1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
Of course all of the above might be Ukranian propoganda, but that’s what’s being said.
Another comment I missed the first time round from that Kiev Post piece. Putin is said to have an office in every major Russian city, and they are all fitted out identically, with no windows so no natural light.
So when he’s seen in the office, people watching have no idea where he actually is nor what time of day or night it is. This is old-fashioned KGB behaviour.
Russia is a very big place, and he has a lot of enemies both internal and external.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws it's sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
No one particularly loved the EU, and the bits I liked such as free movement PB Leavers hated most. The CAP was an abomination and served only the French. The argument that leaving was worse than staying was both true and compelling. Although not when up against unicorn politics.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
I think it started off as right I can get my IHT tax bill down and Amazon want some more telly form my big deal, oh I will just go Top Gear does Farms piece of piss for a few weeks a year. But COVID, he was trapped on that farm and it shows that he is way more invested in doing farmy things than he needs to be doing, he could be paying people to manage that land all year round and sit around making silly beer ads.
If driving his tractor is what he really loves, he shouldn't have set a ridiculous schedule for the pub
If opening the pub is what he cared about, he should have hired someone to drive the tractor
I don't think he really loves working so hard he had a heart attack...
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
I think it started off as right I can get my IHT tax bill down and Amazon want some more telly form my big deal, oh I will just go Top Gear does Farms piece of piss for a few weeks a year. But COVID, he was trapped on that farm and it shows that he is way more invested in doing farmy things than he needs to be doing, he could be paying people to manage that land all year round and sit around making silly beer ads.
If driving his tractor is what he really loves, he shouldn't have set a ridiculous schedule for the pub
If opening the pub is what he cared about, he should have hired someone to drive the tractor
I don't think he really loves working so hard he had a heart attack...
Ukranian press are suggesting that there might be an elaborate amount of deception about this trip. The allegation is that the real Putin doesn’t like flying anywhere, and has a whole load of decoy movements designed to cover for his actually travelling by train, as he’s scared of being on planes that are easy targets to take out with MANPADS.
There’s also the suggestion that the man who turns up in Alaska tomorrow, if indeed he does, might not be the real Putin but one of the many body doubles he uses.
Of course all of the above might be Ukranian propoganda, but that’s what’s being said.
Another comment I missed the first time round from that Kiev Post piece. Putin is said to have an office in every major Russian city, and they are all fitted out identically, with no windows so no natural light.
So when he’s seen in the office, people watching have no idea where he actually is nor what time of day or night it is. This is old-fashioned KGB behaviour.
Russia is a very big place, and he has a lot of enemies both internal and external.
Russia would appear to still include Alaska if Trump's recent pressers are to be believed.
Other than creating another opportunity to grift off the negotiations with individual companies, what is the actual point of this ?
It’s a combination of trying to close a massive budget deficit, and rebalance away from personal income taxes.
There’s a lot of sectors where US companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft have effective worldwide monopolies, meaning that the demand is price inelastic. Taxing Nvidia 15% on chip sales to China is pure profit for the Treasury.
Now many people will disagree with the approach, but that’s what they’re trying to do. There’s a suggestion that next year’s Budget is doing to scrap the Federal income tax for anyone earning less than $100k or even $200k.
Apropos of that, aiui (and not my thing) last week's US Treasury bond auction was in the toilet.
There’s a reckoning on the way for pretty much all Western governments, as can be seen in things like the gold (and bitcoin) price.
Four years after the pandemic and no-one really has the spending under control, gilt rates ticking up everywhere.
AIUI there’s a lot of one-offs in the US figures, related to redundancies made at the start of Trump’s term, but the spending is still out of control.
The markets also don’t like that a lot of the governance is coming from Trump directly through executive orders, and not legislated by Congress, so it can be easily undone by the next administration. Trump being Trump also means they don’t know what he might do or say next week.
Congress basically put all the pork back in the Budget bill, because they’ve spent decades being lobbied by every special interest and the money goes to buy jobs in every single congressional district.
The markets hate Trump's erratic tariff policy, which is driving up inflation. That's the biggest reason the bond auction was "in the toilet".
Inflation is coming in the US. They’ve seen little of it due to tariffs so far. Companies built up a lot of inventory before tariffs and some businesses need to hold inventory long term due to their market, such as spares for cars.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
There’s quite a lot of differences between the UK and US systems though.
In the US the appointment of judges is explicitly political, in a way that doesn’t happen in the UK.
In the UK Parliament is Sovereign, they can legislate whatever they wish without reference to a Constitution or higher power, since the UK left the EU.
A Reform government will likely legislate to repeal a whole load of “human rights” law.
One thing that I don’t think is being noticed enough at the moment, is the gender law ruling. Starmer is a lawyer and a process man, who now thinks that the gender issue was settled by the top court - in sharp contrast to many of his own party’s supporters who think that the court was wrong in their judgement. This particaular issue is existential to many of his erstwhile supporters and driving his unpopularity.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
DC was fresh off winning the Sindy Ref with that technique. I feel the same as you about 2016 but I doubt a more idealistic approach would have worked better. Contra consensus I think Leave won it with a very skilled campaign rather than Remain lost it with an especially bad one.
Cameron was fresh off almost losing Sindyref. Cameron believed in negative campaigning which landed him in Downing Street and saved Scotland (and saw off AV). Looked at from the outside, Cameron did less well. From poll leads after the GFC he barely scraped a hung parliament, and from similar poll leads came close to breaking up the United Kingdom until Gordon Brown and ScotCon's Ruth Davidson intervened.
And so to Brexit with the campaign slogan that the EU is run by Satan but we'd be even worse off on our own.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
‘Producer prices in July rose faster than forecast across the board, giving investors and the Federal Reserve an inflation surprise just over a week out from Fed Chair Jay Powell's crucial Jackson Hole speech.
Producer prices rose 0.9% over the prior month in July, well ahead of the 0.9% increase that was forecast. On an annual, prices rose 3.3%, the most since February.
"Core" producer prices, which exclude food, energy, and trade services, rose 0.6% last month, the most since March 2022 and an uptick after prices were unchanged in June. On an annual basis, core producer prices rose 3.3%, which was also the most since February.’
And they think interest rates should be lower ?
Of course tariff inflation could be a one off but all the same…
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
I'm not very convinced. Where is this "enormous increase"?
Road mileage all vehicles 2010: 303 billion. Road mileage all vehicles 2024: 336 billion.
That's only 0.7% per annum as a straight line compound, which is not very much. And is the flattest it has been for several decades. That's despite eg driving a car being cheaper in real terms than in 2011 (iirc when the data series starts), so more affordable.
You are correct of course that the it is focused in particular subcategories.
(Even that 303 billion is a temporary low point. Previously in 2007 it was 313 billion. And the 336 billion is less than 2019.)
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
No one particularly loved the EU, and the bits I liked such as free movement PB Leavers hated most. The CAP was an abomination and served only the French. The argument that leaving was worse than staying was both true and compelling. Although not when up against unicorn politics.
The Remain campaign was undeniably poor.
Personally I think the annoucement of the Brexit vote should have been seen as the canary in the coal mine for the EU.
They gave Cameron a nothing “negotiation”, which was when I personally made up my mind to vote out, but there should have been a bunch of red flags, checks and balances before that.
Many of the problems actually came from the differences between the UK and other EU countries, especially with regard to welfare and healthcare entitlements, and the fact that the English language was a massive draw for immigration. Successive British governments didn’t plan for an influx of immigrant workers, to the detriment of their own people.
That the Polish plumbers worked more hours and charged less money was great for a while, but you got to a point where in many towns a British plumber couldn’t afford to buy a house. If you’re going to bring in loads of immigrant tradesmen, at least let them build a load more houses!
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
Yes, I think 'if you can afford it' basically means 'if money is essentially no object'. For these people, London is truly an amazing place to live, (assuming they can overlook the crime, muck and crowds and they don't particularly rate access to good National Parks highly).
But for anyone in the bottom 99% of wealth, the sheer unaffordability of the place will impose such massive compromises that their quality of life will be worse than in any of Britain's second tier cities. You could live in a comfortable family house in Didsbury, or Ecclesall, or Roundhay, or Childwall, or Gosforth - but doing the same job in London you would have to settle for Feltham or Thamesmead.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
No, and Lowe is wrong to blame them for it.
We have had govts of all different political persuasions enact a massively increased policy of mass inward migration and have not had the political courage to put in place the infrastructure needed to support it.
Labour should build, build, build, and I think Reeves wants to, but it’s not happening.
‘Producer prices in July rose faster than forecast across the board, giving investors and the Federal Reserve an inflation surprise just over a week out from Fed Chair Jay Powell's crucial Jackson Hole speech.
Producer prices rose 0.9% over the prior month in July, well ahead of the 0.9% increase that was forecast. On an annual, prices rose 3.3%, the most since February.
"Core" producer prices, which exclude food, energy, and trade services, rose 0.6% last month, the most since March 2022 and an uptick after prices were unchanged in June. On an annual basis, core producer prices rose 3.3%, which was also the most since February.’
And they think interest rates should be lower ?
Of course tariff inflation could be a one off but all the same…
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
Yes, kids in poor areas of London get the opportunity to go to schools like Michaela Free School.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
0.3% growth in Q2 is somewhat better than expected after the growth in Q1 of 0.7%. I think that there was a lot of concern that spending had been brought forward to avoid Trump's insane tariffs and there would be a bigger reaction to that. Clearly there has been some but growth of 1% in H1, whilst hardly exciting, is probably a pass effort these days. Better news for Reeves than she has been getting on the government finances.
Of course, an economy which is receiving a boost of £150bn additional spending from the government above what they are taking in taxes should be doing better but at least it is not doing worse.
I agree that ramping up debt should be a stimulus to growth, but despite a much bigger deficit in the USA their growth in the first half of the year is just 0.6%, so not the whole story.
The US budget deficit for the month of July was an eye-watering $291 billion, putting our own monthly deficit into perspective, even allowing for the relative size of populations.
Debt just to squander on benbefits, illegal immigrants etc will never help us. What is needed is less government tax and big reduction in their spending. Less tax will at worst be as good at stimulating the economy and especially if done at the bottom end of the scale where people spend every penny they have.
I guess we are not the target audience. I have listened to some of her songs,, and they are pleasant enough if rather bland.
She is a consumate professional, with strong work ethic and knows her business inside out. Getting and staying at the top of such a competitive field is quite some achievement. Just not my cup of tea.
Suspect "pleasant if rather bland" is part of the point. In a world of a million niches, la Swift has cut through to be broadly liked. That's quite an achievement these days.
If we make a comparison, whose role is Taylor Swift fulfilling in the market compared to 20, 40, 60 years ago. Albeit regionally / globally, not nationally.
If we are looking for OK for parents whilst attractive to kids (I'm not assigning age groups - I get that wrong) - Spice Girls? Destiny's Child? Kylie? Abba?
From 20 years ago - Jennifer Lopez.
Amongst her contemporaries, Cyrus has a much better voice.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
Well up to a point. But it also makes stuff more expensive. Principally housing land. Because England is bascially the most densely populated country in the world (with the exception of Bangladesh and microstates and possible South Korea). And if we are mainly importing poor people, that places a greater onus on us.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
OK, it's a great place to live if you're mega-rich or if you're bottom-25%-poor. But not great if you're in the large gap in between.
A very pleasant upside surprise in the S household today, after an early morning drive to school.
I cannot post all the photographs of A-level celebrations here but a quick check on all the news sites shows we can still use that old joke: why don't they let boys take A-levels?
They give them out like sweeties nowadays, if you can print your name and date you are almost there.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
Let's hope so
I somehow knew old simple solutions would be along to comment.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
Let's hope so
I somehow knew old simple solutions would be along to comment.
‘Producer prices in July rose faster than forecast across the board, giving investors and the Federal Reserve an inflation surprise just over a week out from Fed Chair Jay Powell's crucial Jackson Hole speech.
Producer prices rose 0.9% over the prior month in July, well ahead of the 0.9% increase that was forecast. On an annual, prices rose 3.3%, the most since February.
"Core" producer prices, which exclude food, energy, and trade services, rose 0.6% last month, the most since March 2022 and an uptick after prices were unchanged in June. On an annual basis, core producer prices rose 3.3%, which was also the most since February.’
And they think interest rates should be lower ?
Of course tariff inflation could be a one off but all the same…
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
OK, it's a great place to live if you're mega-rich or if you're bottom-25%-poor. But not great if you're in the large gap in between.
There's lots of London: you have some great schools for ambitious parents, you have plenty of employment opportunities, and you have generally excellent public transport.
On the other hand, it can he extremely expensive.
But it takes all sorts.
I'm reminded of the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
Yes. It’s clearly real
He may have started the show as a lark but by the end you can see his sincere joy in the new job. In fact that’s one of the reasons it works and is SO successful (it’s globally popular) - it is obviously true at its core, even as elements are staged or crafted
Conversely, the Grand Tour declined in quality as the staging and scripting got more salient and painfully obvious - and you could sense the three guys were kinda bored
For sure he is not doing all the work, entertaining but massively edited. He may dabble a bit here and there.
Everything is busier with 70 million people than it would be with 60 million. Incidentally GDP per head in Italy has just overtaken the UK mainly because their population has remained at around 60 million whereas ours has increased by around 10 million since the year 2000.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
That's pretty much the main purpose of Reform. Don't be surprised by it.
If your A level results are disappointing, don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and here I am today, installing lights for a helicopter landing pad in my garden.
If he had achieved better grades he could afford to employ someone to install his helicopter landing lights.
In the last season of his show, he was trying to open a pub while harvesting crops at the same time, He was working round the clock and shortly thereafter had his heart attack
I know it made "good telly" but he could have hired someone else to drive his tractor for those 2 weeks
Although obviously he makes a load of money out of Clarkson's Farm TV show and there is clearly stunts that are setup and originally he bought that farm as an efficient IHT play....I think he is being genuine about how he has fallen in love with farming.
I think it started off as right I can get my IHT tax bill down and Amazon want some more telly form my big deal, oh I will just go Top Gear does Farms piece of piss for a few weeks a year. But COVID, he was trapped on that farm and it shows that he is way more invested in doing farmy things than he needs to be doing, he could be paying people to manage that land all year round and sit around making silly beer ads.
If driving his tractor is what he really loves, he shouldn't have set a ridiculous schedule for the pub
If opening the pub is what he cared about, he should have hired someone to drive the tractor
I don't think he really loves working so hard he had a heart attack...
Did Clarky have a gripper? If so, LOL.
He did not have a heart attack, he had a small procedure due to fact that in a gazillion years it coudl lead to a heart attack, sensationalism.
Osborne was pure politics. Short-term politics. All a game.
Cameron should have challenged him more on the strategic implications of the decisions but didn't.
Ossie warned Cameron of the potential jeopardy in holding the EU Referendum. The man was a soothsayer.
The Referendum was perfectly winnable - especially if it had been held earlier.
Absolutely. Johnson and his two letters were the game changer.
When you say earlier are you alluding to Cameron's AirMiles to and from Brussels bigging up all the concessions he would win, only to return just prior to the referendum with the square root of zero?
There is little to be gained by rehashing the old arguments, but I am sad that the case for staying in the EU was always couched as how bad it would be if we left, rather than how great it is to be in.
No one particularly loved the EU, and the bits I liked such as free movement PB Leavers hated most. The CAP was an abomination and served only the French. The argument that leaving was worse than staying was both true and compelling. Although not when up against unicorn politics.
The Remain campaign was undeniably poor.
Well obviously I disagree with your third sentence, though I'm happy to agree to differ. But to take the discussion in a mildly different direction: the EU which Remain was half-heartedly trying to get people to remain in had already been and gone; the EU which wasn't great but we can put up with went with the Lisbon treaty if not before. The EU that was actually in place in 2016 was still accelerating to Ever Closer Union, was economically sclerotic, and a mess in terms of foreign policy. (In my view the first of these has eased off rather, but due to constant crisis management rather than lack of will). It was also really struggling with repeated waves of immigration.
My view was that the risks of remaining were actually rather greater than the risks of leaving, and nothing which has happened since 2016 has changed my mind on that.
I don't, however, think this particularly analysis is what led most Leave voters to their decision. But nor do I think Remain voters analysis leading to their vote was in the main particularly deep.
"NHS Fife has admitted to the UK’s equalities watchdog that it broke the law by allowing a trans doctor to use a single-sex changing facility without carrying out an equality impact assessment.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has now ordered the health board to “carry one out immediately”."
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
As a result, you see a hollowing out - the poor and the rich can live in London. The middle can’t, increasingly.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
OK, it's a great place to live if you're mega-rich or if you're bottom-25%-poor. But not great if you're in the large gap in between.
There's lots of London: you have some great schools for ambitious parents, you have plenty of employment opportunities, and you have generally excellent public transport.
On the other hand, it can he extremely expensive.
But it takes all sorts.
I'm reminded of the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
London’s great for the top 1% and the bottom 10%.
For everyone else, it’s totally unaffordable.
Those great schools have a *lot* of selection by house price, with a few exceptions like Michaela.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
As a result, you see a hollowing out - the poor and the rich can live in London. The middle can’t, increasingly.
No problem for the large amount getting it free from taxpayers, many of whom are struggling to keep a roof over their own heads but don't get the state largesse or in most cases even earn as much as the state largesse doles out.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
I'm sorry - which party is that? The Conservatives perhaps - certainly not the Liberal Democrats.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
Is anyone arguing that Parliament can't repeal these laws ? If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants. What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
Looks like the hot weather for this year will be over by the end of next week. London for example won't be more than 23 degrees again after that date according to AccuWeather's long term forecast.
Strictly seems to be triggering all the right people. Today Tom Skinner, yesterday some bloke in drag. Fabulous. As much as I despise the BBC license fee I suspect the strictly rating will be good.
Also, on a positive note it’s nice to see the Downs model on there as a positive role model.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
OK, it's a great place to live if you're mega-rich or if you're bottom-25%-poor. But not great if you're in the large gap in between.
There's lots of London: you have some great schools for ambitious parents, you have plenty of employment opportunities, and you have generally excellent public transport.
On the other hand, it can he extremely expensive.
But it takes all sorts.
I'm reminded of the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
London’s great for the top 1% and the bottom 10%.
For everyone else, it’s totally unaffordable.
Those great schools have a *lot* of selection by house price, with a few exceptions like Michaela.
In that way it's better than large American cities which are only any good for the top 1% or 5% or whatever.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
The supreme court draws its sovereignty from parliament, it was an act of parliament that created it, an act of parliament can abolish it.
That's not algarkirk's point.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ? If so, please let us know in advance.
That's pretty much the main purpose of Reform. Don't be surprised by it.
I would not be hugely surprised. But I want their intentions to be made explicit.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
I'm sorry - which party is that? The Conservatives perhaps - certainly not the Liberal Democrats.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
OK, it's a great place to live if you're mega-rich or if you're bottom-25%-poor. But not great if you're in the large gap in between.
There's lots of London: you have some great schools for ambitious parents, you have plenty of employment opportunities, and you have generally excellent public transport.
On the other hand, it can he extremely expensive.
But it takes all sorts.
I'm reminded of the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
London’s great for the top 1% and the bottom 10%.
For everyone else, it’s totally unaffordable.
Those great schools have a *lot* of selection by house price, with a few exceptions like Michaela.
I am not in top 1% nor the bottom 10% (but much closer to the former than the latter) and London is great for me.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
I'm sorry - which party is that? The Conservatives perhaps - certainly not the Liberal Democrats.
Looks like the hot weather for this year will be over by the end of next week. London for example won't be more than 23 degrees again after that date according to AccuWeather's long term forecast.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
I'm sorry - which party is that? The Conservatives perhaps - certainly not the Liberal Democrats.
Looks like the hot weather for this year will be over by the end of next week. London for example won't be more than 23 degrees again after that date according to AccuWeather's long term forecast.
Looks like the hot weather for this year will be over by the end of next week. London for example won't be more than 23 degrees again after that date according to AccuWeather's long term forecast.
Really, the Accuweather long range forecast is about as reliable as Lib Dem Watch (too soon?).
Plenty of time for more heat in September and even early October if the synoptics are set up correctly and we can get a long feed of southerly winds. It got to 34c as far back as September 13th 2016.
Senators Press Howard Lutnick’s Former Investment Firm Over Tariff Conflict of Interest Concerns
Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren are demanding answers from Cantor Fitzgerald after WIRED reported that the firm was essentially creating a way for clients to bet on whether Trump’s tariffs will be struck down in court.
LD gain in Jesmond, Lab hold on a painful vote share loss in Sunny Jim's back yard
Those were also my predictions on the VoteUK forum prediction page. It'll be interesting to see how RefUK does in these unpromising areas from their point of view.
Looks like the hot weather for this year will be over by the end of next week. London for example won't be more than 23 degrees again after that date according to AccuWeather's long term forecast.
Really, the Accuweather long range forecast is about as reliable as Lib Dem Watch (too soon?).
Plenty of time for more heat in September and even early October if the synoptics are set up correctly and we can get a long feed of southerly winds. It got to 34c as far back as September 13th 2016.
I think they're mostly reliable for a few weeks. I wouldn't go beyond that.
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
If only we didn’t have a major political party that held influence in a large part of the Home Counties that was the party of the NIMBY and opposed any road building, new reservoirs or any development at all as it’s ‘not in the right place’. Massively in favour of mass inward migration, to be virtuous, totally against putting in any resource to support it, to keep their current voters onside
I'm sorry - which party is that? The Conservatives perhaps - certainly not the Liberal Democrats.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
While magnificent this is misleading. Parliament can't 'overrule' courts. It can legislate in the light of a court's decision about what the current law is. Eg, this government can but won't legislate to make men into women again following the SC's (correct) ruling recently.
However, the rule of law (which is more than courts) does, pace Leon, operate above parliament. Parliament is the great law maker, but so is 800 years of constitutional law making by the king's courts. In this respect they are equals. The missed point is that our courts are supreme not over parliament, a law making body, but over government and the state as a whole, which is the executive - the bit that does and enforces things.
If Reform wish to Trumpise our country to suggest that somehow the executive is supreme over the courts (and of course parliament - see passim how Trump operates) I think Leon MP should warn us in advance.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
Is anyone arguing that Parliament can't repeal these laws ? If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants. What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
It seems to me that some on here are saying exactly what I claim: that the law fundamentally constrains parliament. Fundamentally, and absolutely, it does not. Parliament can make or repeal any law it chooses, and any new law must be enacted. And if it is blocked by a court, parliament can abolish that court. And if anyone else tries to prevent parliament enacting the will of the people, parliament can pass laws to have those people jailed, or killed
Hopefully we won't reach that unpleasant state of affairs
Whether Reform have got the cullions to do all this is a different question . TBH I gravely doubt it. I suspect they will repeal some of the stupider laws but sadly I won't get the peaceful revolution I want
However, as I've also said, if they can simply sort out migration, boats, and human rights, in term one, that would be enough to satisfy me
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
It is fair to say that there has been a policy of not increasing road capacity (much). Combined with a massive increase in population.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
Indeed but that’s not down to immigrants like Mr Lowe suggests, and it is not just roads it is our infrastructure in general as well as housing.
The massive population increase is down to immigration.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
All that stuff is paid for by people. More people need more stuff, but also pay for more stuff. The "pot", so to speak, increases with the population size. An increase in population shouldn't be an issue.
Well up to a point. But it also makes stuff more expensive. Principally housing land. Because England is bascially the most densely populated country in the world (with the exception of Bangladesh and microstates and possible South Korea). And if we are mainly importing poor people, that places a greater onus on us.
Are your numbers right there? Population density (people per km^2), ignoring microstates and smaller states (like Bahrain):
Bangladesh 1333 Palestine 892 Taiwan 656 Rwanda 578 Lebanon 568 Burundi 547 Netherlands 541 South Korea 530 India 488 Israel 434 Haiti 427 Philippines 389 Belgium 385 Sri Lanka 373 Japan 340 Vietnam 322 El Salvador 306 Pakistan 289 United Kingdom 286
Oh, but you said England, which is 438, just above Israel, but still below India, the Netherlands, Lebanon etc.
And if we're splitting the UK, can we split other countries up? Belgium has a lower population density than England, but Flanders has a higher one. Japan has a lower population density than England, but Honshu has a higher one. Germany has a lower population density than England or the UK, but North Rhine-Westphalia's is higher than England's.
"if we are mainly importing poor people": well, we're not now, so that's not a problem. Maybe that was an issue during the "Boriswave". If you want to criticise Boris, fine with me. I'm on board that train. Choo choo!
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
I'm not very convinced. Where is this "enormous increase"?
Road mileage all vehicles 2010: 303 billion. Road mileage all vehicles 2024: 336 billion.
That's only 0.7% per annum as a straight line compound, which is not very much. And is the flattest it has been for several decades. That's despite eg driving a car being cheaper in real terms than in 2011 (iirc when the data series starts), so more affordable.
You are correct of course that the it is focused in particular subcategories.
(Even that 303 billion is a temporary low point. Previously in 2007 it was 313 billion. And the 336 billion is less than 2019.)
Don't worry Matt - I'm just trying to construct a vague rationale for the tweet, not stating my own opinion. To be fair, in Edinburgh (and I guess other cities) it's more profound than the general UK picture.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
I will take you nowhere. My job is to tell you what has happened.
LD gain in Jesmond, Lab hold on a painful vote share loss in Sunny Jim's back yard
Those were also my predictions on the VoteUK forum prediction page. It'll be interesting to see how RefUK does in these unpromising areas from their point of view.
Jesmond doesnt feel at all Reformy, third place i think. Cardiff has too much variety i think to swing hard to Reform, its likely to be their worst area next year unless they get utterly Plaided in Ynys mon/Aberconwy or Ceredigion (or the Dwyfor half of the Montgomery seat)
1) There has been an enormous increase in road mileage since 2010, even while economic activity has barely increased 2) This is primarily due to LCVs (vans). HGVs, buses have both fallen over that period. 3) and this is due to the surge in online shopping, Amazon etc 4) this kind of economic activity is dependent on ... low-skilled and cheap labour 5) immigrants
No, it’s dependent on demand from people, like myself. If we didn’t want it there wouldn’t be people providing it. Same with JustEat.
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
Demand and supply work together. There's huge demand for sitting on your arse and getting stuff delivered. That's only possible if there's a large enough supply of cheap labour to do it.
What's interesting/perverse is that Labour will likely achieve decent productivity growth by virtue of restricting immigration and making employment more expensive for firms. I'm of the view the former effect is larger than the latter, so market wages will remain higher than the minimum wage.
PBers have been banging on about this for years (decades). Now we're finally getting it
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
Is anyone arguing that Parliament can't repeal these laws ? If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants. What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
It seems to me that some on here are saying exactly what I claim: that the law fundamentally constrains parliament. Fundamentally, and absolutely, it does not. Parliament can make or repeal any law it chooses, and any new law must be enacted. And if it is blocked by a court, parliament can abolish that court. And if anyone else tries to prevent parliament enacting the will of the people, parliament can pass laws to have those people jailed, or killed
Hopefully we won't reach that unpleasant state of affairs
Whether Reform have got the cullions to do all this is a different question . TBH I gravely doubt it. I suspect they will repeal some of the stupider laws but sadly I won't get the peaceful revolution I want
However, as I've also said, if they can simply sort out migration, boats, and human rights, in term one, that would be enough to satisfy me
Let us take an extreme and hypothetical case just to make it clear. Parliament passes, with royal assent an Act called 'The Legalisation of Torturing Children for Fun Act 2026'. This enacts exactly what it says on the tin.
I quite like the system whereby some irritating and busybody group can go to the high court and start asking the judges in that annoying leftie way about parameters, limits, the effect of other legislation on this, whether the common law has anything to offer by way of balance, the meaning of words, the injuncting of potential torturers, the effects of treaties and other boring legal stuff.
i don't think I am alone in thinking this.
If Leon MP is right we are going to need these annoying interfering people a bit.
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
While magnificent this is misleading. Parliament can't 'overrule' courts. It can legislate in the light of a court's decision about what the current law is. Eg, this government can but won't legislate to make men into women again following the SC's (correct) ruling recently.
However, the rule of law (which is more than courts) does, pace Leon, operate above parliament. Parliament is the great law maker, but so is 800 years of constitutional law making by the king's courts. In this respect they are equals. The missed point is that our courts are supreme not over parliament, a law making body, but over government and the state as a whole, which is the executive - the bit that does and enforces things.
If Reform wish to Trumpise our country to suggest that somehow the executive is supreme over the courts (and of course parliament - see passim how Trump operates) I think Leon MP should warn us in advance.
This is tedious sophistry. In our system, the Crown in Parliament is sovereign - that is, the people’s will expressed through their representatives
We have no higher written constitution, only that principle
We fought a Civil War to prove it, and Parliament won. Moreover, and in the end, all law rests on the reality of enforcement - and the army and police serve the Crown, in Parliament. Again, I hope some lawyers are not mad enough to seriously put this to the test
LD gain in Jesmond, Lab hold on a painful vote share loss in Sunny Jim's back yard
Are you familiar with the area? How close is that to Jesmond Parish Church?
It's one of a small number of areas in the UK where a Church of England evangelical community could have an impact electorally - the church is the base of a vicar called Rev David Holloway, who is a Reformed type evangelical and has been vicar since 1973 (similars: St Helens Bishopsgate, Christ Church Fulwood in Sheffield, St Ebbe's Oxford.).
They were at the heart of anti-womens' ordination moves in 1991 in the organisation called Reform that spearheaded withholding contributions to their Dioceses. They have had a congregation of about 1000 for decades, which is enough to have an impact if a) The members vote their values and b) They are locally based not eclectic.
That the LDs won suggests this impact did not happen .
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
While magnificent this is misleading. Parliament can't 'overrule' courts. It can legislate in the light of a court's decision about what the current law is. Eg, this government can but won't legislate to make men into women again following the SC's (correct) ruling recently.
However, the rule of law (which is more than courts) does, pace Leon, operate above parliament. Parliament is the great law maker, but so is 800 years of constitutional law making by the king's courts. In this respect they are equals. The missed point is that our courts are supreme not over parliament, a law making body, but over government and the state as a whole, which is the executive - the bit that does and enforces things.
If Reform wish to Trumpise our country to suggest that somehow the executive is supreme over the courts (and of course parliament - see passim how Trump operates) I think Leon MP should warn us in advance.
This is tedious sophistry. In our system, the Crown in Parliament is sovereign - that is, the people’s will expressed through their representatives
We have no higher written constitution, only that principle
We fought a Civil War to prove it, and Parliament won. Moreover, and in the end, all law rests on the reality of enforcement - and the army and police serve the Crown, in Parliament. Again, I hope some lawyers are not mad enough to seriously put this to the test
And whilst Michaela do what they do very well, their sixth form is mega selective. To get in, you need an average grade of 7 at GCSE (A in old money), and 8's (A/A*) in the subjects you plan to study at A Level.
That's stated entry threshold for 6th form at top grammars. The other metric to check would be what % of the 6th form were entered for how many A levels, as they may be filtering out lower performing students
That's an interesting set of stats from FE week, London seems to have benefited from the Covid flight to the country. A and up 26.9% in 2019 to 32.1% in 2025 - who'd bring up a family in crime-ridden London?
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
Lol, London is one of the best places to raise a family if you can afford it. Great state schools, as reflected in the A level results, the best cultural offering in the world, plenty of green space, brilliant public transport, lots of interesting people... who'd live anywhere else?
The clue is in the 'if you can afford it'.
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
London also has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the country. So it's not as if everyone who raises a family in London is rich by any means. There's been an above average share of kids on free school meals at all my children's schools.
You missed out the word 'average' in your first sentence. Scotland has a higher share, 23/24% to 20%
On roads and migration its a simple fact that since Tony Blair came to power we have had a crippling lack of investment in our roads while having a massive surge in population.
So our road network needs to handle far more people than it was built for.
We should be building new infrastructure at least as fast as our population grows, new roads not widening/making smart existing ones, and we aren't investing in that.
If migration is tax positive, as its adherents including myself say it should be, there's no reason why we can't fund infrastructure from it.
Having a growing population but not growing infrastructure is an absurdity that needs to end.
We need major investment in new motorways and new roads which should be able to be afforded by the millions of people who have migrated here in recent decades.
LD gain in Jesmond, Lab hold on a painful vote share loss in Sunny Jim's back yard
Are you familiar with the area? How close is that to Jesmond Parish Church?
It's one of a small number of areas in the UK where a Church of England evangelical community could have an impact electorally - the church is the base of a vicar called Rev David Holloway, who is a Reformed type evangelical and has been vicar since 1973 (similars: St Helens Bishopsgate, Christ Church Fulwood in Sheffield, St Ebbe's Oxford.).
They were at the heart of anti-womens' ordination moves in 1991 in the organisation called Reform that spearheaded withholding contributions to their Dioceses. They have had a congregation of about 1000 for decades, which is enough to have an impact if a) The members vote their values and b) They are locally based not eclectic.
That the LDs won suggests this impact did not happen .
Im not especially familiar with the area that would afford me any knowledge beyond broad brush stuff tbf, so thank you for the interesting extra info!
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
Is anyone arguing that Parliament can't repeal these laws ? If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants. What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
It seems to me that some on here are saying exactly what I claim: that the law fundamentally constrains parliament. Fundamentally, and absolutely, it does not. Parliament can make or repeal any law it chooses, and any new law must be enacted. And if it is blocked by a court, parliament can abolish that court. And if anyone else tries to prevent parliament enacting the will of the people, parliament can pass laws to have those people jailed, or killed
Hopefully we won't reach that unpleasant state of affairs
Whether Reform have got the cullions to do all this is a different question . TBH I gravely doubt it. I suspect they will repeal some of the stupider laws but sadly I won't get the peaceful revolution I want
However, as I've also said, if they can simply sort out migration, boats, and human rights, in term one, that would be enough to satisfy me
Let us take an extreme and hypothetical case just to make it clear. Parliament passes, with royal assent an Act called 'The Legalisation of Torturing Children for Fun Act 2026'. This enacts exactly what it says on the tin.
I quite like the system whereby some irritating and busybody group can go to the high court and start asking the judges in that annoying leftie way about parameters, limits, the effect of other legislation on this, whether the common law has anything to offer by way of balance, the meaning of words, the injuncting of potential torturers, the effects of treaties and other boring legal stuff.
i don't think I am alone in thinking this.
If Leon MP is right we are going to need these annoying interfering people a bit.
As you've deliberately entered the realm of wild absurdity, let me follow
In the end this would come down to the loyalty of the army and police, as they are the enforcers of the law and the will of parliament, without and within
Would they be loyal to the crown in parliament, or to some lawyers in a courtroom? I strongly suspect the former. Only in a case like yours, where parliament tried to enact a surreally evil law for torturing kids, might this be questioned. Even then I wonder
However, Reform are not going to bring in the Act Enabling The Evisceration of Pet Dogs, much as I might be entertained by it
'We may not officially know what the Corbyn/Sultana Party is called yet (popular suggestions so far include both ‘The People’s Party’ and ‘Arise’), but we do know one thing: they are shaggers.
So far internal comms has been full of stories about inter-party banging amongst volunteers and junior staffers, and already they’ve got a slightly surprising reputation for horniness.
Still though, it could be worse. The Corbynista-Sultanas are at least relieved that they don’t have the same reputation as junior staffers in Reform, who are becoming known for their phenomenal gakkiness.'
LD gain in Jesmond, Lab hold on a painful vote share loss in Sunny Jim's back yard
Those were also my predictions on the VoteUK forum prediction page. It'll be interesting to see how RefUK does in these unpromising areas from their point of view.
Jesmond doesnt feel at all Reformy, third place i think. Cardiff has too much variety i think to swing hard to Reform, its likely to be their worst area next year unless they get utterly Plaided in Ynys mon/Aberconwy or Ceredigion (or the Dwyfor half of the Montgomery seat)
“I have taken a break precisely because I got fed up with wading through Leon’s shit; most of the content he spams into this forum nowadays consists either of repetitive bigoted vomit, self-obsessed wank, or gratuitous abuse. There is no analysis or intelligence or insight, at all. Day after day, it just becomes tiresome; PB should be about more than one man’s lifelong attempt to compensate for his under-endowment.
In no way can my absence be interpreted as any support whatsoever for Leon’s thesis that he’s the only racist left in the village.
I saw Leon’s photos of his bits and bobs from across the world; the most valuable souvenir you can get from any travel is a broader perspective, yet it is the one thing that he never manages to bring home.”
That’s all well and good, but on the upside I got you to shut up and leave, so it’s kinda swings and roundabouts?
FPT from Dura - "see you tomorrow".
I never flounced! I just said PB is in decline, which it is
On reflection I think it might be inevitable. The site was founded in the noughties, we’ve been here twenty years and we’ve all gotten a lot older (me included). Some of us have literally died. So the decay in commentary value is baked in: we simply don’t attract enough newcomers to compensate for the Agues of Time
However I stand by my other point. This slide is not helped by a groupthink Centrist Dork hostility to right wing ideas - especially when the populist right is in the ascendant. It’s the equivalent of a British football website refusing to discuss northern clubs run by wealthy foreigners
When this site was founded the Tories were still the main right of centre party and certainly once Cameron took over still the most popular party with the upper middle class who are found disproportionally on here.
Now Reform are the main right of centre party and most popular with the white working class, who aren't found in significant numbers on PB while many of the upper middle class think Farage is a populist oik
This is an astute and interesting point
No-one has yet, SFAICS, ventured on PB to give a reasoned account of why people should support Reform on account of their ability to govern the UK really well.
"Can't be worse" and "rolling the dice" about covers it, I think.
Also “will actually stop mass immigration” and “will actually stop the boats” are fairly important, no?
If Reform enters government and does just those two things, while mismanaging everything else as badly as Labour or the Tories, I will be very satisfied with my Reform, especially as I will probably be a Reform MP
Yes, they have 2 strands. The specific (nativist, anti-immigrant) and the general (upset the status quo).
It's essentially the same mix that got Brexit over the line. That's why you'll find that almost all Reform voters who are old enough to have voted in 2016 will have voted Leave.
It's also why - given it's the same drivers, the same pool of voters, the same leader - that we shouldn't, if we have any sense, touch it with a bargepole.
Reform voters want vast and increasing and better run amounts of the status quo. This is lost of many commentators. The status quo popular with Reform voters includes: NHS, cradle to grave welfare, free education to 18, state pensions, NATO, proper transport infrastructure, social housing.
Every one of the expensive bits of the state.
This truth governs all the rest of how Reform would act in government.
You could say the same of MAGA, but it hasn't governed how Trump has acted. The Republicans have sold their WWC voters down the river in favour of tax cuts for the rich and a massive build-up of ICE.
A good point, but there are a couple of key differences:
UK voters are not religious in the same way as USA voters are. They are much less subject to magical beliefs about charismatic politicians. Nor are they ideologically accustomed to the idea that the rich can be radically irresponsible and run the country on their own fiat.
The UK does not allow for the takeover of the state by an individual and cronies as easily as the USA. And Reform MPs will mostly want to be re-elected on 2034.
Our courts are far less politicised, and there is no chance (IMO) of a government simply ignoring thr rule of law.
But we shall perhaps find out. (30% chance of a Reform majority government).
The U.K. has supremacy of Parliament. Which means that a majority in the Commons can do virtually anything.
Some lawyers are trying to knit a constitution out of HR law etc. - to truly limit what parliament can do on various things.
I can easily imagine a battle in the courts to try and limit primary legislation by a Reform Government.
A court battle to prevent the passing of primary legislation would be, SFAICS, entirely novel and would be a constitutional event of box office proportions.
Court battles over the meaning and application/disapplication of primary (and other) legislation is standard fare in modern law. This is because, to the chagrin of dim MPs, the law is not a superficial thing. It is a collective body of materials gathered over the last 1000 years or so from various sources and is in a permanent state of development. If an Act of 2025 is inconsistent or ambiguous when put alongside an Act from the reign of Edward III which it has failed to repeal there is an issue for a court to decide. Multiply this by a few billion and you have the current state of things. To test the waters and appreciate the complexities just read few Supreme Court judgments - probably the world's brightest court; these only deal in contested and previously indeterminate matters.
What I think is impossible in the UK (unlike the USA) is three fold: That courts will allow its fundamental jurisdiction to be ousted; that a Reform government will try to do so; and that a Reform government will try to overlook or ignore the rule of law as pronounced by our courts.
Of course parliament can - and I hope will - overrule the courts. Parliament is the people, and it is the people that decide
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
I genuinely doubt that, given that that has arguably already happened with the gender ruling and the violence being limited to pissing on statues and broken glass. Bear in mind that during Covid we had the polis arresting and detaining people for breaking guidelines, which aren't laws. Cyclefree pointed this out at the time
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
Because it's bollocks. Parliament is supreme and if parliament decided to repeal all this shit, then it is repealed. Lawyers do not run the country, our elected MPs do. And if you literally try to stop this, then - in the end - violence will happen. The idea it cannot occur in the UK is nonsense. Until recently we had an armed insurrection in the UK - in northern Ireland - precisely because of this. People felt disenfranchised. In that case it was a minority, you're talking about thwarting the will of the overall UK government
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
Is anyone arguing that Parliament can't repeal these laws ? If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants. What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
It seems to me that some on here are saying exactly what I claim: that the law fundamentally constrains parliament. Fundamentally, and absolutely, it does not. Parliament can make or repeal any law it chooses, and any new law must be enacted. And if it is blocked by a court, parliament can abolish that court. And if anyone else tries to prevent parliament enacting the will of the people, parliament can pass laws to have those people jailed, or killed
Hopefully we won't reach that unpleasant state of affairs
Whether Reform have got the cullions to do all this is a different question . TBH I gravely doubt it. I suspect they will repeal some of the stupider laws but sadly I won't get the peaceful revolution I want
However, as I've also said, if they can simply sort out migration, boats, and human rights, in term one, that would be enough to satisfy me
Let us take an extreme and hypothetical case just to make it clear. Parliament passes, with royal assent an Act called 'The Legalisation of Torturing Children for Fun Act 2026'. This enacts exactly what it says on the tin.
I quite like the system whereby some irritating and busybody group can go to the high court and start asking the judges in that annoying leftie way about parameters, limits, the effect of other legislation on this, whether the common law has anything to offer by way of balance, the meaning of words, the injuncting of potential torturers, the effects of treaties and other boring legal stuff.
i don't think I am alone in thinking this.
If Leon MP is right we are going to need these annoying interfering people a bit.
If Parliament passes the law, then it should be the law. And we should be able to kick out the bastards that passed that law and reverse it since no Parliament can bind its successors.
The alternative is saying to take it to the extreme that if a court rules you have an irreversible human right to torture children for fun, then Parliament can't reverse that and we as voters have no way to reverse the courts decision.
The only way to secure our rights is to vote for them, and to have a Parliament as the ultimate arbiter.
Comments
The lovely young lady from DPD who delivered my wife’s 10th anniversary gift yesterday was white and British.
So when he’s seen in the office, people watching have no idea where he actually is nor what time of day or night it is. This is old-fashioned KGB behaviour.
Russia is a very big place, and he has a lot of enemies both internal and external.
The Remain campaign was undeniably poor.
Drop in numbers doing computing is probably due it not being offered at A level as schools struggle to get teachers.
If opening the pub is what he cared about, he should have hired someone to drive the tractor
I don't think he really loves working so hard he had a heart attack...
From Goldman
https://x.com/scottlincicome/status/1954557849712894030?s=61
I listened to the II podcast on my walk today. The fund managers view is Trump is TACO, but his instability is a risk.
He’s doing everything by executive order as he won’t get it through congress.
Laws still have to be adjudicated and enforced by a legal system, whatever the details of its structure.
Does Reform really want to overturn all settled law and completely remake the constitution into the bargain ?
If so, please let us know in advance.
This has led to pressure on road usage. And just about everything else.
In the US the appointment of judges is explicitly political, in a way that doesn’t happen in the UK.
In the UK Parliament is Sovereign, they can legislate whatever they wish without reference to a Constitution or higher power, since the UK left the EU.
A Reform government will likely legislate to repeal a whole load of “human rights” law.
One thing that I don’t think is being noticed enough at the moment, is the gender law ruling. Starmer is a lawyer and a process man, who now thinks that the gender issue was settled by the top court - in sharp contrast to many of his own party’s supporters who think that the court was wrong in their judgement. This particaular issue is existential to many of his erstwhile supporters and driving his unpopularity.
And so to Brexit with the campaign slogan that the EU is run by Satan but we'd be even worse off on our own.
People don’t like to say that, since it sounds like immigrant blaming.
But if you try and put a quart in a pint pot, is the beer to blame, or the pot?
We need more stuff (roads, hospitals, houses) for millions of people. They are not to blame for this.
There is no supreme law in the UK that operates above parliament, like some Ten Commandments in the Bible, or indeed like some royal Divine Right
We had a Civil War to establish this fact. Indeed, if a bunch of wanker lawyers tried to prevent the British parliament acting freely, we would soon see similar violence. Not a route we want to take
‘Producer prices in July rose faster than forecast across the board, giving investors and the Federal Reserve an inflation surprise just over a week out from Fed Chair Jay Powell's crucial Jackson Hole speech.
Producer prices rose 0.9% over the prior month in July, well ahead of the 0.9% increase that was forecast. On an annual, prices rose 3.3%, the most since February.
"Core" producer prices, which exclude food, energy, and trade services, rose 0.6% last month, the most since March 2022 and an uptick after prices were unchanged in June. On an annual basis, core producer prices rose 3.3%, which was also the most since February.’
And they think interest rates should be lower ?
Of course tariff inflation could be a one off but all the same…
Road mileage all vehicles 2010: 303 billion.
Road mileage all vehicles 2024: 336 billion.
That's only 0.7% per annum as a straight line compound, which is not very much. And is the flattest it has been for several decades. That's despite eg driving a car being cheaper in real terms than in 2011 (iirc when the data series starts), so more affordable.
You are correct of course that the it is focused in particular subcategories.
(Even that 303 billion is a temporary low point. Previously in 2007 it was 313 billion. And the 336 billion is less than 2019.)
https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/summary
One of massive pluses of the grammar system is that access to great schools is secured by ability, rather than house prices/cost of living.
Dorset really is a fabulous place to live because of this.
They gave Cameron a nothing “negotiation”, which was when I personally made up my mind to vote out, but there should have been a bunch of red flags, checks and balances before that.
Many of the problems actually came from the differences between the UK and other EU countries, especially with regard to welfare and healthcare entitlements, and the fact that the English language was a massive draw for immigration. Successive British governments didn’t plan for an influx of immigrant workers, to the detriment of their own people.
That the Polish plumbers worked more hours and charged less money was great for a while, but you got to a point where in many towns a British plumber couldn’t afford to buy a house. If you’re going to bring in loads of immigrant tradesmen, at least let them build a load more houses!
But for anyone in the bottom 99% of wealth, the sheer unaffordability of the place will impose such massive compromises that their quality of life will be worse than in any of Britain's second tier cities. You could live in a comfortable family house in Didsbury, or Ecclesall, or Roundhay, or Childwall, or Gosforth - but doing the same job in London you would have to settle for Feltham or Thamesmead.
We have had govts of all different political persuasions enact a massively increased policy of mass inward migration and have not had the political courage to put in place the infrastructure needed to support it.
Labour should build, build, build, and I think Reeves wants to, but it’s not happening.
And if we are mainly importing poor people, that places a greater onus on us.
In my Blob article I pointed out that the Human Rights Act 199x, the Climate Change Act 2008, and the Equality Act 2006 & 2010 bound their successors. The HRA does this explicitly, the CCA and EA do it by establishing standing committees/quangos.
It worries me how little this is understood, especially by MPs.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/
Or soon to be so.
"If Einstein had had a cell phone...he would never have got anything done".
At about 6 mins 30 secs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4jXldOZHM
On the other hand, it can he extremely expensive.
But it takes all sorts.
I'm reminded of the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
We had violent riots last year, and so on
People like you will take us to a truly ominous place. It's like the people who wanted to "Revoke Brexit" or "have a second vote" without enacting the first. It was crazily dangerous, but the fools advocating it were too dumb or blinkered to understand the inevitable result of overturning democracy in that fashion
My view was that the risks of remaining were actually rather greater than the risks of leaving, and nothing which has happened since 2016 has changed my mind on that.
I don't, however, think this particularly analysis is what led most Leave voters to their decision. But nor do I think Remain voters analysis leading to their vote was in the main particularly deep.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25389155.sandie-peggie-nhs-fife-tells-watchdog-broke-law/?ref=twtrec
"NHS Fife has admitted to the UK’s equalities watchdog that it broke the law by allowing a trans doctor to use a single-sex changing facility without carrying out an equality impact assessment.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has now ordered the health board to “carry one out immediately”."
For everyone else, it’s totally unaffordable.
Those great schools have a *lot* of selection by house price, with a few exceptions like Michaela.
If so they are in a tiny minority.
It's you that appears to be appealing to the "will of the people" over the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law.
Of course Parliament can legislate how it wants.
What we are saying is that governments can't just ignore existing law to say "make it so".
https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/august-weather/328328
Also, on a positive note it’s nice to see the Downs model on there as a positive role model.
But I want their intentions to be made explicit.
Okay....
https://x.com/ellandroad/status/1955626940624187860?s=61
Plenty of time for more heat in September and even early October if the synoptics are set up correctly and we can get a long feed of southerly winds. It got to 34c as far back as September 13th 2016.
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-cardiff-and-newcastle
US wholesale prices jump 3.3% as Trump tariffs hit economy
https://x.com/FT/status/1955976286091845760
Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren are demanding answers from Cantor Fitzgerald after WIRED reported that the firm was essentially creating a way for clients to bet on whether Trump’s tariffs will be struck down in court.
https://www.wired.com/story/senators-probe-cantor-fitzgerald-tariffs/
Oh, it is. Still attack the source rather than the substance. Typical Lib Dem.
https://www.facebook.com/LaylaMoranUK/videos/752772681749631/?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19980408.southern-oxfordshire-mps-stand-abingdon-reservoir-proposal-lack-transparency/
However, the rule of law (which is more than courts) does, pace Leon, operate above parliament. Parliament is the great law maker, but so is 800 years of constitutional law making by the king's courts. In this respect they are equals. The missed point is that our courts are supreme not over parliament, a law making body, but over government and the state as a whole, which is the executive - the bit that does and enforces things.
If Reform wish to Trumpise our country to suggest that somehow the executive is supreme over the courts (and of course parliament - see passim how Trump operates) I think Leon MP should warn us in advance.
I have a bus pass for non age related reasons, I don't want 22 year olds getting in my way, lol.
Good old public - ban things i dont do or use, yes to anything free, close the nightclubs and bring back the rule of six
Hopefully we won't reach that unpleasant state of affairs
Whether Reform have got the cullions to do all this is a different question . TBH I gravely doubt it. I suspect they will repeal some of the stupider laws but sadly I won't get the peaceful revolution I want
However, as I've also said, if they can simply sort out migration, boats, and human rights, in term one, that would be enough to satisfy me
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eli-lilly-hike-uk-price-mounjaro-weight-loss-diabetes-medicines-by-170-2025-08-14/
Our policy of paying the lowest price for pharmaceuticals of any developed country has driven some of the industry out of the UK.
And now it might be failing on its own terms.
Needs a rethink.
Bangladesh 1333
Palestine 892
Taiwan 656
Rwanda 578
Lebanon 568
Burundi 547
Netherlands 541
South Korea 530
India 488
Israel 434
Haiti 427
Philippines 389
Belgium 385
Sri Lanka 373
Japan 340
Vietnam 322
El Salvador 306
Pakistan 289
United Kingdom 286
Oh, but you said England, which is 438, just above Israel, but still below India, the Netherlands, Lebanon etc.
And if we're splitting the UK, can we split other countries up? Belgium has a lower population density than England, but Flanders has a higher one. Japan has a lower population density than England, but Honshu has a higher one. Germany has a lower population density than England or the UK, but North Rhine-Westphalia's is higher than England's.
"if we are mainly importing poor people": well, we're not now, so that's not a problem. Maybe that was an issue during the "Boriswave". If you want to criticise Boris, fine with me. I'm on board that train. Choo choo!
What's interesting/perverse is that Labour will likely achieve decent productivity growth by virtue of restricting immigration and making employment more expensive for firms. I'm of the view the former effect is larger than the latter, so market wages will remain higher than the minimum wage.
PBers have been banging on about this for years (decades). Now we're finally getting it
I quite like the system whereby some irritating and busybody group can go to the high court and start asking the judges in that annoying leftie way about parameters, limits, the effect of other legislation on this, whether the common law has anything to offer by way of balance, the meaning of words, the injuncting of potential torturers, the effects of treaties and other boring legal stuff.
i don't think I am alone in thinking this.
If Leon MP is right we are going to need these annoying interfering people a bit.
We have no higher written constitution, only that principle
We fought a Civil War to prove it, and Parliament won. Moreover, and in the end, all law rests on the reality of enforcement - and the army and police serve the Crown, in Parliament. Again, I hope some lawyers are not mad enough to seriously put this to the test
It's one of a small number of areas in the UK where a Church of England evangelical community could have an impact electorally - the church is the base of a vicar called Rev David Holloway, who is a Reformed type evangelical and has been vicar since 1973 (similars: St Helens Bishopsgate, Christ Church Fulwood in Sheffield, St Ebbe's Oxford.).
They were at the heart of anti-womens' ordination moves in 1991 in the organisation called Reform that spearheaded withholding contributions to their Dioceses. They have had a congregation of about 1000 for decades, which is enough to have an impact if a) The members vote their values and b) They are locally based not eclectic.
That the LDs won suggests this impact did not happen
So our road network needs to handle far more people than it was built for.
We should be building new infrastructure at least as fast as our population grows, new roads not widening/making smart existing ones, and we aren't investing in that.
If migration is tax positive, as its adherents including myself say it should be, there's no reason why we can't fund infrastructure from it.
Having a growing population but not growing infrastructure is an absurdity that needs to end.
We need major investment in new motorways and new roads which should be able to be afforded by the millions of people who have migrated here in recent decades.
In the end this would come down to the loyalty of the army and police, as they are the enforcers of the law and the will of parliament, without and within
Would they be loyal to the crown in parliament, or to some lawyers in a courtroom? I strongly suspect the former. Only in a case like yours, where parliament tried to enact a surreally evil law for torturing kids, might this be questioned. Even then I wonder
However, Reform are not going to bring in the Act Enabling The Evisceration of Pet Dogs, much as I might be entertained by it
'We may not officially know what the Corbyn/Sultana Party is called yet (popular suggestions so far include both ‘The People’s Party’ and ‘Arise’), but we do know one thing: they are shaggers.
So far internal comms has been full of stories about inter-party banging amongst volunteers and junior staffers, and already they’ve got a slightly surprising reputation for horniness.
Still though, it could be worse. The Corbynista-Sultanas are at least relieved that they don’t have the same reputation as junior staffers in Reform, who are becoming known for their phenomenal gakkiness.'
The alternative is saying to take it to the extreme that if a court rules you have an irreversible human right to torture children for fun, then Parliament can't reverse that and we as voters have no way to reverse the courts decision.
The only way to secure our rights is to vote for them, and to have a Parliament as the ultimate arbiter.