Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
The Tories have something to play for here though. They are 12% behind an insurgent party. Things could drift further, but it’s also possible they close the gap to parity once an actual general election looms.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
Oh no, how awful.
That will trigger PB.
Is there a safe space for the posters ?
Heh, I don't support them but they're entitled to their views obviously. Would have got a pic but I was driving.
I guess I found it a bit surprising since I sort of image them as an English party, even though they show up in Welsh polls.
Tho I do utterly detest most Reality TV, with Strictly only outdone by Love Island in terms of Satanic Evil
Very strange reaction from you.
All reality tv is ghastly. Unless you begin to watch them. Then, no matter what the flavour (Strictly, Love Island, Traitors, Big Brother) you get to know the characters and the programme becomes a(nother) character-driven drama. No less than Succession or whatnot.
I get that you feel you must stake out your intellectual prowess but criticising reality shows is not the hill to die on. Plus it is jejeune.
Panem et circenses
No.
Reality shows depend upon characters (love 'em or 'ate 'em). It is therefore arguably the strongest character-driven entertainment. Because it is without artifice. Would any of the eg Love Island contestants last on PB while commenting on Scottish sub-samples? Perhaps not. But they have their own characters and if you invest time getting to know them, they are as intriguing as any Walter White or Iago.
Meanwhile, talking about circenses, I strongly recommend Burlesque the Musical, playing at the Savoy Theatre. Two and a half hours of cracking fun. Even if one strong emotion I had upon leaving the theatre was I must go on a diet and start working out.
Indeed.
Would big brother have prospered without Nasty Nick ?
S1 of Big Brother was genuinely ground-breaking telly.
It was. And very prescient given how the genre is now dominant. I was hooked. I even sometimes tuned into the 24/7 cam to watch them sleeping. And without checking I remember the winner, a builder from Liverpool called Craig.
Confession time! I enjoy Race Around The World, even the celebrity version. Probably because they don’t feature intellectually challenged airheads, who wouldn’t know where they were, let alone where they are going and how to get there. I am also finding Destination X fascinating. It must be because I’m interested in travel.
Race across the world is great. We considered applying but the tragic backstory is missing. I’m a convert to the traitors too.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
The Tories have something to play for here though. They are 12% behind an insurgent party. Things could drift further, but it’s also possible they close the gap to parity once an actual general election looms.
Reform really need to stay as close to 30% as possible too, the further they are from it the more inefficient their vote becomes, they don't have the entrenched regional hotspots of the established parties (yet).
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
Yes, but isn't she the Scrappy Doo or Chachi of the series?
The annoying junior relative when the show has jumped the shark?
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
Oh no, how awful.
That will trigger PB.
Is there a safe space for the posters ?
Heh, I don't support them but they're entitled to their views obviously. Would have got a pic but I was driving.
I guess I found it a bit surprising since I sort of image them as an English party, even though they show up in Welsh polls.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
Seems to be around their ceiling at the moment.
Labour's 33.7% was the lowest vote share to deliver a majority in a UK general election. The Liberals in Canada came close to forming a majority with 32.6% in 2021, but were 10 seats short. The BJP did win a majority in the Indian Lok Sabha in 2014 on 31.0%. So, Reform winning a majority on 31% wouldn't be entirely unprecedented, but would strain the credulity of FPTP.
Our 22 year old granddaughter and 16 year old grandson popped in to see us this pm
The conversation turned to the OSA which they both considered a joke
Fresh from University our granddaughter affirmed she and her fellow students use VPN but also lots of fun with their fellow students using friends and celebrities faces to gain access to sites
Our grandson games a lot but hasn't needed vpn but he said everyone in his school down to the youngest knows how to by pass the OSA
My granddaughter wants it scrapped as do many of her friends
Interesting conversation
Good anecdotes, which of course relate the general view.
All you’re doing is making the kids experts in bypassing restrictions.
Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
Oh no, how awful.
That will trigger PB.
Is there a safe space for the posters ?
Heh, I don't support them but they're entitled to their views obviously. Would have got a pic but I was driving.
I guess I found it a bit surprising since I sort of image them as an English party, even though they show up in Welsh polls.
They’re British populists not English nationalists.
The location of tonights by election. There cant be too many seats with this tight a spread and all in double figures (yes its a projection, but still!)
Ladbrokes won't give you that 337/1 double, though, will they. Related events. If Skinner wins Strictly he becomes, by dint of that, more likely to win the Mayoral election. For two reasons. (1) His profile is boosted. (2) He's demonstrated a quality that helps to win either - likeability.
Who is he btw? No, don't worry, just googled. Oh dear.
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
Yes, but isn't she the Scrappy Doo or Chachi of the series?
The annoying junior relative when the show has jumped the shark?
No. She comes from the Tennant 1/Smith/Capaldi eras, which are currently fondly thought of and held to be amongst the best years of the revived series.
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.
Economics from dummies
Lib Dem’s ?
Bondegezou and his stupid more people means more money crap. Just means more taken off workers to give to non workers
If I recall correctly, you're a non-worker. I'm a worker. Give me my feckin' money back!
You half wit , you obviously don't read other people's posts. I am still working , 54 years without a day out of work. I have received feck all from you or anybody else and have funded plenty and continue to do so.
You've almost certainly paid ten times the tax that @bondegezou has paid, as well
And he works for the state, I believe, so YOU are paying his wages
Yes indeed.
I work for a university, Malc, which isn't quite working for the state. In terms of the money I bring in to the university, some is from the state, but the majority of it is (postgraduate) student fees. Some of those, in a roundabout way, come from the state because the NHS is paying them, but most of them are coming from students paying for themselves, and the majority of those are Chinese. So, the two big contributors to my wages are all you UK taxpayers (thanks, guys), and middle class Chinese parents (尊敬的各位家长，衷心感谢您们一直以来的支持与配合).
I know , it was Leon who inferred it. Good luck and long may it continue for you.
Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
Oh no, how awful.
That will trigger PB.
Is there a safe space for the posters ?
Heh, I don't support them but they're entitled to their views obviously. Would have got a pic but I was driving.
I guess I found it a bit surprising since I sort of image them as an English party, even though they show up in Welsh polls.
They’re British populists not English nationalists.
Sure, I understand that, but they have a following in Wales which they don't seem to get in Scotland, which I find interesting.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
Tho I do utterly detest most Reality TV, with Strictly only outdone by Love Island in terms of Satanic Evil
Very strange reaction from you.
All reality tv is ghastly. Unless you begin to watch them. Then, no matter what the flavour (Strictly, Love Island, Traitors, Big Brother) you get to know the characters and the programme becomes a(nother) character-driven drama. No less than Succession or whatnot.
I get that you feel you must stake out your intellectual prowess but criticising reality shows is not the hill to die on. Plus it is jejeune.
Panem et circenses
No.
Reality shows depend upon characters (love 'em or 'ate 'em). It is therefore arguably the strongest character-driven entertainment. Because it is without artifice. Would any of the eg Love Island contestants last on PB while commenting on Scottish sub-samples? Perhaps not. But they have their own characters and if you invest time getting to know them, they are as intriguing as any Walter White or Iago.
Meanwhile, talking about circenses, I strongly recommend Burlesque the Musical, playing at the Savoy Theatre. Two and a half hours of cracking fun. Even if one strong emotion I had upon leaving the theatre was I must go on a diet and start working out.
Indeed.
Would big brother have prospered without Nasty Nick ?
S1 of Big Brother was genuinely ground-breaking telly.
It was. And very prescient given how the genre is now dominant. I was hooked. I even sometimes tuned into the 24/7 cam to watch them sleeping. And without checking I remember the winner, a builder from Liverpool called Craig.
Confession time! I enjoy Race Around The World, even the celebrity version. Probably because they don’t feature intellectually challenged airheads, who wouldn’t know where they were, let alone where they are going and how to get there. I am also finding Destination X fascinating. It must be because I’m interested in travel.
Red agree on normal version , cel;ebrity one not so much.
On topic - is that 337/1 double Ladbrokes are offering not value? Simply on the basis that they are contingent liabilities - and Lads are pricing them up as purely independent?
If Skinner is 25/1 now as an independent bet - what price would he be *if he'd just won Strictly* - surely lower than that as you have evidence that he's popular with a wider population and he's already done lots of the hard work of getting himself known by (a certain portion of) the electorate? In which case, is there a case to made for betting on the double with Ladbrokes... and laying him for Strictly on Betfair?
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Better slashing your wrists than talking about Osborne for me.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
To add... NHS waiting lists Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Better slashing your wrists than talking about Osborne for me.
@Casino_Royale pontificating how there's no debate is a touch worse.
Ladbrokes won't give you that 337/1 double, though, will they. Related events. If Skinner wins Strictly he becomes, by dint of that, more likely to win the Mayoral election. For two reasons. (1) His profile is boosted. (2) He's demonstrated a quality that helps to win either - likeability.
Who is he btw? No, don't worry, just googled. Oh dear.
Bosh!
Is apparently his catchphrase, yes. Perhaps if I see a clip of him doing that I'll better understand his appeal.
"Thames Water says new Abingdon reservoir could cost bill-payers up to £7.5bn Costs could rise to three times original budget in blow to government’s reservoir expansion plans"
Tho I do utterly detest most Reality TV, with Strictly only outdone by Love Island in terms of Satanic Evil
Very strange reaction from you.
All reality tv is ghastly. Unless you begin to watch them. Then, no matter what the flavour (Strictly, Love Island, Traitors, Big Brother) you get to know the characters and the programme becomes a(nother) character-driven drama. No less than Succession or whatnot.
I get that you feel you must stake out your intellectual prowess but criticising reality shows is not the hill to die on. Plus it is jejeune.
Panem et circenses
No.
Reality shows depend upon characters (love 'em or 'ate 'em). It is therefore arguably the strongest character-driven entertainment. Because it is without artifice. Would any of the eg Love Island contestants last on PB while commenting on Scottish sub-samples? Perhaps not. But they have their own characters and if you invest time getting to know them, they are as intriguing as any Walter White or Iago.
Meanwhile, talking about circenses, I strongly recommend Burlesque the Musical, playing at the Savoy Theatre. Two and a half hours of cracking fun. Even if one strong emotion I had upon leaving the theatre was I must go on a diet and start working out.
Indeed.
Would big brother have prospered without Nasty Nick ?
S1 of Big Brother was genuinely ground-breaking telly.
It was. And very prescient given how the genre is now dominant. I was hooked. I even sometimes tuned into the 24/7 cam to watch them sleeping. And without checking I remember the winner, a builder from Liverpool called Craig.
Confession time! I enjoy Race Around The World, even the celebrity version. Probably because they don’t feature intellectually challenged airheads, who wouldn’t know where they were, let alone where they are going and how to get there. I am also finding Destination X fascinating. It must be because I’m interested in travel.
Race across the world is great. We considered applying but the tragic backstory is missing. I’m a convert to the traitors too.
You did have that poor grape harvest last year, I seem to recall?
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
The location of tonights by election. There cant be too many seats with this tight a spread and all in double figures (yes its a projection, but still!)
We might get lots of results like this in a 2029 election, but it does feel like the electorate will sort itself out and start clustering around a smaller number of options. Maybe that happens locally, on a constituency by constituency basis. Maybe it happens nationally and we get a Reform v. Labour election. Or maybe it doesn't happen: maybe 2029 is psephological chaos.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
If it doesn't chill Casino Royale's blood, I agree with a lot of that.
But I think Gordon Brown might still be the more politically significant failure of the last 20 years.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Not enough Reeves/ Starmer is/ are s*** posts?
Easily rectified I would have thought.
P.S. I countered that Osborne's advice to Cameron re; the Referendum was correct. I don't like him, but I admire how he reads the political tea leaves.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Not enough Reeves/ Starmer is/ are s*** posts?
Easily rectified I would have thought.
P.S. I countered that Osborne's advice to Cameron re; the Referendum was correct. I don't like him, but I admire how he reads the political tea leaves.
Yes, CR might have been hoping for more but I thought we had a decent little discussion there.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
Didn’t Osborne come up with the triple lock?
To be fair to him, at the time it was introduced there was a real issue with pensioner poverty. The problem is that it has become a political lodestone rather than something temporary.
One pensions are a certain percentage of median income they don’t need to catch up any more
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
Agree the thrust (his biggest talent was pure politics) but he did bear down on welfare as I remember it.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
Surprisingly, I agree with a lot of that. After the GFC, austerity was probably necessary. It became a habit, though, and lasted too long.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
To add... NHS waiting lists Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
Without austerity, Brexit may not have happened. When people are poor, they blame The Other. Without austerity, people would have been more satisfied with their lot, and less likely to want change.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
That you don't understand the issue is quite the point.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Not enough Reeves/ Starmer is/ are s*** posts?
Easily rectified I would have thought.
P.S. I countered that Osborne's advice to Cameron re; the Referendum was correct. I don't like him, but I admire how he reads the political tea leaves.
Yes, CR might have been hoping for more but I thought we had a decent little discussion there.
The difficulty with all PB 'debate' is that we're all so heavily committed. As a member of (I think) the rather less entrenched end of the scale it rather dismays me to see endless repetition of really not very good arguments. I'm sure that is to some extent true for us all.
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
To add... NHS waiting lists Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
Without austerity, Brexit may not have happened. When people are poor, they blame The Other. Without austerity, people would have been more satisfied with their lot, and less likely to want change.
I know of people who literally blamed the EU for austerity, that it was something they ordered us to do.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
The fiscal rebalancing was inevitable, but yes- the shape was driven more by politics than government. And now we're in a position where the maintainence holiday really needs to end, but we're still in poor fiscal shape (only partially because of the cost of trying to work with terrible infrastructure.)
On the other hand, the Conservatives were in a strikingly weak political position, and I can understand why they felt the need to be pretty cowardly with the electorate. After all, in 2010 they failed to win a majority when there had just been a pretty nasty recession. Becoming the party of goodies for the retired was an obvious play (maybe the only one that would work), but with lots of downside.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
To add... NHS waiting lists Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
Without austerity, Brexit may not have happened. When people are poor, they blame The Other. Without austerity, people would have been more satisfied with their lot, and less likely to want change.
Not sure it was austerity so much as rhe repeated refusals of politicians to ensure democratic consent to the treaties and non-treaties.
“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...
You are missing my point. My point was that this supremacy has already been subverted. I told you how it happened and gave you two recent examples. I don't agree with it, I don't think it should be the case, but I can't deny that it has happened. To quote Jonathan Sumption, who is also concerned with law displacing the political process,
"I will prophesy we will not recognize the end of democracy when it comes if it does. Advanced democracies are not overthrown: there are no tanks on the street, no sudden catastrophes, no brash dictators or braying mobs. Instead those institutions are imperceptibly drained of everything that once made them democratic. The labels will still be there but they will no longer describe the contents. The facade will still stand but there will be nothing behind it. The rhetoric of democracy will be unchanged but it will be meaningless. And the fault will be ours"
Tories catch Labour for a second time, Labour fall below 20 for the first time this parliament and equal their second lowest ever VI
Find Out Now
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 19 (-1) Con 19 (+3) LD 12 (-1) Grn 10 (+1) SNP 3 (=)
Labour are getting found out now.
I always thought they'd be in third place by the end of the year.
Baxtered, it produces Reform 394, Labour 83, Lib Dem 56, Con 43.
Baxter is utterly useless with this level of change
I am almost sure that is right, but wait and see. Meanwhile, is there a workable formula which, without a PhD in maths and stats and 10 hours working out currently enables vote share to convert to seats with any sort of confidence?
No.
But Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour is clearly very good for them and could produce a Commons majority.
Not could, would.
In fact, would produce a stonking one
Only if the others are split as discussed originally.
'Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour' alone is only 50% accounted for otherwise so theoretically could mean either of Tories or LDs on 40% and others on 10% so a Reform opposition.
"Thames Water says new Abingdon reservoir could cost bill-payers up to £7.5bn Costs could rise to three times original budget in blow to government’s reservoir expansion plans"
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Better slashing your wrists than talking about Osborne for me.
@Casino_Royale pontificating how there's no debate is a touch worse.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
That you don't understand the issue is quite the point.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
The fiscal rebalancing was inevitable, but yes- the shape was driven more by politics than government. And now we're in a position where the maintainence holiday really needs to end, but we're still in poor fiscal shape (only partially because of the cost of trying to work with terrible infrastructure.)
On the other hand, the Conservatives were in a strikingly weak political position, and I can understand why they felt the need to be pretty cowardly with the electorate. After all, in 2010 they failed to win a majority when there had just been a pretty nasty recession. Becoming the party of goodies for the retired was an obvious play (maybe the only one that would work), but with lots of downside.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
To add... NHS waiting lists Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
Without austerity, Brexit may not have happened. When people are poor, they blame The Other. Without austerity, people would have been more satisfied with their lot, and less likely to want change.
A fair point, if you were to consider the EU election results as a proxy for Brexit, then the rise of UKIP was from 2009 to 2014 but there was also a sizeable Con vote in 2009.
Just gone into Swansea and was surprised to see a few people on a footbridge waving Reform signs and Welsh flags. Were getting the odd car horn in support.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
Didn’t Osborne come up with the triple lock?
To be fair to him, at the time it was introduced there was a real issue with pensioner poverty. The problem is that it has become a political lodestone rather than something temporary.
One pensions are a certain percentage of median income they don’t need to catch up any more
I think it came off the Pensions Act 2007.
There was a farcial pensions increase of 84p (or something) that Gordon Brown determined a few years earlier that led to a bit of an outcry.
But, that's all symptomatic of something across all parties: knee-jerk legislation in response to an outcry that writes something into "law" heedless of the impact.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
The first point may be true in theory... But in practice? There are lots of scenarios where we do have to identify ourselves (a new job, financial transactions, to rent accommodation, voting...), most of which are down to government requirements. That it's usually an intermediary asking for the proof is just window-dressing, and having to use various proxies for ID is just a faff.
The second point is bigger, but a fairly simple solution suggests itself. (Though I do wonder what cross-referencing goes on behind the scenes anyway. Probably enough to make what's left of one's hair falll out.)
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
That you don't understand the issue is quite the point.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
The first point may be true in theory... But in practice? There are lots of scenarios where we do have to identify ourselves (a new job, financial transactions, to rent accommodation, voting...), most of which are down to government requirements. That it's usually an intermediary asking for the proof is just window-dressing, and having to use various proxies for ID is just a faff.
The second point is bigger, but a fairly simple solution suggests itself. (Though I do wonder what cross-referencing goes on behind the scenes anyway. Probably enough to make what's left of one's hair falll out.)
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
The first point may be true in theory... But in practice? There are lots of scenarios where we do have to identify ourselves (a new job, financial transactions, to rent accommodation, voting...), most of which are down to government requirements. That it's usually an intermediary asking for the proof is just window-dressing, and having to use various proxies for ID is just a faff.
The second point is bigger, but a fairly simple solution suggests itself. (Though I do wonder what cross-referencing goes on behind the scenes anyway. Probably enough to make what's left of one's hair falll out.)
Fairly simple solutions that suggest themselves aren't on the table. Vastly complicated white elephants where every civil service penpusher can nullify the privacy of every UK subject and all the data is sold to US giants for the price of a packet of eggs are what is on the table, and always have been.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Not enough Reeves/ Starmer is/ are s*** posts?
Easily rectified I would have thought.
P.S. I countered that Osborne's advice to Cameron re; the Referendum was correct. I don't like him, but I admire how he reads the political tea leaves.
Yes, CR might have been hoping for more but I thought we had a decent little discussion there.
The difficulty with all PB 'debate' is that we're all so heavily committed. As a member of (I think) the rather less entrenched end of the scale it rather dismays me to see endless repetition of really not very good arguments. I'm sure that is to some extent true for us all.
Well I'm a PB bull. It's got more tabloid here, imo, since Labour had the cheek to replace the Conservatives in government, but it still rocks.
As for you, ok unentrenched, but I bet there are hills you'd die on. Suede shoes, istr being one such. Or was that David Herdson?
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
If it doesn't chill Casino Royale's blood, I agree with a lot of that.
But I think Gordon Brown might still be the more politically significant failure of the last 20 years.
Thanks. And no, I don't. I actually find it more interesting when there's agreement across political tribes because you actually learn more.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
Yes. Very very different personalities but many of the same traits.
"Thames Water says new Abingdon reservoir could cost bill-payers up to £7.5bn Costs could rise to three times original budget in blow to government’s reservoir expansion plans"
They know they're meant to fill it with water and not cash, right?
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
The two of them are certainly the worst in terms of people’s prosperity. Osborne for austerity and Brown for destroying pensions. Most of those that followed have been more incompetent than deliberately damaging.
In terms of the earlier comments on Reform and Wales, its worth noting with the exception of the Cardiff seats and Monmouth, Reform outperformed their UK national average in every south Welsh coast and valleys seat, they were somewhat weaker in NW Wales, Conwy and the West coast and pretty strong in Clwyd, Flintshire and underwhelming in Brecon
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
The first is the fundamental heart of being British: the State answers to us, not the other way around.
But of course, it also means the state is limited in its actions. Which chafes with many (on both the left and the right), but given the state is capable of much more harm than benefit is generally for the best.
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
The fiscal rebalancing was inevitable, but yes- the shape was driven more by politics than government. And now we're in a position where the maintainence holiday really needs to end, but we're still in poor fiscal shape (only partially because of the cost of trying to work with terrible infrastructure.)
On the other hand, the Conservatives were in a strikingly weak political position, and I can understand why they felt the need to be pretty cowardly with the electorate. After all, in 2010 they failed to win a majority when there had just been a pretty nasty recession. Becoming the party of goodies for the retired was an obvious play (maybe the only one that would work), but with lots of downside.
So, what would you have done?
At that point, go for a chunky one-off bite out of public sector pay and non means-tested benefits. At the point just after the crisis, I reckon there would have been general tolerance for ten percent or so. (Quick google suggests Ireland went for 5-20%). And that would have been preferable to the fifteen year squeeze the UK has gone for.
That, and titlting the austerity balance away from spending cuts towards tax rises (didn't Osborne go for 80:20, when conventional wisdom is closer to 20:80? Maybe about 50:50). Because one of the problems we have had is comfortable people who don't pay school fees or mortgages saving too much.
As for the Triple Lock, something had to be done about the core state pension- you can't means test it if you want most people to save as well. But the end point and off-ramp needed to be defined at the start. (I suspect that the 2022/3 double bubble surge means that we're there or thereabouts.)
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
You are under no obligation to own a smartphone, or a car, or a property.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
That's more fair than not imo. Brown's biggest failing for me was encouraging the City bubble.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
The two of them are certainly the worst in terms of people’s prosperity. Osborne for austerity and Brown for destroying pensions. Most of those that followed have been more incompetent than deliberately damaging.
I don’t think whoever came in after them both stood a chance having been hamstrung by the state of the economy they both contributed to as well as Covid and Ukraine. Hunt and Sunak and, lest we forget Kwarteng, were dealt absolutely dreadful hands. And to be fair to her, ughh it’s difficult, Reeves didn’t really stand a chance either.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
That's more fair than not imo. Brown's biggest failing for me was encouraging the City bubble.
I think Brown was a disaster for the country. But, it's really hard to imagine a world where he is Chancellor 1997 to 2007. What would Ken Clarke have done during that time? Or maybe a different Labour figure?
The one thing going for Clarke is that, I think, he largely resisted doing anything spectacular ahead of the 1997 election. Could the Tories have maintained such discipline into and through the 2000s?
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
No self respecting blog discusses Strictly. Shameful.
I said the site was in decline
The site is in decline due to the quality of the discussion.
See the last thread. We could have had a good conversation on how George Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the last 20 years. Instead the follow-up was a mix of non-sequiturs, pointless pedantry, failed "Gotchas", and a bit on Fatch.
It's like reading a crap Twitter thread; it's entirely unrewarding to engage with, but filled posts that harvest a few likes from those who are fans of each other and have nothing better to do.
Ok. I’ll bite. With hindsight I agree with you that Osborne was the most politically significant figure of the past 20 years, but probably not for the same reasons as you. Austerity was the most significant financial decision of the past 20 years. We are still affected by it, via insufficient investment in the public realm, HS2, reservoirs, road improvements, crumbling infrastructure, and insufficient current spending, potholes, closure of public services, few public transport subsidies outside London, for example. It could be argued that the long term effect of austerity is the rise of Reform, with Osborne’s party being the worst affected.
Thanks. My view is the reduction in spending was, and is, needed but Osborne went for the most immediately political expedient targets rather than, say, attack the triple-lock, welfare entitlements or the process State.
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
The fiscal rebalancing was inevitable, but yes- the shape was driven more by politics than government. And now we're in a position where the maintainence holiday really needs to end, but we're still in poor fiscal shape (only partially because of the cost of trying to work with terrible infrastructure.)
On the other hand, the Conservatives were in a strikingly weak political position, and I can understand why they felt the need to be pretty cowardly with the electorate. After all, in 2010 they failed to win a majority when there had just been a pretty nasty recession. Becoming the party of goodies for the retired was an obvious play (maybe the only one that would work), but with lots of downside.
So, what would you have done?
At that point, go for a chunky one-off bite out of public sector pay and non means-tested benefits. At the point just after the crisis, I reckon there would have been general tolerance for ten percent or so. (Quick google suggests Ireland went for 5-20%). And that would have been preferable to the fifteen year squeeze the UK has gone for.
That, and titlting the austerity balance away from spending cuts towards tax rises (didn't Osborne go for 80:20, when conventional wisdom is closer to 20:80? Maybe about 50:50). Because one of the problems we have had is comfortable people who don't pay school fees or mortgages saving too much.
As for the Triple Lock, something had to be done about the core state pension- you can't means test it if you want most people to save as well. But the end point and off-ramp needed to be defined at the start. (I suspect that the 2022/3 double bubble surge means that we're there or thereabouts.)
Rupert strikes the next blow in the 'unite the rest of the right' battle as William Cloutson, SDP leader joins his Restore Board Cloutson, Susan Hall, David Starkey whither next??
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
That's more fair than not imo. Brown's biggest failing for me was encouraging the City bubble.
I think Brown was a disaster for the country. But, it's really hard to imagine a world where he is Chancellor 1997 to 2007. What would Ken Clarke have done during that time? Or maybe a different Labour figure?
The one thing going for Clarke is that, I think, he largely resisted doing anything spectacular ahead of the 1997 election. Could the Tories have maintained such discipline into and through the 2000s?
I think even Darling would have been better between 97 and 2007 as I think he would have been less “political” than Brown and Blair might have been more free to move even further to the centre without the Brownian anchor from the left.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
You are under no obligation to own a smartphone, or a car, or a property.
I think it’s an Anglosphere thing where the public seem to be really riled up by the idea of ID cards .
TBH I can't see River Song losing. Nobody is more willing to brigade phone votes or write a script to online vote millions of times than Doctor Who fans, and they haven't got much else to celebrate these days.
I don't know if I want to ask - River song?
The character is named "River Song". The actress is Alex Kingston. When showrunner Steven Moffat took over the show in the early 2010s(?) he turned the traditionally sexless Doctor into somebody who had relationships. One of those relationships was with fellow time-traveller River Song, who was the grown child of two of his companions. The Doctor and River Song were married in an episode I won't name because I have a vestige of pride left. Their relationship is complicated by the fact that both are time-travellers and meet up at asynchronous points in their lives: for example he married her several episodes after watching her die.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
Good post.
The more general problem is that nowadays we are expecting our politicians to be both good and competent behind-the-scenes administrators and managers, and to be keeping us entertained and energised with their PR and campaigning flair. Whereas in reality few people are good at both, and we land up dissatisfied with people who are clearly deficient in one sphere or the other.
There is nothing more jejune than trying to use a posh word like jejune to make a superior point and then MISSPELLING IT
It’s like people who say “what do you know you pleb you’re just one of the hoi polloi”
Pure Jejune-o-cringe
Everyone says the hoi polloi. That ship sailed long ago.
Was it ever docked? In English anyway?
Thomas Quincey in "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821):
"the children of bishops carry about with them an austere and repulsive air, indicative of claims not generally acknowledged, a sort of noli me tangere manner, nervously apprehensive of too familiar approach, and shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty man from all contact with the οι πολλοι."
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
That's more fair than not imo. Brown's biggest failing for me was encouraging the City bubble.
I think Brown was a disaster for the country. But, it's really hard to imagine a world where he is Chancellor 1997 to 2007. What would Ken Clarke have done during that time? Or maybe a different Labour figure?
The one thing going for Clarke is that, I think, he largely resisted doing anything spectacular ahead of the 1997 election. Could the Tories have maintained such discipline into and through the 2000s?
I think even Darling would have been better between 97 and 2007 as I think he would have been less “political” than Brown and Blair might have been more free to move even further to the centre without the Brownian anchor from the left.
Darling is who Labour should have had as leader after 2010.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
You are under no obligation to own a smartphone, or a car, or a property.
I think it’s an Anglosphere thing where the public seem to be really riled up by the idea of ID cards .
I think it's an ill-researched centre-left thing to assume automatically that everything to do with the march of the state is 'just fine' and is being moaned about by ignorant plebs. The same attitude that Starmer's bag of dipshits had going into Government.
This is not about carrying an ID card. It is about the deeply illiberal system of which the ID card is the bit you carry.
There's a risk of sliding into a civilised steady BP discussion of Osborne and Brown here. Just flagging that.
My completely inconsidered feeling is that Osborne was one of those people who is too clever for their own good and Brown wasn’t as clever as he believed and people always told him he was but both ended up with the same result.
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
That's more fair than not imo. Brown's biggest failing for me was encouraging the City bubble.
I think Brown was a disaster for the country. But, it's really hard to imagine a world where he is Chancellor 1997 to 2007. What would Ken Clarke have done during that time? Or maybe a different Labour figure?
The one thing going for Clarke is that, I think, he largely resisted doing anything spectacular ahead of the 1997 election. Could the Tories have maintained such discipline into and through the 2000s?
They might have spent a bit less but the financial MBS driven bubble and crash would have happened anyway. The Cons were even more enamoured of the finance sector. And Brown couldn't have been bettered when it came to the crisis itself. He handled that with immense diligence and skill. He did other good things too as CoE. So, no, I'm not having 'disaster for the country', but it's a mixed legacy and he wielded too much power for too long.
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
You are under no obligation to own a smartphone, or a car, or a property.
I think it’s an Anglosphere thing where the public seem to be really riled up by the idea of ID cards .
I think it's an ill-researched centre-left thing to assume automatically that everything to do with the march of the state is 'just fine' and is being moaned about by ignorant plebs. The same attitude that Starmer's bag of dipshits had going into Government.
This is not about carrying an ID card. It is about the deeply illiberal system of which the ID card is the bit you carry.
Ha! For once I agree with you Lucky Guy. Which bit do you find illiberal?
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
The UK should just move to ID cards with the option of a digital ID if people prefer that . I don’t see why this seems to be so controversial as almost every other European country have them.
There are two things:
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
We’re already tracked to a certain degree by our phones . You can limit the data on the ID card to just what’s absolutely necessary and also what agencies can access it .
You are under no obligation to own a smartphone, or a car, or a property.
I think it’s an Anglosphere thing where the public seem to be really riled up by the idea of ID cards .
I think it's an ill-researched centre-left thing to assume automatically that everything to do with the march of the state is 'just fine' and is being moaned about by ignorant plebs. The same attitude that Starmer's bag of dipshits had going into Government.
This is not about carrying an ID card. It is about the deeply illiberal system of which the ID card is the bit you carry.
Why does most of Europe have them ? They don’t seem to cause controversy .
Comments
That will trigger PB.
Is there a safe space for the posters ?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Opinion_polling_graph_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election_(post-2024).svg
I guess I found it a bit surprising since I sort of image them as an English party, even though they show up in Welsh polls.
The annoying junior relative when the show has jumped the shark?
All you’re doing is making the kids experts in bypassing restrictions.
Cardiff South & Penarth constituency nowcast (Westminster) - 14/08/2025
🟥 LAB: 27.3% (-17.2)
🟩 GRN: 20.7% (+6.2)
➡️ RFM: 19.3% (+7.8)
🔲 PLC: 11.2% (+3.0)
🟦 CON: 10.9% (-3.0)
🟧 LDM: 10.6% (+3.2)
The location of tonights by election. There cant be too many seats with this tight a spread and all in double figures (yes its a projection, but still!)
He was ridiculously complacent about crime and defence and the need for capital investment in infrastructure, seeing them as easy targets or problems for tomorrow.
To me, it was a failure of leadership: continuing to spend at pre 2010 rates with a £160bn+ deficit wasn't a realistic option. I suppose you argue he should have clawed back rapidly with very high growth to get back to 2007 tax revenues, but that seems wishful thinking.
https://x.com/abridgen/status/1955903325641351219
My suggestion on digital ID would be that all MPs and members of the House of Lords adopt digital ID as a pilot scheme , allow the public access to all the information as to where they go and what they do, all live. Run the trial for a couple of years and see if the MPs and Peers find the technology intrusive. What do you think to that idea ?
If Skinner is 25/1 now as an independent bet - what price would he be *if he'd just won Strictly* - surely lower than that as you have evidence that he's popular with a wider population and he's already done lots of the hard work of getting himself known by (a certain portion of) the electorate? In which case, is there a case to made for betting on the double with Ladbrokes... and laying him for Strictly on Betfair?
NHS waiting lists
Court delays
Though I'd suggest that the rise of Reform is more due to Brexit which I think would have happened with or without austerity
Although it sounds a bit Gregg Wallace.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/14/thames-water-says-new-abingdon-reservoir-could-cost-bill-payers-up-to-75bn
"Thames Water says new Abingdon reservoir could cost bill-payers up to £7.5bn
Costs could rise to three times original budget in blow to government’s reservoir expansion plans"
But I think Gordon Brown might still be the more politically significant failure of the last 20 years.
Easily rectified I would have thought.
P.S. I countered that Osborne's advice to Cameron re; the Referendum was correct. I don't like him, but I admire how he reads the political tea leaves.
To be fair to him, at the time it was introduced there was a real issue with pensioner poverty. The problem is that it has become a political lodestone rather than something temporary.
One pensions are a certain percentage of median income they don’t need to catch up any more
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/us/politics/rick-perry-drug-psychedelics-ibogaine.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
1) Philosophical - the relationship between the state and the citizen is different in the UK. The state doesn’t get to order us around without consent - they have no right to demand we identify ourselves (“papers please”)
2) Practical - Blair’s original proposal hung massive databases off the ID card and gave way too many people access to the information. It was a massive privacy and data security risk.
In fact, would produce a stonking one
On the other hand, the Conservatives were in a strikingly weak political position, and I can understand why they felt the need to be pretty cowardly with the electorate. After all, in 2010 they failed to win a majority when there had just been a pretty nasty recession. Becoming the party of goodies for the retired was an obvious play (maybe the only one that would work), but with lots of downside.
"I will prophesy we will not recognize the end of democracy when it comes if it does. Advanced democracies are not overthrown: there are no tanks on the street, no sudden catastrophes, no brash dictators or braying mobs. Instead those institutions are imperceptibly drained of everything that once made them democratic. The labels will still be there but they will no longer describe the contents. The facade will still stand but there will be nothing behind it. The rhetoric of democracy will be unchanged but it will be meaningless. And the fault will be ours"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4u6t70ao1A&t=1731s
(and if that crops up in a Gazette article you should be ashamed of yourself)
'Reform on 31% and 12pp ahead of Labour' alone is only 50% accounted for otherwise so theoretically could mean either of Tories or LDs on 40% and others on 10% so a Reform opposition.
There was a farcial pensions increase of 84p (or something) that Gordon Brown determined a few years earlier that led to a bit of an outcry.
But, that's all symptomatic of something across all parties: knee-jerk legislation in response to an outcry that writes something into "law" heedless of the impact.
The second point is bigger, but a fairly simple solution suggests itself. (Though I do wonder what cross-referencing goes on behind the scenes anyway. Probably enough to make what's left of one's hair falll out.)
Osborne was too focussed on tricks, politics and a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of money and privilege so made bad short term decisions whilst Brown also tried to do the tricks, politics and had a detachment from the ordinary world, lived in a rarified world of pure politics so also made bad short term decisions.
Cameron wasn’t bright enough and didn’t have enough real world experience to stop Osborne and Blair was too focussed on the image and too wary of the political hinterland of Brown to stop Brown.
As for you, ok unentrenched, but I bet there are hills you'd die on. Suede shoes, istr being one such. Or was that David Herdson?
Why do you think that of Gordon Brown?
But of course, it also means the state is limited in its actions. Which chafes with many (on both the left and the right), but given the state is capable of much more harm than benefit is generally for the best.
That, and titlting the austerity balance away from spending cuts towards tax rises (didn't Osborne go for 80:20, when conventional wisdom is closer to 20:80? Maybe about 50:50). Because one of the problems we have had is comfortable people who don't pay school fees or mortgages saving too much.
As for the Triple Lock, something had to be done about the core state pension- you can't means test it if you want most people to save as well. But the end point and off-ramp needed to be defined at the start. (I suspect that the 2022/3 double bubble surge means that we're there or thereabouts.)
The one thing going for Clarke is that, I think, he largely resisted doing anything spectacular ahead of the 1997 election. Could the Tories have maintained such discipline into and through the 2000s?
Cloutson, Susan Hall, David Starkey whither next??
No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGru4WPGnM
No one will agree with all of it, but something for everyone.
I like this.
More of this please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6rsfEKsADo
This is not about carrying an ID card. It is about the deeply illiberal system of which the ID card is the bit you carry.