[Amanda] Clare was a member of the Labour Party when she was first elected in Winsford Dene ward in 2019, but left in March 2022 to join the Socialist Labour Party.
She then became a member of the Party of Women, before joining the Winsford Salt of the Earth Party, ultimately settling as an Independent in July 2024.
She joined Reform UK in March this year.
I'm all for keeping your political options open, but there is a point where it's either complete indecisveness or blatant flag of convenience.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
Only with the boost of North Sea oil, though. Any fool could do a lot with North Sea oil money.
No sovereign wealth fund, either. Compare and contrast: Norway.
As any housewife knows when balancing the household accounts, if you get a massive windfall you splurge on a shiny new suite and tv while letting parts of the house go to wrack and ruin.
You jest but one of my neighbours has a shiny new BMW even as the slates slide off and the buddleia obscure the windows.
Depends who owns the house, mind. Could be a parent in the long term hospital and a problem with powers of attorney.
If it's not his or her house, why worry any more than an Australian venture capital consortium does about the UK's stretegic utilities?
Chur, a town mostly useful for being the junction between the Bernina Express and Glacier Express. We are staying above a whorehouse, Swiss August hotel prices being what they are.
Bernina Express today diverted due to object on the line, so missed half the good stuff. High hopes for Glacier Express tomorrow.
Try out the whorehouse and report back. You wouldn't be the first here to do so...
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
The collapse of the Tories is sending certain media types to the funny farm.
The thing is that this repeated demand for strife is actually getting to the point where it is absurd. Of course it is dangerous to stir the pot in the way that too many right wingers are doing at the moment, but apart from some of my more militant Tory mates, very few are taking the bait.
What I don't understand is senior authority figures have also been briefing the media on the record of this.
We just don't have the culture of say the French, where it is a given that if you are having a protest, the riot comes later on. Even at the Bell Inn where knuckle draggers starting smashing up a police car, that is what the French would call a quiet night.
There is a difference between sporadic outbreaks of violence, lone wolf attacks and a revolution. I think about 8% of UK adults supported the riots - that's a small proportion, but 4 million people can still do a lot of damage.
Reform were, as ever, the big outlier - though even then only a small minority supported the riots. Conservatives are closer to LD/Labour than they are Reform.
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
In my experience those who desire a full blown revolution are much more likely to overestimate the level of public support for such a revolution and be disappointed, than those who do not expect or want one.
Even Reform are not that disruptive and they're the most notable disruptive political influence right now. Heck, even the Corbyn Party are probably not that into revolution, even if revolution wannabees will flock to it.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
Perhaps he just really wants to retire to Mauritius - a country where his generosity will eliminate the national debt can surely find him a nice seafront villa?
[Amanda] Clare was a member of the Labour Party when she was first elected in Winsford Dene ward in 2019, but left in March 2022 to join the Socialist Labour Party.
She then became a member of the Party of Women, before joining the Winsford Salt of the Earth Party, ultimately settling as an Independent in July 2024.
She joined Reform UK in March this year.
I'm all for keeping your political options open, but there is a point where it's either complete indecisveness or blatant flag of convenience.
There was that chap who started off with the Northumberland nationalists and ended up with the very firmly unionist Slab and then Scottish Tories.
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Agree. I am not someone who likes it hot and I don't like the crowds hence I holiday in April/May/June/September/October. Hence going to the Algarve in late September, France in early September and Italy and Spain earlier in the year.
I thought your friend was a billionaire. What on earth is he/she doing without a pool in the Algarve.
Centi-millionaire - he's on the Sunday Times list
He has about ten houses
eg he has two in the Algarve, one is his main base (with pool etc) and on a whim he bought a large and lovely house in Tavira - which is a charming town, probably the most charming on the Algarve, but there is no pool and I was simply bored in the heat (which meant I did lots of work as I escaped the painters at home)
Notably as I was there he was texting me from one of his other homes - on an island in County Kerry where he was with his kids. For August
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
The collapse of the Tories is sending certain media types to the funny farm.
The thing is that this repeated demand for strife is actually getting to the point where it is absurd. Of course it is dangerous to stir the pot in the way that too many right wingers are doing at the moment, but apart from some of my more militant Tory mates, very few are taking the bait.
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
In my experience those who desire a full blown revolution are much more likely to overestimate the level of public support for such a revolution and be disappointed, than those who do not expect or want one.
Even Reform are not that disruptive and they're the most notable disruptive political influence right now. Heck, even the Corbyn Party are probably not that into revolution, even if revolution wannabees will flock to it.
Wasn’t that where Change U.K. fell down? Realisation that most MPs would rather stick than twist…
Goldman's latest (still very early) analysis of tariff effects thru June 2025:
-Foreign exporters absorbed 14% of US tariffs -US companies ate 64% -US consumers ate 22% -Protected US companies also raised prices -Consumers will see bigger price increases (70%) thru the Fall
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Agree. I am not someone who likes it hot and I don't like the crowds hence I holiday in April/May/June/September/October. Hence going to the Algarve in late September, France in early September and Italy and Spain earlier in the year.
I thought your friend was a billionaire. What on earth is he/she doing without a pool in the Algarve.
Centi-millionaire - he's on the Sunday Times list
He has about ten houses
eg he has two in the Algarve, one is his main base (with pool etc) and on a whim he bought a large and lovely house in Tavira - which is a charming town, probably the most charming on the Algarve, but there is no pool and I was simply bored in the heat (which meant I did lots of work as I escaped the painters at home)
Notably as I was there he was texting me from one of his other homes - on an island in County Kerry where he was with his kids. For August
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
You trot your last paragraph out all the time. Small economic pits were replaced by Superpits. This was an extension of the late Tory Government of 1951 to 64. My Grandfather worked at Carway Colliery. This closed on economic grounds and all the men went to the Cynheidre Superpit.
I almost mentioned that Thatcher did replace manufacturing production with the City of London. I don't believe that was a great trade off.
The Nissan example was a unique success, and a result of us being within the EU. Thatcher attracted all sorts of Japanese production particularly Panasonic, Sony, Aiwa and a number of other names checked in an early Sean Thomas novel. All now closed!
Manufacturing output, in 1997, was well above the level in 1979. It only levelled off, after 2000.
But, yes, far fewer people were employed in coal mining, and that is a good thing.
The nature of large scale manufacturing changed under Thatcher. I am looking at the legacy from Thatcher's industrial strategy, and I think that is fair. She undoubtedly sold the notion of Britain as a gateway to the EU incredibly well, but this was all but over within 15 to 20 years.
Dominic Sandbrook makes the point about Britain that it was the First Nation to industrialise and in the 60’s and 70’s became the first to deindustrialise too. It stood out from other western nations, not because it was inherently different, but because it was first. (See the sick man of Europe etc). Globalisation was always going to challenge traditional industries in the west. Add in poor labour practices and you had a perfect storm. Choices might have been made differently about how to manage the transition, but anyone who thinks Britain could have carried on as it had in the seventies is a deluded fool, or Jeremy Corbyn.
We also jettisoned the empire which had been a captive market for our production.
I am being shot out of the water for saying Thatcher (and for that matter, son of Thatcher Blair) managed the UK's industrial decline, moreso than those who preceded them. Your post has confirmed that is exactly what they did.
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
In my experience those who desire a full blown revolution are much more likely to overestimate the level of public support for such a revolution and be disappointed, than those who do not expect or want one.
Even Reform are not that disruptive and they're the most notable disruptive political influence right now. Heck, even the Corbyn Party are probably not that into revolution, even if revolution wannabees will flock to it.
Wasn’t that where Change U.K. fell down? Realisation that most MPs would rather stick than twist…
I admired their actually trying something, but they didn't have much of a cohesive vision and seemed to be casting into the same water as the LDs, so folded after inability to immediately capitalise on divided public feeling, which was probably pretty harsh on them.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
She increased considerably the wealth generation but also internationalised it. Ultimately she created a serf country with British workers competing with inward migration workers for smaller wages to generate larger and larger wealth for foreign nationals living in Dubai. It's anti-British.
GDP per capita in the UK was $7,804 equivalent in 1979, $19,095 by 1990. So most workers saw big rises in their paypackets
Ever heard of this thing called "inflation"?
And GDP is not the same thing as family income.
That was a well above inflation increase, inflation also had fallen significantly from 1979 by the time the Tories left office in 1997
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
You trot your last paragraph out all the time. Small economic pits were replaced by Superpits. This was an extension of the late Tory Government of 1951 to 64. My Grandfather worked at Carway Colliery. This closed on economic grounds and all the men went to the Cynheidre Superpit.
I almost mentioned that Thatcher did replace manufacturing production with the City of London. I don't believe that was a great trade off.
The Nissan example was a unique success, and a result of us being within the EU. Thatcher attracted all sorts of Japanese production particularly Panasonic, Sony, Aiwa and a number of other names checked in an early Sean Thomas novel. All now closed!
Manufacturing output, in 1997, was well above the level in 1979. It only levelled off, after 2000.
But, yes, far fewer people were employed in coal mining, and that is a good thing.
The nature of large scale manufacturing changed under Thatcher. I am looking at the legacy from Thatcher's industrial strategy, and I think that is fair. She undoubtedly sold the notion of Britain as a gateway to the EU incredibly well, but this was all but over within 15 to 20 years.
Dominic Sandbrook makes the point about Britain that it was the First Nation to industrialise and in the 60’s and 70’s became the first to deindustrialise too. It stood out from other western nations, not because it was inherently different, but because it was first. (See the sick man of Europe etc). Globalisation was always going to challenge traditional industries in the west. Add in poor labour practices and you had a perfect storm. Choices might have been made differently about how to manage the transition, but anyone who thinks Britain could have carried on as it had in the seventies is a deluded fool, or Jeremy Corbyn.
We also jettisoned the empire which had been a captive market for our production.
I am being shot out of the water for saying Thatcher ( and for that matter, son of Thatcher Blair) managed the UK's industrial decline, moreso than those who preceded them. Your post has confirmed that is exactly what they did.
I certainly haven’t shot you out of the water, but the context is important. Most left wing critics of Thatcher forget that part. And it’s not really decline, rather it’s transition. Changing an economy based on old style heavy industry to both services and high skilled manufacture, which despite many claims otherwise, Britain still excels at.
Calgie @christiancalgie · 4h If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator
Voters went for Boris and Brexit, then elected Labour, voters may now elect Reform, we have our revolutions in the ballot box in the UK not the streets
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
She increased considerably the wealth generation but also internationalised it. Ultimately she created a serf country with British workers competing with inward migration workers for smaller wages to generate larger and larger wealth for foreign nationals living in Dubai. It's anti-British.
GDP per capita in the UK was $7,804 equivalent in 1979, $19,095 by 1990. So most workers saw big rises in their paypackets
Ever heard of this thing called "inflation"?
And GDP is not the same thing as family income.
That was a well above inflation increase, inflation also had fallen significantly from 1979 by the time the Tories left office in 1997
[Amanda] Clare was a member of the Labour Party when she was first elected in Winsford Dene ward in 2019, but left in March 2022 to join the Socialist Labour Party.
She then became a member of the Party of Women, before joining the Winsford Salt of the Earth Party, ultimately settling as an Independent in July 2024.
She joined Reform UK in March this year.
I'm all for keeping your political options open, but there is a point where it's either complete indecisveness or blatant flag of convenience.
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Yes, may as well holiday in Cornwall, Devon, Scotland, Suffolk, Norfolk, Brittany, Normandy, Blackpool, Pembrokeshire, Dorset, Margate etc in the summer and take a Mediterranean break in the spring or autumn if you can afford that as well.
Blackpool is pushing it
The key will be to find somewhere that's agreeably warm AND sunny, without the high intense heat of the New Mediterranean (in June-August)
Plus you want nice food, some history, pleasant towns, culture, landscapes
France should do well. Burgundy, the Massif Central, the Atlantic Coast from Carnac down to Bayonne. The Alps will return as a summertime destination (lower slopes). Bits of Eastern Europe - up in the altitudes - eg the mountains of Greece or Croatia or Slovakia, higher villages in the Pyrenees ahd Dolomites
Plus the nicer bits of southern England, Ireland and Scandinavia
If you are upper middle class yes, the lower middle classes and working class may well swap Spain for Blackpool and Southend and Bournemouth in the height of summer if it gets too hot on the Costas and Ibiza and Magaluf
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
World's best negotiator, somehow started with Mauritius wanting far less than £10bn, then press reports that somehow they had agreed £10bn, and finally managed to do a deal for £35bn.
The sort of people who go into a Turkish Bazaar and buy a fake Rolex for "first price" and also give them a tip.
See also David Cameron's "renegotiation" with the EU.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Sunday evening questions:
1) Can someone explain to say who "the mainstream right" are ? 2) How will remigration (or compulsory repatriation or deportation) work if we can't find the people we want to deport? 3) Should someone who ends sentences with a preposition be allowed to go on holiday?
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
World's best negotiator, somehow started with Mauritius wanting far less than £10bn, then press reports that somehow they had agreed £10bn, and finally managed to do a deal for £35bn.
The sort of people who go into a Turkish Bazaar and buy a fake Rolex for "first price" and also give them a tip.
See also David Cameron's "renegotiation" with the EU.
See also Keir Starmer’s renegotiation with the EU. 12 years of fishing rights for quite literally less solid gains than a jam jar containing one of Ursula's farts.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Chur, a town mostly useful for being the junction between the Bernina Express and Glacier Express. We are staying above a whorehouse, Swiss August hotel prices being what they are.
Bernina Express today diverted due to object on the line, so missed half the good stuff. High hopes for Glacier Express tomorrow.
Been to Chur twice on the train from Zurich, 2009 and 2010, but didn't have time to do the narrow gauge trains, as both years I had a conference down the road in Parpan. Did explore Chur, however, very nice.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
History tells us, however, revolutions often don't have limits and become different to that which the original revolutionaries wanted or desired. Did those for example who led the protests against Louis XVI and his corrupt regime in 1788-89 imagine for an instant they'd end up being ruled by a Corsican Emperor within a decade and a bit?
The 20th Century is replete with examples of aspirations for moderate change leading to new authoritarianism.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
She increased considerably the wealth generation but also internationalised it. Ultimately she created a serf country with British workers competing with inward migration workers for smaller wages to generate larger and larger wealth for foreign nationals living in Dubai. It's anti-British.
GDP per capita in the UK was $7,804 equivalent in 1979, $19,095 by 1990. So most workers saw big rises in their paypackets
Ever heard of this thing called "inflation"?
And GDP is not the same thing as family income.
That was a well above inflation increase, inflation also had fallen significantly from 1979 by the time the Tories left office in 1997
Still not the same as family income!
Higher gdp per capita and falling overall inflation almost certainly raised family income too for most
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Centrists are only saying the mainstream right are hoping for riots because they themselves fear rioting will happen, and are positioning so as to be able to attack their political enemies for it. Boringly predictable
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Do they? Really? If they did Corbyn would have won a majority in 2017 and Farage's Reform would now be polling 40-50% at least not barely 30%.
The majority of UK voters are still centrist to some degree
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Only left-wing revolutions are good?
Only revolutions by the Right People are good.
“the people have squandered the confidence of the government”
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Only left-wing revolutions are good?
No, but "revolutions are bad" is the core of conservatism (as distinct from right-wingery). Until quite recently, to be conservative was to be mainstream right-wing, but that isn't really the case at the moment.
And it is strange to see people who would have a lot to lose in an actual revolution assuming that the leopards won't come for their faces.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Sunday evening questions:
1) Can someone explain to say who "the mainstream right" are ? 2) How will remigration (or compulsory repatriation or deportation) work if we can't find the people we want to deport? 3) Should someone who ends sentences with a preposition be allowed to go on holiday?
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Agree. I am not someone who likes it hot and I don't like the crowds hence I holiday in April/May/June/September/October. Hence going to the Algarve in late September, France in early September and Italy and Spain earlier in the year.
I thought your friend was a billionaire. What on earth is he/she doing without a pool in the Algarve.
Centi-millionaire - he's on the Sunday Times list
He has about ten houses
eg he has two in the Algarve, one is his main base (with pool etc) and on a whim he bought a large and lovely house in Tavira - which is a charming town, probably the most charming on the Algarve, but there is no pool and I was simply bored in the heat (which meant I did lots of work as I escaped the painters at home)
Notably as I was there he was texting me from one of his other homes - on an island in County Kerry where he was with his kids. For August
A centi-millionaire with deci-houses then.
Somebody with a hundred million is a hecto-millionaire Somebody with ten houses is a deka-house person
Somebody with a hundredth of a million is a centi-millionaire Somebody with one-tenth of a house is a deci-house person
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Agree. I am not someone who likes it hot and I don't like the crowds hence I holiday in April/May/June/September/October. Hence going to the Algarve in late September, France in early September and Italy and Spain earlier in the year.
I thought your friend was a billionaire. What on earth is he/she doing without a pool in the Algarve.
Centi-millionaire - he's on the Sunday Times list
He has about ten houses
eg he has two in the Algarve, one is his main base (with pool etc) and on a whim he bought a large and lovely house in Tavira - which is a charming town, probably the most charming on the Algarve, but there is no pool and I was simply bored in the heat (which meant I did lots of work as I escaped the painters at home)
Notably as I was there he was texting me from one of his other homes - on an island in County Kerry where he was with his kids. For August
A centi-millionaire with deci-houses then.
Somebody with a hundred million is a hecto-millionaire Somebody with ten houses is a deka-house person
Somebody with a hundredth of a million is a centi-millionaire Somebody with one-tenth of a house is a deci-house person
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Only left-wing revolutions are good?
If a revolution has happened, something has gone wrong. The wing of the revolution is irrelevant.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Centrists are only saying the mainstream right are hoping for riots because they themselves fear rioting will happen, and are positioning so as to be able to attack their political enemies for it. Boringly predictable
We centrists have eyes, we read X, we even read PB. "Nobody on my side is actioning for civil disorder" - coooome onnnnn, that claim is utterly, utterly risible in 2025 after the last 12 months.
It may not be the median position of the median member on the mainstream right, but it is common enough within the mainstream - we have pulled people on here up on it enough times who are not overly Reformy in nature and no I'm not going to trawl back through all that mire to prove it in response to such gaslighting.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
Talking of holidays, John Redwood is firmly an English beach bucket and spade man
'Places in Spain do not want tourists. The EU wants to make it more difficult to enter. I gave up on Spanish holidays years ago when the EU got so unhelpful and when flights were often disrupted. Holidays in England are better.' https://x.com/johnredwood/status/1954406750670508262
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Centrists are only saying the mainstream right are hoping for riots because they themselves fear rioting will happen, and are positioning so as to be able to attack their political enemies for it. Boringly predictable
So where are you placing the click-bait copyist from the Express? Mainstream right? Centrist? Narnia? Leon by Homeopathy?
Chur, a town mostly useful for being the junction between the Bernina Express and Glacier Express. We are staying above a whorehouse, Swiss August hotel prices being what they are.
Bernina Express today diverted due to object on the line, so missed half the good stuff. High hopes for Glacier Express tomorrow.
I lived in a nearby town to there. Ever since people have accused me of being Churlish.
Talking of holidays, John Redwood is firmly an English beach bucket and spade man
'Places in Spain do not want tourists. The EU wants to make it more difficult to enter. I gave up on Spanish holidays years ago when the EU got so unhelpful and when flights were often disrupted. Holidays in England are better.' https://x.com/johnredwood/status/1954406750670508262
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
History tells us, however, revolutions often don't have limits and become different to that which the original revolutionaries wanted or desired. Did those for example who led the protests against Louis XVI and his corrupt regime in 1788-89 imagine for an instant they'd end up being ruled by a Corsican Emperor within a decade and a bit?
The 20th Century is replete with examples of aspirations for moderate change leading to new authoritarianism.
Reform voters are distinct from Conservative voters by their thoughts on the monarchy. They are more like Lib Dems in that respect. If there was a revolution, I think the King would go too because he's to tied up with defending parliamentary democracy to survive it.
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Agree. I am not someone who likes it hot and I don't like the crowds hence I holiday in April/May/June/September/October. Hence going to the Algarve in late September, France in early September and Italy and Spain earlier in the year.
I thought your friend was a billionaire. What on earth is he/she doing without a pool in the Algarve.
Centi-millionaire - he's on the Sunday Times list
He has about ten houses
eg he has two in the Algarve, one is his main base (with pool etc) and on a whim he bought a large and lovely house in Tavira - which is a charming town, probably the most charming on the Algarve, but there is no pool and I was simply bored in the heat (which meant I did lots of work as I escaped the painters at home)
Notably as I was there he was texting me from one of his other homes - on an island in County Kerry where he was with his kids. For August
A centi-millionaire with deci-houses then.
Somebody with a hundred million is a hecto-millionaire Somebody with ten houses is a deka-house person
Somebody with a hundredth of a million is a centi-millionaire Somebody with one-tenth of a house is a deci-house person
Ah ok, but Leon's "centi-millionaire" is on the ST richlist (apparently) so that can't be £10k net worth. Must be £100m. Therefore on that basis 10 houses is deci-houses.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
History tells us, however, revolutions often don't have limits and become different to that which the original revolutionaries wanted or desired. Did those for example who led the protests against Louis XVI and his corrupt regime in 1788-89 imagine for an instant they'd end up being ruled by a Corsican Emperor within a decade and a bit?
The 20th Century is replete with examples of aspirations for moderate change leading to new authoritarianism.
Reform voters are distinct from Conservative voters by their thoughts on the monarchy. They are more like Lib Dems in that respect. If there was a revolution, I think the King would go too because he's to tied up with defending parliamentary democracy to survive it.
Reform voters and LD voters back the monarchy almost as much as Tory voters do.
89% of Conservative, 76% of Reform and 67% of LD voters want to retain the monarchy, even 57% of Labour voters do.
Only amongst Green voters do less than half, 39%, want to keep the monarchy.
LD voters actually have a higher favourable rating for King Charles III than Reform voters do, 72% to 53%. Though Reform voters like Prince William more, giving him an 83% favourable rating to 78% for the Prince from LDs.
There is also next to no support for ending parliamentary democracy in the UK
Funny how the right wingers moan about freedom of speech being curtailed as a huge threat to democracy but across the world the ones trying to dismantle democracy are the same right wingers .
And the same right wingers are desperate for riots and then will allegedly be the one’s to bring safer streets.
Once in power right wingers no longer want a level playing field. They want freedom of speech just for the right .
The biggest threat to democracy isn’t woke or lefties but the right wingers . What’s happening in the USA should be a wake up call !
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall · 1h It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Very few people hoping for this revolution wish to see an end to the monarchy, parliamentary democracy, the army or even the rule of law. People just want seismic political change.
Centrists are only saying the mainstream right are hoping for riots because they themselves fear rioting will happen, and are positioning so as to be able to attack their political enemies for it. Boringly predictable
We centrists have eyes, we read X, we even read PB. "Nobody on my side is actioning for civil disorder" - coooome onnnnn, that claim is utterly, utterly risible in 2025 after the last 12 months.
It may not be the median position of the median member on the mainstream right, but it is common enough within the mainstream - we have pulled people on here up on it enough times who are not overly Reformy in nature and no I'm not going to trawl back through all that mire to prove it in response to such gaslighting.
"Tinderbox" has been getting quite an outing in right wing punditland.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
You're right, I was being much too polite to call our decline under Wilson managed.
The disastrous withdrawal from East of Suez which has left the Gulf a power vacuum ever since, the mishandling of Northern Ireland, the catastrophically delayed then botched 1967 devaluation, the cockup of Rhodesia that took more than a decade to sort out and the final national humiliation of the resort to the IMF amidst 25% inflation. Oh, and the encouragement of the massacre of hundreds of thousands in Biafra and the scarring of our cities by building the ugliest buildings ever, at least until the disaster at Ronan Point.
An epic series of disasters ending in national humiliation is perhaps a better description of the Premiership of our cleverest ever Prime Minister.
Whereas his less academically gifted successor-but-one gave us a couple of difficult years while she cleared his mess up, followed by a couple of decades of increasing prosperity until Brown got his feet under the table. Because Mrs Thatcher had some good luck, but mostly incomparably better judgement and perseverance.
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
It's been warm without being hot which is best imo.
In terms of summers to 9th August:
Warmest
2018 17.83 C 2006 17.80 C 1826 17.65 C 2025 17.59 C 1976 17.51 C
1976 did end up as the warmest (17.70 1st June -> 31st August), and sunniest - but not the driest. That is 1995 (Though 1976 was much much drier prior to the summer than 1995)
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
Will somebody please, please, please tell this Government to fuck off.
I don't like to blame shadowy Whitehall being behind most policies, but some form of ID system seems to have been on the cards for decades, regardless of who is in power.
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
If you add up the numbers for every year, and add a reasonable estimate for inflation, you'll get to £35bn over the course of the deal.
And if you look at the net present value of the payments, it'll come to about £3.4bn.
The reason being that if you start at £120m and apply 99 years of 3.t%% inflation, then you get a payment of more than £3bn in 2135.
On the other hand, if you went to a finance company and said, I'd like you to pay out 99 years of £120m index linked, they'd charge you about £3.5bn. Because that £3.5bn is going to benefit for 99 years of interest.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
Only with the boost of North Sea oil, though. Any fool could do a lot with North Sea oil money.
No sovereign wealth fund, either. Compare and contrast: Norway.
Yes and no. Compare Norways population vs Britains population. Spreads the sovereign wealth a lot more thinly.
Thatcher wanted the country to live within its means, not to destroy its industry try. She wanted to kill inflation and the country suffered to achieve it, but then the good times came again. Thatcher is a demon for many on the left, so much so that they ignore cold, hard facts and hang on their narrative. It’s comfort ting, but someone had to break the union dinosaurs of the seventies.
The heavy industry that died was already dead. At the end, it would have been cheaper to my down imported stainless steel cutlery, in Sheffield than make the steel locally.
The ship building industry was even more farcical - they even refused contracts that would have meant changing working practises.
Just down the road from the Leyland car factories, Nissan etc arrived and were making cars - good quality and a good price. Same workforce….
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
The key myth this destroys is that Osborne's austerity killed growth. It didn't. During his Chancellorship the economy grew well and the massive deficit that he inherited following the collapse of financial services taxes was eliminated. We need another decade of the same to get rid of our current deficit. Reeves, it appears, is intent on increasing taxes instead. The consequences for growth are not going to be benign.
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
Only with the boost of North Sea oil, though. Any fool could do a lot with North Sea oil money.
No sovereign wealth fund, either. Compare and contrast: Norway.
Yes and no. Compare Norways population vs Britains population. Spreads the sovereign wealth a lot more thinly.
Thatcher wanted the country to live within its means, not to destroy its industry try. She wanted to kill inflation and the country suffered to achieve it, but then the good times came again. Thatcher is a demon for many on the left, so much so that they ignore cold, hard facts and hang on their narrative. It’s comfort ting, but someone had to break the union dinosaurs of the seventies.
The heavy industry that died was already dead. At the end, it would have been cheaper to my down imported stainless steel cutlery, in Sheffield than make the steel locally.
The ship building industry was even more farcical - they even refused contracts that would have meant changing working practises.
Just down the road from the Leyland car factories, Nissan etc arrived and were making cars - good quality and a good price. Same workforce….
Yes, management was the problem, not the workers.
IMV that's a very naive simplification. It was management. It was workers. It was unions. It was the government. It was the structure (i.e. nationalisation).
There is plenty of blame to be spread around.
Having said that, even amongst the management, workers, unions, and government, there were people who tried to do the right thing.
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
How many of those deaths were with people between the 50 and 80 mg values
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
Only with the boost of North Sea oil, though. Any fool could do a lot with North Sea oil money.
No sovereign wealth fund, either. Compare and contrast: Norway.
Yes and no. Compare Norways population vs Britains population. Spreads the sovereign wealth a lot more thinly.
Thatcher wanted the country to live within its means, not to destroy its industry try. She wanted to kill inflation and the country suffered to achieve it, but then the good times came again. Thatcher is a demon for many on the left, so much so that they ignore cold, hard facts and hang on their narrative. It’s comfort ting, but someone had to break the union dinosaurs of the seventies.
The heavy industry that died was already dead. At the end, it would have been cheaper to my down imported stainless steel cutlery, in Sheffield than make the steel locally.
The ship building industry was even more farcical - they even refused contracts that would have meant changing working practises.
Just down the road from the Leyland car factories, Nissan etc arrived and were making cars - good quality and a good price. Same workforce….
The decline of Britain's shipbuilding was incredibly complex, but is well covered in "The rise and fall of British shipbuilding," by Anthony Burton.
A massive issue was the increase in ship size. Many of our shipyards were too small for the larger ships - a classic one being Woolston in Southampton, which somehow kept going until the 2000s. They were also generally unsuitable for modern modular practice, which requires less waterfront but much more depth inland. A shipyard that can make large ships can also make smaller ones, meaning their market is bigger. Whilst one that can only make smaller ones is at a significant disadvantage.
All repeated governments just wanted to keep the remaining yards open, without asking what they needed to do to compete with the like of South Korea. And the answer to that would have been one or two brand new shipyards in unconstrained sites with access to deep water. But that would have meant mahoosive costs, and extreme problems for the workforce (and hence the unions...)
In fact, that's what we did see in the car industry, with Toyota, Nissan et al starting brand new plants, with staff that had generally not worked in the industry before. We could, and should, have done the same with shipbuilding.
[Amanda] Clare was a member of the Labour Party when she was first elected in Winsford Dene ward in 2019, but left in March 2022 to join the Socialist Labour Party.
She then became a member of the Party of Women, before joining the Winsford Salt of the Earth Party, ultimately settling as an Independent in July 2024.
She joined Reform UK in March this year.
A not entirely untypical cv from what I've seen.
I think Reform may be burying quite a few anti-personnel mines ahead of their own planned route of advance.
I think that's the point.
There is no quality to the RefUK leadership; they only have rhetoric. In my parlance it's a content free political marketing machine.
There are always "floaters" around in the political system, people of no particular value system. Farage has let any number of them float on in, and chosen not to get them out again. The RefUK base is already in tribes and factions, and this is another threat on top, especially if .. ahem .. some media would cover it.
I follow feeds such as Reform Exposed and a couple of others, and there is beginning to be surprise that the supply of 'outliers' seems inexhaustible.
This must now be one of the sunniest and maybe warmest summers on record? And spring was remarkably nice
Not 1976 but very pleasant
On Starmer's watch.
Feels like almost every day is “nice” or “really nice”
Not “nice but a bit fucking hot” like Italy or Spain or indeed Nice
Just highly agreeable. 25C and a few clouds
So far we’re tracking pretty similar to 1976, but a bit warmer if you include May.
1976 vs 2025 so far, in the CET:
1976: May 12.0C June 16.9C July 18.6C August 17.6C September 13.3C
2025: May 13.2C (1.2C warmer) June 17.0C (0.1C warmer) July 18.4C (0.2C cooler) August TBA - likely to be above 17 but how much? September TBA
It’s been exceptionally sunny too, the sunniest spring on record followed by well above average sunshine in June and July. Rainfall has been less uniformly low than 1976 though - record breaking dry in parts of the West country but quite wet in July in the SE.
The next 3 weeks will determine where 2025 ends up in the record books.
In England
Yes, the Central England temperature record is in England.
Compared to average Scotland did equally well as England in July. The average is the problem.
Some people don't like the heat and would be happy to summer in Scotland which has temperatures in southern England now closer to what used to be Mediterranean temperatures now frequently in June and July and August.
The Mediterranean though is too hot to do much in the summer now bar stay by the pool and aircon, with close to 40 degree North Africa and Middle East temperatures regularly
Yes. I have now felt this two summers in a row
It is surely subjective but last summer I was in Provence with my older daughter and it was consistently close to, or even over 40C and it was HIDEOUS
It was great when we fled north to l'Aveyron
I have just been to Tavira, the Algarve, staying at a friend's beautiful loaned house. But there was no pool. It was too hot to do ANYTHING until about 8pm. I stayed indoors in the aircon and worked
Where's the fun in that?
The Med is a bit screwed in terms of July-August holidays.They aren't fun any more
Yes, may as well holiday in Cornwall, Devon, Scotland, Suffolk, Norfolk, Brittany, Normandy, Blackpool, Pembrokeshire, Dorset, Margate etc in the summer and take a Mediterranean break in the spring or autumn if you can afford that as well.
After a very late spring the Baltic is having a very pleasant summer. It is comfortably warm, today 24, and so sparking more use of the untranslatable Finnish word kalsarikänit- roughly meaning sitting at home in your underwear getting drunk.
Finland has more bloggers then; good job it's mainly in Finnish . I hope.
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
In the words of Andrew Neil: Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive.
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
The key myth this destroys is that Osborne's austerity killed growth. It didn't. During his Chancellorship the economy grew well and the massive deficit that he inherited following the collapse of financial services taxes was eliminated. We need another decade of the same to get rid of our current deficit. Reeves, it appears, is intent on increasing taxes instead. The consequences for growth are not going to be benign.
Totally agree. And the other important thing that Osborne's austerity policies delivered that Andrew Neil doesn't highlight was a steady continuing drop in the UK unemployment figures throughout his tenure as Chancellor which I believe caused even Osborne some surprise in the early years. I was always a great fan of George Osborne even when he was Cameron's wingman before, during his leadership contest and then in Oppostion and when he wasn't even liked by the Conservative party membership. I still think he was one of the most underated and most political astute politicians of his generation in Office. I still find it fascinating that he has now teamed up with Ed Balls as political commentators on TV and in their podcasts, again a much underated now duo commentating on politics today.
A couple of anecdotes, my oldest son and his girlfriend then just moving into together and renting their first flat decided to take up George Osborne's Help to Buy ISA as their first savings investment as a couple when it was introduced. It went onto help provide them with their deposit for their first home a couple of years ago when it was a struggle for couples their age to get the deposit together to buy a first home, so thanks George Osborne. Sadly its no longer available.
Back then when we chatted on here about the challenges facing young people in this age group, it was very much the struggle to find the much larger deposit needed that would enable them to buy their first home. Fast forward to today, I was chatting to my youngest son this weekend when he was home with friends for a long planned visit, not helped by me being quite ill this weekend at the last minute. And they are reporting that the now developing current problem in their age group is simple being able to get a job and hang onto it in the current economic climate and that now means being in a position to buy their first home is even more of a pipe dream as a result!
The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.
The document shows that civil servants were first instructed to lower the cost of the deal on paper to £10bn, to account for an estimated annual inflation rate of 2.3 per cent over 99 years.
Then it was reduced again by between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent per year using the Treasury’s Social Time Preference Rate, a principle that money spent immediately has more value than funds earmarked for future spending.
The final figure was calculated to be 90 per cent lower than the cash value of the payments the UK will make to Mauritius over the next century
If you add up the numbers for every year, and add a reasonable estimate for inflation, you'll get to £35bn over the course of the deal.
And if you look at the net present value of the payments, it'll come to about £3.4bn.
The reason being that if you start at £120m and apply 99 years of 3.t%% inflation, then you get a payment of more than £3bn in 2135.
On the other hand, if you went to a finance company and said, I'd like you to pay out 99 years of £120m index linked, they'd charge you about £3.5bn. Because that £3.5bn is going to benefit for 99 years of interest.
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
In the words of Andrew Neil: Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive.
Anyone worked out the relative effects on GDP/head of immigration and increasing numbers of retired people?
In any case, it's an interesting provocation by AN, which might start a good aggressive interview. As a statement hurled into the void, rather less so. It's a bit of a gotcha point really.
Yes there has been some growth in the economy, but by the standards we are all used to, it's been consistently mediocre for over fifteen years. And it doesn't seem to be making many of us any better off.
And the shape of Osborne's austerity (maintenance holidays and public sector pay squeezes) isn't something you can keep doing indefinitely. There's a fairly obvious reason that everything looks so tatty.
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
How many of those deaths were with people between the 50 and 80 mg values
Its a good question but I am not aware where the statistics for that can be found, if they can be found at all. The social consequences of the lower limit were quite negative. The pint on a Friday night after work disappeared for anyone driving and country pubs really suffered. It would be worth it to save lives but the evidence that it has is somewhat modest.
Incidentally, in my current never ending trial the deceased had a reading of just over 200mg in his blood, that is 4x the driving limit (he wasn't driving). The toxicologist described this as moderately tipsy and rejected any idea that he might not have known what he was doing.
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
DavidL, I would not be in the least bit surprised if lowering the drink drive limit in Scotland years ago showed the current figures did fit with my hypothesis that it changed the behaviour for sensible drivers who would never now even take the risk of having one drink and driving and who now also their curtail their drinking habits even more the night before if they have to drive the next morning. But I remain convinced its not had any effect on the core hard drink drivers who were always going to drink drive while clearly over the limit before and after the new reduced limit was introduced.
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
How many of those deaths were with people between the 50 and 80 mg values
Good question. No point bringing in stuff that has no effect.
Re eye sight. This should go further. It needs a reaction/observation test like you get when you do an education course after being caught speeding. My father was driving into his 90s with good eye sight, however he was plain dangerous. We spent years trying to get his car keys off of him. 70 is a bit low for the test. 80 is more reasonable. There needs to be something for new drivers, particularly young males for the first year. P plates?
I have my eyes tested every year for exactly that reason
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
They lowered the drink drive limit here in Scotland years ago, and I definitely think it changed the habits of those who were sensible drivers who would not drink drive, but I remain unconvinced its changed the habits for drivers who would get in their cars over the limit and drive regardless. I was told a few years ago that after the new limit came in golf clubs noticed the difference in the club houses as that golfer that might stop in for half pint or a shandy at the 19th hole at the end of a game at the weekend simple stopped. I also think that it again changed habits and made sensible drivers even more aware of having to be incredible careful if they were out the night before and planned on driving in the next morning because of the new lowered limit.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
How many of those deaths were with people between the 50 and 80 mg values
Its a good question but I am not aware where the statistics for that can be found, if they can be found at all. The social consequences of the lower limit were quite negative. The pint on a Friday night after work disappeared for anyone driving and country pubs really suffered. It would be worth it to save lives but the evidence that it has is somewhat modest.
Incidentally, in my current never ending trial the deceased had a reading of just over 200mg in his blood, that is 4x the driving limit (he wasn't driving). The toxicologist described this as moderately tipsy and rejected any idea that he might not have known what he was doing.
If I was 4 times over the limit driving would not be an issue for me. I wouldn't be able to find the car or open the door.
Scottish seasons. Mid May to Mid June - spring. Mid to end June - summer. July and August - monsoon season (coinciding with the school holidays). September - autumn. October to mid May - winter.
Weirdly I think August is generally now consistently a worse month than September for Scottish weather.
July and August and June which used to be best month is getting dodgy as well
I don't know how long you've been following football for but Liverpool have booed the national anthem since the eighties at least after the rest of the country, led by the Tories, left them to out to dry.
Seriously, you spend so much time clutching your pearls I'm amazed your fingers have enough strength left to type,
Given lots of the country suffered from de-industrialisation, why do you think it is only Liverpool that take this view?
Because of this, I don't think anything has emerged about similar being said about other areas.
Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots in 1981, official papers reveal.
To his credit Michael Heseltine refused to countenance managed decline for Liverpool & has been, I think, proven right in the long term.
To her credit, so did Thatcher.
"She was urged" doesn't mean "she decided".
She was quite good at figuring out when the “experts” were being fuckwits.
In the aftermath of the Brighton Bombing, they advocated all kinds of idiocy. Most of which would have made things 1000x worse - reintroduction of internment?!!. Thatcher, with the dust on her from the bombing, initiated the twin track policy. Track one - peace process, Track Two - infiltrate and destroy the paramilitaries from within. Which culminated in double agents in the PIRA killing off those opposed to the peace process.
On the flip side, she went against her personal instincts to go with the highly effective socio-medical campaign against AIDS - because the medical advice was coherent and cogent.
This is why she was such a brilliant PM.
She's possibly the most intelligent one we've ever had.
I would quibble slightly.
Harold Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons of the century at the age of 21, a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a research fellow at University College, was probably more intelligent academically.
But he had terrible judgement, and consigned Britain to managed decline.
Mrs Thatcher had a good, upper-second class mind. But great judgement, self-confidence and perseverance, so the country flourished.
Judgement and intelligence are no more than loosely associated, as Noam Chomsky and all the rest of the Commie intelligensia show all the time.
A smallish country colonising a third of the planet consigns itself thereafter to (relative) decline. So if his contribution was the 'managed' bit then that's a plus.
But you're correct on the main point. Wilson was our cleverest PM. A brain with a pipe, basically.
Wilson was an incredibly shrewd politician. And the poster accusing Wilson of managing decline in the same post as eulogising Thatcher.
Thather's USP was managed decline, see the destruction of manufacturing, the replacement of primary and tertiary domestic production with that of the Common Market countries and Japan, and the sale of national economic treasures to foreign asset strippers.
Hardly, Thatcher made the City of London into the economic powerhouse of Europe, revived Docklands and ended union domination and took the UK from one of the lowest per capita nations in Europe to one of the highest, plus investment in the NE from the likes of Nissan.
More mines closed under Wilson than Thatcher
She increased considerably the wealth generation but also internationalised it. Ultimately she created a serf country with British workers competing with inward migration workers for smaller wages to generate larger and larger wealth for foreign nationals living in Dubai. It's anti-British.
GDP per capita in the UK was $7,804 equivalent in 1979, $19,095 by 1990. So most workers saw big rises in their paypackets
Ever heard of this thing called "inflation"?
And GDP is not the same thing as family income.
Note he did not mention actual costs increases in same timespan
X Andrew Neil@afneil·16h Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
It's a good point. The gloom is overdone. We're getting richer not poorer. However the 'stagnant post 08' narrative is essentially true if you look at things relative to previous times. And relative is usually a better measure than absolute for these things.
Comments
If it's not his or her house, why worry any more than an Australian venture capital consortium does about the UK's stretegic utilities?
Reform were, as ever, the big outlier - though even then only a small minority supported the riots. Conservatives are closer to LD/Labour than they are Reform.
Even Reform are not that disruptive and they're the most notable disruptive political influence right now. Heck, even the Corbyn Party are probably not that into revolution, even if revolution wannabees will flock to it.
@scottlincicome
Goldman's latest (still very early) analysis of tariff effects thru June 2025:
-Foreign exporters absorbed 14% of US tariffs
-US companies ate 64%
-US consumers ate 22%
-Protected US companies also raised prices
-Consumers will see bigger price increases (70%) thru the Fall
https://x.com/scottlincicome/status/1954557849712894030
I am being shot out of the water for saying Thatcher (and for that matter, son of Thatcher Blair) managed the UK's industrial decline, moreso than those who preceded them. Your post has confirmed that is exactly what they did.
TizzyWoman 🗽 ☮️ ~ Keep moving forward
@tizzywoman
Oh, @LisaKudrow, how I love you. 💙
Perfect impersonation of every MAGA cult member out there.
#DemsUnited
https://x.com/tizzywoman/status/1954217594971394542
Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
·
1h
It is quite something to see much of what was once the mainstream right predicting, hoping for, braying for “revolt/revolution”.
Even the Telegraph can't believe £1 today is the same as a commitment to spend £1, ninety-nine years from now.
1) Can someone explain to say who "the mainstream right" are ?
2) How will remigration (or compulsory repatriation or deportation) work if we can't find the people we want to deport?
3) Should someone who ends sentences with a preposition be allowed to go on holiday?
The 20th Century is replete with examples of aspirations for moderate change leading to new authoritarianism.
The majority of UK voters are still centrist to some degree
“the people have squandered the confidence of the government”
And it is strange to see people who would have a lot to lose in an actual revolution assuming that the leopards won't come for their faces.
Somebody with ten houses is a deka-house person
Somebody with a hundredth of a million is a centi-millionaire
Somebody with one-tenth of a house is a deci-house person
https://hawaii.hawaii.edu/math/Courses/Math100/Chapter0/Prefix.htm
https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/metric-si-prefixes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wezOgvBt9T0
(Terry Pratchett's joke, not mine. But bears repeating.)
It may not be the median position of the median member on the mainstream right, but it is common enough within the mainstream - we have pulled people on here up on it enough times who are not overly Reformy in nature and no I'm not going to trawl back through all that mire to prove it in response to such gaslighting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ATfbYXqpc
'Places in Spain do not want tourists. The EU wants to make it more difficult to enter. I gave up on Spanish holidays years ago when the EU got so unhelpful and when flights were often disrupted. Holidays in England are better.'
https://x.com/johnredwood/status/1954406750670508262
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3VhggpAgF8
If youtube didn't murder the bass at least.
Leon by Homeopathy?
Ministers are preparing the biggest shake-up of driving rules for two decades, including a reduction in the drink-drive limit
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/driving-reforms-over-70-eye-tests-drink-drive-reduction-gph5rvjw0
This was my thinking there.
Also I do not drink and drive under any circumstances
89% of Conservative, 76% of Reform and 67% of LD voters want to retain the monarchy, even 57% of Labour voters do.
Only amongst Green voters do less than half, 39%, want to keep the monarchy.
LD voters actually have a higher favourable rating for King Charles III than Reform voters do, 72% to 53%. Though Reform voters like Prince William more, giving him an 83% favourable rating to 78% for the Prince from LDs.
There is also next to no support for ending parliamentary democracy in the UK
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52737-royal-family-favourability-trackers-august-2025
And the same right wingers are desperate for riots and then will allegedly be the one’s to bring safer streets.
Once in power right wingers no longer want a level playing field. They want freedom of speech just for the right .
The biggest threat to democracy isn’t woke or lefties but the right wingers . What’s happening in the USA should be a wake up call !
The disastrous withdrawal from East of Suez which has left the Gulf a power vacuum ever since, the mishandling of Northern Ireland, the catastrophically delayed then botched 1967 devaluation, the cockup of Rhodesia that took more than a decade to sort out and the final national humiliation of the resort to the IMF amidst 25% inflation. Oh, and the encouragement of the massacre of hundreds of thousands in Biafra and the scarring of our cities by building the ugliest buildings ever, at least until the disaster at Ronan Point.
An epic series of disasters ending in national humiliation is perhaps a better description of the Premiership of our cleverest ever Prime Minister.
Whereas his less academically gifted successor-but-one gave us a couple of difficult years while she cleared his mess up, followed by a couple of decades of increasing prosperity until Brown got his feet under the table. Because Mrs Thatcher had some good luck, but mostly incomparably better judgement and perseverance.
As an 81 year I fully endorse eye testing for over 70s driving and lowering the drinking limits
Lives are at risk especially children and the public's safety has to come first
Rachel Sylvester"
https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/this-is-serious-starmer-orders-move-towards-digital-id-system
Warmest
2018 17.83 C
2006 17.80 C
1826 17.65 C
2025 17.59 C
1976 17.51 C
1976 did end up as the warmest (17.70 1st June -> 31st August), and sunniest - but not the driest. That is 1995 (Though 1976 was much much drier prior to the summer than 1995)
If you add up the numbers for every year, and add a reasonable estimate for inflation, you'll get to £35bn over the course of the deal.
And if you look at the net present value of the payments, it'll come to about £3.4bn.
The reason being that if you start at £120m and apply 99 years of 3.t%% inflation, then you get a payment of more than £3bn in 2135.
On the other hand, if you went to a finance company and said, I'd like you to pay out 99 years of £120m index linked, they'd charge you about £3.5bn. Because that £3.5bn is going to benefit for 99 years of interest.
Andrew Neil@afneil·16h
Recent UK economic history being rewritten to suit current political agendas. So let’s set out some facts.
Britain’s real GDP grew by 18.7% from the end of 2010 (Q4 2010) to the end of 2019 (Q4 2019). In other words the UK economy grew by almost a fifth in real terms in the 2010-2020 decade, despite the shock of the Great Crash and Brexit and dysfunctional Tory governments. That somewhat undermines the widely promoted myth of a stagnant decade.
From the start of 2020 (Q1 2020) to the start of 2025 (Q1 2025), real GDP grew by 7.0%. So in the past five years the economy has grown markedly more slowly than previous decade. Covid obviously took its toll, including anaemic bounce back from the pandemic doldrums of 2020/21. Brexit uncertainty too. Plus endless Tory shenanigans hardly encouraged confidence. Even so — and despite all that — the UK economy still 7% bigger now than at start of decade.
I know, I know. Per capita GDP growth rate less impressive. That’s partly a consequence of mass immigration and low productivity. The purpose of this post is to counter the widespread perception that the UK has endured a decade and a half of stagnation in GDP growth. It hasn’t.
Researchers said a conch is a simple, low-cost intervention that could help reduce symptoms without the [CPAP] machines
https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/36232987/snorers-blow-conch-shell-breathing/
I'm sure she will thank me for reducing the symptoms of my loud noises keeping her awake.
The numbers are thankfully small and volatile but the downward trend that was already in place before the limit was lowered seems to have reversed. Perhaps fits with your hypothesis that it changed behaviour for most of us but not the core drink drivers.
There is plenty of blame to be spread around.
Having said that, even amongst the management, workers, unions, and government, there were people who tried to do the right thing.
A massive issue was the increase in ship size. Many of our shipyards were too small for the larger ships - a classic one being Woolston in Southampton, which somehow kept going until the 2000s. They were also generally unsuitable for modern modular practice, which requires less waterfront but much more depth inland. A shipyard that can make large ships can also make smaller ones, meaning their market is bigger. Whilst one that can only make smaller ones is at a significant disadvantage.
All repeated governments just wanted to keep the remaining yards open, without asking what they needed to do to compete with the like of South Korea. And the answer to that would have been one or two brand new shipyards in unconstrained sites with access to deep water. But that would have meant mahoosive costs, and extreme problems for the workforce (and hence the unions...)
In fact, that's what we did see in the car industry, with Toyota, Nissan et al starting brand new plants, with staff that had generally not worked in the industry before. We could, and should, have done the same with shipbuilding.
There is no quality to the RefUK leadership; they only have rhetoric. In my parlance it's a content free political marketing machine.
There are always "floaters" around in the political system, people of no particular value system. Farage has let any number of them float on in, and chosen not to get them out again. The RefUK base is already in tribes and factions, and this is another threat on top, especially if .. ahem .. some media would cover it.
I follow feeds such as Reform Exposed and a couple of others, and there is beginning to be surprise that the supply of 'outliers' seems inexhaustible.
A couple of anecdotes, my oldest son and his girlfriend then just moving into together and renting their first flat decided to take up George Osborne's Help to Buy ISA as their first savings investment as a couple when it was introduced. It went onto help provide them with their deposit for their first home a couple of years ago when it was a struggle for couples their age to get the deposit together to buy a first home, so thanks George Osborne. Sadly its no longer available.
Back then when we chatted on here about the challenges facing young people in this age group, it was very much the struggle to find the much larger deposit needed that would enable them to buy their first home. Fast forward to today, I was chatting to my youngest son this weekend when he was home with friends for a long planned visit, not helped by me being quite ill this weekend at the last minute. And they are reporting that the now developing current problem in their age group is simple being able to get a job and hang onto it in the current economic climate and that now means being in a position to buy their first home is even more of a pipe dream as a result!
https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1954736407983108288
"It's my money and I need it now"
NEW THREAD
In any case, it's an interesting provocation by AN, which might start a good aggressive interview. As a statement hurled into the void, rather less so. It's a bit of a gotcha point really.
Yes there has been some growth in the economy, but by the standards we are all used to, it's been consistently mediocre for over fifteen years. And it doesn't seem to be making many of us any better off.
And the shape of Osborne's austerity (maintenance holidays and public sector pay squeezes) isn't something you can keep doing indefinitely. There's a fairly obvious reason that everything looks so tatty.
Incidentally, in my current never ending trial the deceased had a reading of just over 200mg in his blood, that is 4x the driving limit (he wasn't driving). The toxicologist described this as moderately tipsy and rejected any idea that he might not have known what he was doing.
Re eye sight. This should go further. It needs a reaction/observation test like you get when you do an education course after being caught speeding. My father was driving into his 90s with good eye sight, however he was plain dangerous. We spent years trying to get his car keys off of him. 70 is a bit low for the test. 80 is more reasonable. There needs to be something for new drivers, particularly young males for the first year. P plates?
What is sauce for the goose...