulted by plenty of white men in the past.
If you are going to carry this political point, you need to start asking the Government about the race or nationality of those carrying out the assaults, where they publish the data, is the sample large enough to provide statistically valid stats on race etc etc
demoiselle de venise
You've really helped me out.
I now know I ignore you going forward.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oregon-Jolly-Professional-Chain-Sharpener/dp/B07DCZMV6G/
I'm glad I didn't bother checking in earlier tonight. Drunk ramblings and people posting LLM produced C+Ps at each other.
I do like a good chainsaw discussion though. Just done the HEXA chain upgrade on my MS500i and ordered a wildly dangerous bow bar from Canada.
“An ideology underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is produced in the context of linguistic and cultural frameworks, that knowledge is a construct of power wielded oppressively through language, and therefore censorship and other authoritarian measures are necessary to reshape society.”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/wokeisms-deeper-roots
So I was quite surprised to see that the crime survey has reported an increase in sexual offences over the past decade.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2024?#sexual-offences
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) self-completion module provides a more reliable measure of long-term trends for sexual offences than police recorded crime data. Latest estimates from the CSEW for year ending (YE) June 2024 showed that 2.2% of people aged 16 years and over had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences).
Although there is year-to-year volatility in these estimates, over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault. The CSEW for YE March 2024 estimated 2.6% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault (including attempted offences) in the last year compared with 1.5% in YE March 2014. For sexual assault long-term trend data, see our Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2024 bulletin.
From 1.5% to 2.6% in a decade is a remarkably significant increase. Proportionately that is a 73% increase in the number of victims the crime survey is finding from a decade ago, which confounded my expectations.
If you could share what data from 20 years ago you're looking at, and whether its a like-for-like comparison with modern surveys, I would be curious.
Reports of drone attacks overnight mostly of Ukraine sending them to Russia, rather than the other way around.
F1: I'll peruse the markets shortly, after checking the weather and for any penalties.
Major question is whether Leclerc can hold on, assuming he leads the first lap.
Betting PostF1: backed Stroll to beat Antonelli, RB, and Bortoleto at 3.1, and Lawson to score at evens.
https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/08/hungarian-grand-prix-2025-pre-race.html
So - there's a question about whether people previously counted sexual assault as rape, and now are categorising it correctly. On the other hand, there's the equal issue that people tend to take these things a lot more seriously than they used to.
I have never met or heard of anyone who believes that. Not even my oldest friend who is the most "right on" person I know, a Professor of Gender Studies at a major university!
So they see the future as an all powerful PM who promotes his cronies, purges his enemies and acts without restraint from Parliament, Civil Service or the Law. It sounds to me at least as destructive as Trump in terms of constitutionality.
*does he really mean this? Most Civil Servants are doing mundane things like collating government statistics, making payments of pensions etc.
"But last night, Warwickshire Police defended its position, saying in a statement: 'Where relevant, sensitive information around locations, details of the crime and policing activity to catch offenders can be shared, with a warning that this is sensitive or confidential information and disclosure by those being briefed could affect future court hearings.'"
To be fair there are quite a few people in those roles whom we wouldn't miss if they went. Susan Acland-Hood, who makes Humza Yusuf look like Sir John Anderson, springs to mind.
Or perhaps he just has the classic 'cut bureaucracy' mentality so beloved of not over-bright opposition politicians who think the key to getting rid of paperwork is to get rid of the people doing it, without realising that it's actually the other way around.
There's less violent crime in aggregate I think, if only because there is less drinking, and fewer pubs and groups of men going out on a Friday and Saturday night, together with gangs of teenagers hanging around the rest of the time.
You can feel it. Going out is nothing like as edgy as it was in the 1980s and 1990s with people actively looking for a fight, and you having to work out strategies to avoid it. Most are on their phones instead.
However, there is more online viewing of explicit material, more identity theft, an epidemic of scamming - often through organised crime - shoplifting and theft. And violent incidents/assaults are more noticeable and shocking when they do occur.
Not that this would be much different from the current situation under Labour.
There was a lot of rocking going on that night
Cruising time for the young bright lights
Just down past the gasworks by the meat factory door
The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong
The Saturday night city beat had already started
And the pulse of the corner boys just sprang into action
And young Billy watched it under the yellow street light
And said "Tonight of all nights, there's gonna be a fight"
I would agree that there is a lot less violence. Also much less football related violence than I remember from my youth. Other crime, specifically theft, is spiralling out of control.
The threat to Labour from parties to its left is almost certain to be more potent at the next election. There will be leftwing disillusionment with the Starmer government to exploit, and hoping to do the exploiting will be a new grouping revolving around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana… The new leftwing party will attack Labour as hostile to migrants, antagonistic towards the poor, too close to business and hard to distinguish from the Tories. The new party will be targeting the substantial wedge of leftwing voters who feel let down by Labour.
One fear beginning to stalk Labour’s ranks is that the government finds itself fighting a two-front war, simultaneously besieged by populists to both right and left. Those casting their minds ahead to next May’s local elections see the potential for a new left party to have a substantial impact on contests in urban areas such as the inner-cities of London and Birmingham.
The name-pending party has yet to elect a leader, draw up a constitution or stage a conference. It may ultimately fall apart or fizzle into irrelevance by succumbing to the self-indulgence, factionalism and acrimony that has been the perennial hallmark of the British left. Then again, you can argue that the way things are going means that conditions have rarely been more propitious for this kind of party. If they get their act together, this has the potential to be a highly menacing development for Labour. Sir Keir’s party will need to find an effective way of dealing with it. Dismissive sneering doesn’t amount to a strategy.
There is an element of catch up, quite a lot of our cases involve historic offences not reported to the police at the time, but it is hard to reconcile such a drop with such a transformation in prosecution.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/government-departments-boards-non-executive-directors
But it's fair to ask what are the boundaries of Leon's "method to be determined", and what he means by "excluding from any meaningful role for at least a decade".
Generally speaking, if you ignored it, smiled, walked or ran away, you could avoid it - but not always.
It means what you want it to mean, basically.
That would need a bit more than getting rid of the triple lock.
There has been a lot of money spent on public awareness and positive encouragement to come forward for rape victims. The attitude of the police and the prosecution service has really changed. I also find from my cases that there are a lot of vulnerable young women wandering about drunk or on drugs who end up being taken advantage of. I repeat I find the drop in the BCS really hard to reconcile with what I see from day to day.
It might be the case that someone like Beshear will look attractive as the nominee by the time of the primaries. But in the meantime, those leading the opposition to Trump are going to make the running.
I wouldn't like to guess who will be the nominee until much closer to the election. But it might be a good market to trade.
Generally used by bigots to demonise people who don't like bigotry.
1. Pollsters not asking the right people the right questions.
2. Shy responders
3. Crime within only certain hard to identify communities
4. Something else?
Mind you, it’s all gone a bit that way, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock currently doing selfies of being served pie & mash on a private jet to whichever concert they’re performing to swell their pensions. Don’t begrudge them it but piss off with that anarchy stuff, eh.
He could change his mind of course.
Ossoff would be a good shout, if only to watch him duffing up whatever patsy the Trump Mafia put up as nominee.
That's how you can get a vastly higher number of trials while victimisation has dropped - which I do believe: more awareness of bad behaviour and less alcohol.
Its an amazingly intact find, as the Baltic preserves wood quite well.
Not sure if you would need to find a dog-sitter.
It's sung by Jyoti Prakash Mishra (who is a straight edge British Indian Marxist, who grew up in Derby) who wrote that the themes of the song include: "Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist/Marxist movement. Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian. Being a gay guy in love with a straight man. Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-arse Marxist. The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals."
I must say, all of that passed me by at the time. I just thought it catchy, and slightly odd that a bloke was singing pretending to be a woman.