I think our health spending is more in less in line internationally, it's working age benefits that are completely out of whack when you look at comparable nations I think. How on earth have they got to £160 Bn with a ~ 5% unemployment rate ?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!
It appears that a couple of million working-age people have suddenly become long-term sick since the pandemic.
Didn’t read much about that in the report.
I'd eliminate sickness benefit for anxiety & depression.
I have suffered with anxiety most of my adult life. Quite mild, but massively exacerbated if I were to drink too much or take drugs. And when I did those, things, then was extremely anxious/agoraphobic my employer suffered, I suffered etc etc
Had I claimed off the state for it, I wouldn’t have been keeping my side of the deal. The free NHS has created a culture of ‘Destroy yourself and we will pick up the pieces’, rather than ‘look after yourself and use us sparingly so those who are ill through no fault of their own get the best treatment’
The COVID-19 inquiry is far too interested in the minutiae. The fact that The resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom report mentions underlying health conditions like obesity only once in 200 pages is ridiculous. Should have take up at least 50% of that report given how important they were for determining whether someone ended up in hospital.
It's not that the most important lessons won't be learned - they aren't even being taught.
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
I think your £16,685 needs to be divided by 10. About £1668 each. (Open to correction!)
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
We all know that, I suspect even Rachel Reeves knows it. The problem is where do you start in reducing the size of the deficit and reduce borrowing to only that where it has value (long term capital expenditure for example).
Cutting overseas aid in half is drop meeting ocean - we could cut defence but we've made commitments to increase it. As for the others, the NHS, Pensioners, Welfare, Public Safety - good luck getting any traction in real time reductions in any of those.
Not everyone gets benefits but those who do have a vote as well and it will be human nature to say "I have nothing, there's a lot of wealth out there, that's what you should be taxing". There are plenty of wealthy pensioners but there are plenty of poor ones too.
I am increasingly of the view property wealth is the place to start - as we know, there are huge inequities in the Council Tax regime which in no way really reflects the value of property any longer (if it ever did).
Land Value Taxation is another idea whose time has surely come.
I agree we need to rebalance the relationship between State and citizen - either the State does less and the citizen has to pay for more of what they are currently getting for nothing (such as visits to a GP) or the State continues and the citizen pays more via greater taxation (direct or indirect) for the services.
I am finding it very hard to get het up by the Covid report. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yes we know that shagger was the worst possible leader in a time of crisis. But good men, better men, competent men are also just as capable of inaction when faced with "that can't be right" data.
I am more interested in what we can change next time than calling for vengeance against people who have long since been booted out of office.
I think most of us could have predicted most of that report about five years ago.
Politicians all crap, civil servants all wonderful, no lessons to learn, now write the nine-figure cheque for the lawyers writing the report please.
Now, if they could produce a report from the perspective of something like a transport accident investigation, going into detail about what led to the decisions that were made, what might be done differently next time, and with comparison of approaches taken in other countries, that one might be worth reading.
Yep - lessons can be learnt, doesn't help when you don't say what bits looking backwards could be used to implement restrictions earlier.
without that information and without knowing what else works we could well end up implement restrictions for 45 of the next 0 pandemics.
What restrictions, though ?
Face masks, for example, greatly lower the transmission rate for any respiratory virus.
Compared with even the shortest lockdown, they are a minor imposition - and in some countries just ordinary practice.
Better ventilation has similar health benefits for relatively minor costs.
The other lesson which ought to be learned was the benefit of cheap rapid tests for infection, once developed.
We wasted tens of billions on PCR 'gold standard' testing which was almost completely ineffective in changing outcomes. Cheap self-administered tests, widely adopted, could completely avoid the need for any lockdown in the future (and could have been far better used earlier in this pandemic).
I haven't read the report, but if it hasn't adopted a cost/benefit analysis as its fundamental framework, then it is a waste of time. (Apart from the necessary conformation of what a crap PM was Boris - though we didn't need to spend £200m to know that.)
If there's a choice between plentiful 'cheap and cheerful' and small amounts of 'gold standard, world beating' the UK government will always prefer the latter.
The lack of emphasis on ventilation was another mystery.
Wasn’t one of the things picked up back in 2020/21 was that the perceived wisdom on airborne diseases was based on a 1950s article that was utterly wrong
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
But they have largely forgotten that most of us sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand guard on the walls.
I don't think they have; hence the enthusiasm for increasing defence spending of late.
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
You’re out by a factor of 10, the deficit is only £1,700 per person per year.
Can you imagine being a Reform voter, so consistently wrong about everything?
It's not hard to imagine being wrong about lots of things. Most of us are. Some of us are even aware of it.
I would have had several things in the wrong order for these questions. I would have put pensions, debt interest and social care higher. I thought education, working age benefits and transport were lower.
It's interesting how that maps against my views that I think Britain doesn't prioritise education or transport infrastructure, that pension and social care spending is a huge problem, and that concerns over working age benefits are overdone.
Now, which way is the causality?
I think it will be very interesting as people start to be exposed to more Reform policies. At the moment supporting Reform is an emotional reaction - to a lack of opportunities, to changes to your community, to a general bombardment of largely lies from the hard right media.
A few willing souls have gone out doing voxpops with Reform voters, asking them to detail their issues, and then listing the actual Reform policies. Which run contrary to their issues with the exception of "there's too many foreigners" which the hard right media project as the summary of all the other problems.
The challenge for Reform is going to be asking people to vote against their own best interest. "I am poor, Reform will make me poorer but cutting welfare and council funding and the health service, but on the other hand I like that Nigel Farage and worry about all these muslim rapists I've been hearing about"
Some will, some won't. Its a fascinating social experiment! Can Reform replicate the success of the GOPDAP in getting poor people in rural areas to make themselves poorer?
I don't disagree, but I would make the point that it isn't necessarily obvious what is in one's best interest. For example, a high earner might vote for higher taxes, which seems contrary to their best interest. But perhaps they are taking the longer view and judging that their ultimate best interest is the stable democracy that government spending supports. On the other hand, a poorer person might rationally vote for cuts that they think will improve their relative status in society even if they themselves are negatively affected.
The ‘voting to make themselves poorer’ dig misses every time. As @Sean_F says, people don’t vote for their economic self interest, otherwise Labour wouldn’t dominate the rich vote.
If a party policy was sold as ‘we’ll cut immigration to zero but you’re going to be a tenner a week worse off’ I think it would be both wildly popular and people voting to make themselves poorer
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
We all know that, I suspect even Rachel Reeves knows it. The problem is where do you start in reducing the size of the deficit and reduce borrowing to only that where it has value (long term capital expenditure for example).
Cutting overseas aid in half is drop meeting ocean - we could cut defence but we've made commitments to increase it. As for the others, the NHS, Pensioners, Welfare, Public Safety - good luck getting any traction in real time reductions in any of those.
Not everyone gets benefits but those who do have a vote as well and it will be human nature to say "I have nothing, there's a lot of wealth out there, that's what you should be taxing". There are plenty of wealthy pensioners but there are plenty of poor ones too.
I am increasingly of the view property wealth is the place to start - as we know, there are huge inequities in the Council Tax regime which in no way really reflects the value of property any longer (if it ever did).
Land Value Taxation is another idea whose time has surely come.
I agree we need to rebalance the relationship between State and citizen - either the State does less and the citizen has to pay for more of what they are currently getting for nothing (such as visits to a GP) or the State continues and the citizen pays more via greater taxation (direct or indirect) for the services.
Ultimately pensions and the NHS will need to be means tested but the problem is the electorate and frightened politicians
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
But they have largely forgotten that most of us sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand guard on the walls.
What should the rough men of Europe do about the USA, because that's the threat identified in the article?
Also, I can't believe we missed Transgender Day of Remembrance yesterday. No special banner on PB and all we were wittering on about was politics, the economy, and the mass shutdown of our daily lives in response to a virus that mainly killed (very) old people.
Notable that voters overestimate spending on debt interest which suggests they are open to more measures to reduce debt. They also overestimate spending on public order and safety which suggests they are open to more being spent on prisons and the police.
Voters underestimate the amount spent on pensioners though which suggests the pensioner vote is still reluctant to face cuts to its pensions and benefits.
What voters understand least well, IMO, is how long it will take for solutions to many of our problems to work through.
The latter were decades in the making; policies to solve them will also be the work of decades rather than years.
You can change done things quite rapidly - tax rates; immigration numbers; trade treaties etc But their effects take many years to work through.
And there are no very simple levers to (for example) significantly improve the rate of economic growth.
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
The good times made soft people and politicians happy to pander to them.
Welfare funded consumption is what the population of Europe desires.
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Gove and Ben Warner perhaps too.
I'm on chapter 4 and it reads like an airport thriller. 14 March, the penny has (finally) dropped for Johnson, but 15 March, it's now the civil service who are being slow to get it.
Onr of the great things about this innings is that we're not putting our most fragile bowlers i.e. Wood and Archer - through too many overs. Which allows them to appear in more games later on in the series.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Gove and Ben Warner perhaps too.
I'm on chapter 4 and it reads like an airport thriller. 14 March, the penny has (finally) dropped for Johnson, but 15 March, it's now the civil service who are being slow to get it.
I am tempted to do a an annotation of the report with comments from PB at the time.
Greens turning into the SWP not a winning strategy everywhere.
Yes Polanski gaining votes in inner city and university town Labour held seats especially but losing them in prosperous ex Tory suburbs and shires it seems
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Hale was a Green held seat, they have just lost 10% and the seat since electing Polanski
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Gove and Ben Warner perhaps too.
I'm on chapter 4 and it reads like an airport thriller. 14 March, the penny has (finally) dropped for Johnson, but 15 March, it's now the civil service who are being slow to get it.
Is some sort of lockdown coming? I'm starting to think it's inevitable.
The Overseas Aid number is quite misleading, since in 2024 perhaps 1/5 of the now reduced £14bn number is still spent on looking after immigrants in the UK, down from just under 30% in 2023.
I have not seen detailed figures (anyone?), but that is the trend.
4.125. Mr Johnson, Rishi Sunak MP (Chancellor of the Exchequer from February 2020 to July 2022), Professor Whitty, officials and advisers met at about 15:00 [19 March 2020] to discuss the further restrictions that had been considered that morning.299 Mr Cummings sent Mr Cain a WhatsApp message from this meeting stating: “Get in here he’s melting down. Rishi says bond markets may not fund our debt.“300 Following this discussion, Mr Johnson decided not to proceed with London-specific measures at that time.301
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
10. U.S. security guarantees: a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees. b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees. c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked. d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Which half of the Green Party did the winner come from - ideological or practical?
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Hale was a Green held seat, they have just lost 10% and the seat since electing Polanski
I know, but it's still mad that the far left are on nearly 40% of the vote in Hale. This is very, very affluent territory. The Greens did well in Hale and Altrincham a few years back by getting the nimby vote out against the Timperley Wedge/Davenport Green proposals.
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
As others have noted this is out by a factor of ten. The other point worth noting is that the time profile on borrowing this year is skwed towards the start of the year owing to some technical stuff around the BOE's APF. Even with the £10bn YTD overshoot vs the OBR's forecast (of which just £4bn is from central government tax receipts or spending, which are within 0.1%-0.2% of the March forecast), it remains highly likely that borrowing will end the year below the level seen in recent years. The deficit is on a downwards trajectory.
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
10. U.S. security guarantees: a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees. b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees. c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked. d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
There's a sharpish walkthrough of this on the Ukraine Matters channel, run by a Danish chap who is married to a Ukrainian iirc, and has sharp and sometimes unvarnished opinions.
He goes through it with Red, Green and Brown (for sh*t) pens.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
Struggling Labour Prime Minister = Ashes Glory at Perth
A clear irrefutable link yet one that cannot be explained by any scientific theory as yet developed. We think we're so clever and knowledgeable but so much remains to be discovered.
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Hale was a Green held seat, they have just lost 10% and the seat since electing Polanski
Macclesfield was a Lab held seat Greens just gained 20% and the seat since electing Polanski
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
There is no more a 'leader of Europe' than there is a king of France, but if there were, they should be the person leading both the European defence of Ukraine and permanently seeking to negotiate peace in eastern Europe; this would be on the basis of my predecessors having linked the EU (under whatever name) and EuroNATO, and created a single market capable of keeping the UK within it. There would by now be an independent European nuclear deterrent which prevented the possibility of it being safe to attack Kiev.
You asked for a wish list from a person who doesn't exist. There you are.
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
10. U.S. security guarantees: a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees. b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees. c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked. d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
There's a sharpish walkthrough of this on the Ukraine Matters channel, run by a Danish chap who is married to a Ukrainian iirc, and has sharp and sometimes unvarnished opinions.
He goes through it with Red, Green and Brown (for sh*t) pens.
The Overseas Aid number is quite misleading, since in 2024 perhaps 1/5 of the now reduced £14bn number is still spent on looking after immigrants in the UK, down from just under 30% in 2023.
I have not seen detailed figures (anyone?), but that is the trend.
Genuine aid spending is now a rounding error in our fiscal numbers. It amazes me that people act like it is some kind of major drag on our finances. I guess it serves as a scapegoat for the hard of thinking.
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Gove and Ben Warner perhaps too.
For all his many flaws, I do think Cummings was probably one of the ones who got it, early on. (And not just catching covid himself).
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
I think you are over by a factor of 10. It's £1668.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
If I understand the proposals correctly, the various digital coin projects (e.g. for the pound and the euro) would in principle reduce the impact of losing access to VISA or Mastercard payments. However, one of the major issues is the way in which European banks are enforcing US sanctions, because they don't want to risk being shut out of doing business in the US.
So if, for example, the EU had a payments competitor to VISA/Mastercard it's not obvious that it would help anyone sanctioned by the US, because any such payments provider would want to do business in the US, and so they would have to comply with US sanctions.
Ultimately, it looks like the main gap is a diplomatic one - the EU, Dutch and French should be working hard to have the US lift the sanctions.
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
10. U.S. security guarantees: a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees. b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees. c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked. d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
There's a sharpish walkthrough of this on the Ukraine Matters channel, run by a Danish chap who is married to a Ukrainian iirc, and has sharp and sometimes unvarnished opinions.
He goes through it with Red, Green and Brown (for sh*t) pens.
The idea that Ukraine will accept any of this is for the birds, surely? Yes, if they were losing on the battlefield, but slowly giving up ground against a grinding offensive is not losing (as anyone who understands their 20th century military history ought to know).
Frankly, if the Ukrainians thought they were losing on the battlefield, then Russia would (probably) know that too, and would be completely uninterested in signing a deal like this if they thought they could get a better outcome by continuing the war.
The only way this agreement gets implemented is if the US strong-arms Europe into implementing it. But the US has already pulled out of funding the war - the money is all coming from Europe now, even some of it is it’s buying US arms. Cutting off Europe from using their US supplied armaments in Ukraine would instantly kill any demand for US arms manufacture from Europe so it seems extremely unlikely that the US MIC will permit that to happen. What other leverage does the US have? Threatening to pull out of NATO maybe?
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
Well indeed, but I think it's fair to say that many of the people now calling for European independence from, in particular, the US are the same ones as those who used to decry European initiatives in this direction as a waste of money. For example, I well remember the scorn poured on the nascent Galileo satellite navigation system, mainly from the right of the political spectrum. What was the point, they said, when we already had the US GPS system?
I've started chapter 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry report. There is plenty of criticism, but who comes out of it best so far...? Maybe Cummings and Drakeford?
Gove and Ben Warner perhaps too.
For all his many flaws, I do think Cummings was probably one of the ones who got it, early on. (And not just catching covid himself).
Cummings tends to be about 100% right on the problems. And about 100% wrong on the solutions.
His comment about the Cabinet Room a century ago is incisive and illustrates why the system runs the way it does.
I further recall a story about the time a Thatcher era minister wanted to present some graphics to the cabinet - overhead projectors IIRC. The Yes Minister style shenanigans from civil servants to try and prevent that....
Yes Joe looks well there. Nice to see. Despite his hubris in clinging on being instrumental to the 5/11 catastrophe I still like and respect him. The totality of his life in politics was admirable esp given the personal challenges and family tragedy he had to face.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
Well indeed, but I think it's fair to say that many of the people now calling for European independence from, in particular, the US are the same ones as those who used to decry European initiatives in this direction as a waste of money. For example, I well remember the scorn poured on the nascent Galileo satellite navigation system, mainly from the right of the political spectrum. What was the point, they said, when we already had the US GPS system?
The problem with Galileo was that it was a vastly expensive attempt to copy the US system. Rather than investigating the modern alternatives in spacecraft design. So it became a way to shovel money at the Usual Suspects, rather than developing something new and better.
In addition, there was the comic moment when some European politicians suggested that it could be paid for by jamming the free GPS signal in Europe.
Struggling Labour Prime Minister = Ashes Glory at Perth
A clear irrefutable link yet one that cannot be explained by any scientific theory as yet developed. We think we're so clever and knowledgeable but so much remains to be discovered.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
If I understand the proposals correctly, the various digital coin projects (e.g. for the pound and the euro) would in principle reduce the impact of losing access to VISA or Mastercard payments. However, one of the major issues is the way in which European banks are enforcing US sanctions, because they don't want to risk being shut out of doing business in the US.
So if, for example, the EU had a payments competitor to VISA/Mastercard it's not obvious that it would help anyone sanctioned by the US, because any such payments provider would want to do business in the US, and so they would have to comply with US sanctions.
Ultimately, it looks like the main gap is a diplomatic one - the EU, Dutch and French should be working hard to have the US lift the sanctions.
Fixing digital currencies so that the American's couldn't do those things to the US's enemies would restrict Europe in its desire to be able to do those things to Europe's enemies. In this area the CryptoBros are right.
4.187. Mr Johnson told the Inquiry that he thought it was “highly unlikely” that the imposition of earlier restrictions would have avoided a lockdown.442 However, had stringent restrictions short of a mandatory lockdown been introduced earlier than 16 March 2020 – when the number of Covid-19 cases was lower – the mandatory lockdown might have been shorter or, conceivably, avoided entirely. At the very least, there would have been time to establish what the effect of those restrictions on levels of incidence were and whether there was a sustained reduction in social contact. This would have enabled the governments to assess whether stringent restrictions short of a lockdown would suffice to prevent health services across the UK being overwhelmed and whether they were therefore a feasible policy option.
4.188. The reality is that the UK government and devolved administrations, through their slow responses in late February and early March 2020, denied themselves the possibility of being able to make that assessment. In effect, the likelihood of a mandatory lockdown significantly increased as a result of the failure to act more speedily before 16 March. That more stringent restrictions were not implemented before 16 March was the result of failures on the part of decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers.
I note that last sentence castigating "decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers". The report does not let anyone off.
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Hale was a Green held seat, they have just lost 10% and the seat since electing Polanski
Macclesfield was a Lab held seat Greens just gained 20% and the seat since electing Polanski
Oh boo hoo. That's sovereignty, capitalism and the law right there. Which bit do you object to, that he can't google "pearl clutching"?
Mmm no. It's an assault on law, international law, by Trump & Co - which started in around Feb/March following the pattern of Trump's assaults on Court Staff in his various trials in 2024.
I'm interested if any UK parties have policies on this, and what my MP Lee Anderson would say (if he's heard of the ICC). Do the Tories have a defined view on the ICC?
Translation of the so called Ukraine peace plan. Interesting for what Russia doesn't care about - eg Ukraine joining the EU; the complete disregard for NATO implied for the USA as well as Russia; and the desire that the USA should be seen to benefit from Russia's aggression.
10. U.S. security guarantees: a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees. b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees. c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked. d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
There's a sharpish walkthrough of this on the Ukraine Matters channel, run by a Danish chap who is married to a Ukrainian iirc, and has sharp and sometimes unvarnished opinions.
He goes through it with Red, Green and Brown (for sh*t) pens.
The idea that Ukraine will accept any of this is for the birds, surely? Yes, if they were losing on the battlefield, but slowly giving up ground against a grinding offensive is not losing (as anyone who understands their 20th century military history ought to know).
Frankly, if the Ukrainians thought they were losing on the battlefield, then Russia would (probably) know that too, and would be completely uninterested in signing a deal like this if they thought they could get a better outcome by continuing the war.
The only way this agreement gets implemented is if the US strong-arms Europe into implementing it. But the US has already pulled out of funding the war - the money is all coming from Europe now, even some of it is it’s buying US arms. Cutting off Europe from using their US supplied armaments in Ukraine would instantly kill any demand for US arms manufacture from Europe so it seems extremely unlikely that the US MIC will permit that to happen. What other leverage does the US have? Threatening to pull out of NATO maybe?
The US supplies a lot of intelligence and reconnaissance data to Ukraine. Starlink could be turned off. The US could unilaterally drop sanctions on Russia, thereby threatening Europe and Ukraine with the prospect of fighting Russia while Russia was able to trade freely with the US.
You'd hope there would be sufficient pushback against this in the US to prevent it happening, but one of the purposes of proposing this plan will be to influence US domestic opinion and cast Ukraine as the main impediment to peace.
4.187. Mr Johnson told the Inquiry that he thought it was “highly unlikely” that the imposition of earlier restrictions would have avoided a lockdown.442 However, had stringent restrictions short of a mandatory lockdown been introduced earlier than 16 March 2020 – when the number of Covid-19 cases was lower – the mandatory lockdown might have been shorter or, conceivably, avoided entirely. At the very least, there would have been time to establish what the effect of those restrictions on levels of incidence were and whether there was a sustained reduction in social contact. This would have enabled the governments to assess whether stringent restrictions short of a lockdown would suffice to prevent health services across the UK being overwhelmed and whether they were therefore a feasible policy option.
4.188. The reality is that the UK government and devolved administrations, through their slow responses in late February and early March 2020, denied themselves the possibility of being able to make that assessment. In effect, the likelihood of a mandatory lockdown significantly increased as a result of the failure to act more speedily before 16 March. That more stringent restrictions were not implemented before 16 March was the result of failures on the part of decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers.
I note that last sentence castigating "decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers". The report does not let anyone off.
Not really keeping up with the detail but that summary does make me wonder if it's essentially a product of hindsight.
By that metric, a man might be blamed for not picking winning lottery numbers.
Can you imagine being a Reform voter, so consistently wrong about everything?
It's not hard to imagine being wrong about lots of things. Most of us are. Some of us are even aware of it.
I would have had several things in the wrong order for these questions. I would have put pensions, debt interest and social care higher. I thought education, working age benefits and transport were lower.
It's interesting how that maps against my views that I think Britain doesn't prioritise education or transport infrastructure, that pension and social care spending is a huge problem, and that concerns over working age benefits are overdone.
Now, which way is the causality?
I think it will be very interesting as people start to be exposed to more Reform policies. At the moment supporting Reform is an emotional reaction - to a lack of opportunities, to changes to your community, to a general bombardment of largely lies from the hard right media.
A few willing souls have gone out doing voxpops with Reform voters, asking them to detail their issues, and then listing the actual Reform policies. Which run contrary to their issues with the exception of "there's too many foreigners" which the hard right media project as the summary of all the other problems.
The challenge for Reform is going to be asking people to vote against their own best interest. "I am poor, Reform will make me poorer but cutting welfare and council funding and the health service, but on the other hand I like that Nigel Farage and worry about all these muslim rapists I've been hearing about"
Some will, some won't. Its a fascinating social experiment! Can Reform replicate the success of the GOPDAP in getting poor people in rural areas to make themselves poorer?
I don't disagree, but I would make the point that it isn't necessarily obvious what is in one's best interest. For example, a high earner might vote for higher taxes, which seems contrary to their best interest. But perhaps they are taking the longer view and judging that their ultimate best interest is the stable democracy that government spending supports. On the other hand, a poorer person might rationally vote for cuts that they think will improve their relative status in society even if they themselves are negatively affected.
The ‘voting to make themselves poorer’ dig misses every time. As @Sean_F says, people don’t vote for their economic self interest, otherwise Labour wouldn’t dominate the rich vote.
If a party policy was sold as ‘we’ll cut immigration to zero but you’re going to be a tenner a week worse off’ I think it would be both wildly popular and people voting to make themselves poorer
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
There is no more a 'leader of Europe' than there is a king of France, but if there were, they should be the person leading both the European defence of Ukraine and permanently seeking to negotiate peace in eastern Europe; this would be on the basis of my predecessors having linked the EU (under whatever name) and EuroNATO, and created a single market capable of keeping the UK within it. There would by now be an independent European nuclear deterrent which prevented the possibility of it being safe to attack Kiev.
You asked for a wish list from a person who doesn't exist. There you are.
I was going to put "leader of Europe" in quotes in my previous post, bit thought it might sound a bit sarcastic. Yes, of course there is no leader of Europe, which is really an answer to your question. Europe (sadly) isn't a country; the US is, and can therefore act more decisively. Also, though, Europe can't really broker a peace because Europe is in Ukraine's corner. We aren't neutral observers, and we don't have the leverge over Russia that the US has.
Fantastic result for the Conservatives in Trafford. Looks like Altrincham and Sale at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Perhaps. Hale is the sort of ward which ten years ago Con would have won at a canter. It's one of the mist affluent wards in the North West. It's not the sort of ward where the far left should be on 38%. I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
Hale was a Green held seat, they have just lost 10% and the seat since electing Polanski
I know, but it's still mad that the far left are on nearly 40% of the vote in Hale. This is very, very affluent territory. The Greens did well in Hale and Altrincham a few years back by getting the nimby vote out against the Timperley Wedge/Davenport Green proposals.
The only way this agreement gets implemented is if the US strong-arms Europe into implementing it. But the US has already pulled out of funding the war - the money is all coming from Europe now, even some of it is it’s buying US arms. Cutting off Europe from using their US supplied armaments in Ukraine would instantly kill any demand for US arms manufacture from Europe so it seems extremely unlikely that the US MIC will permit that to happen. What other leverage does the US have? Threatening to pull out of NATO maybe?
You can see all sorts of procurement now specifying that it should be ITAR free. i.e. The US can't restrict sales or use.
The US will find it increasingly difficult to sell weapons to Europe, once programmes in the pipeline are cleared it will be much rarer for a US company to win a bid.
Beyond that there are big projects underway to wholely replace capabilities that NATO currently relies entirely on the US for. It won't be quick but I do believe we are heading towards a NATO that doesn't need or include the US.
I am finding it very hard to get het up by the Covid report. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yes we know that shagger was the worst possible leader in a time of crisis. But good men, better men, competent men are also just as capable of inaction when faced with "that can't be right" data.
I am more interested in what we can change next time than calling for vengeance against people who have long since been booted out of office.
I think most of us could have predicted most of that report about five years ago.
Politicians all crap, civil servants all wonderful, no lessons to learn, now write the nine-figure cheque for the lawyers writing the report please.
Now, if they could produce a report from the perspective of something like a transport accident investigation, going into detail about what led to the decisions that were made, what might be done differently next time, and with comparison of approaches taken in other countries, that one might be worth reading.
Yep - lessons can be learnt, doesn't help when you don't say what bits looking backwards could be used to implement restrictions earlier.
without that information and without knowing what else works we could well end up implement restrictions for 45 of the next 0 pandemics.
Read the report. Sandpit’s characterisation of it is inaccurate.
The whole purpose of these reports should be to look at what were good decisions, what with hindsight were bad decisions, what would have been done differently today, what information is important, what information was misleading, how did the characteristics of this particular disease differ from what had been planned for, what processes could be improved, what can government do to be better prepared for the next pandemic than the last one…
There’s almost none of that in the report.
Few people are interested in information. They're looking for people to blame.
Sandpit being an example. He just mischaracterises the report to fit his pre-existing narrative rather than looking at the information within it.
For example, he suggests the reports says, "civil servants all wonderful". The obvious counter-example is Chris Whitty, who must have had an uncomfortable time reading the report (e.g. para. 3.104).
And 4.202 and the preceding paragraphs!
4.202. The Inquiry acknowledges the difficulties facing the UK government’s scientific and medical advisers. They were working under extreme pressure and in conditions of evidential uncertainty. However, they were aware that the absence of adequate data was likely to mislead as to the true extent of infection and the resulting impact on health services. Prior to 13 March 2020, they knew that they likely did not have an accurate understanding of the point at which the NHS would be overwhelmed. Accordingly, they should not have advised decision-makers up to mid-March that restrictions should not yet be implemented. At the very least, they should have made clearer to decision-makers the higher level of risk for the NHS that would arise from following that scientific advice, given the data gaps and assumptions on which it was based. In particular, Professor Whitty should have made clearer to decision-makers that his advice that public compliance with restrictions might wane if restrictions were implemented too early (the notion of ‘behavioural fatigue’) was based on an assumption he had made – and therefore could prove to be incorrect. He should have made it clearer that a decision to wait longer before implementing restrictions based on that assumption would therefore entail running certain risks in relation to NHS capacity.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
The list of things that the Judge is being locked out/banned from, for doing his appointed job would be a good indication of the level of dependence on other countries.
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
Well indeed, but I think it's fair to say that many of the people now calling for European independence from, in particular, the US are the same ones as those who used to decry European initiatives in this direction as a waste of money. For example, I well remember the scorn poured on the nascent Galileo satellite navigation system, mainly from the right of the political spectrum. What was the point, they said, when we already had the US GPS system?
I've sometimes mentioned that USA international influence will wane as the soft power they have destroyed works through, and other allies pivot away.
That will also work the other way, perhaps. If European arms purchases from the USA. At the moment we are still on the "Oh God we need it all NOW" Ukraine bulge, but when it has reduced by half or two-thirds in a few years' time ... Hmmm.
The reality is that we have borrowed £116.8bn in 7 months, more than any other year on record other than the Covid inflicted year of 2020. That is, if I have my zeros in the right place, £16,685 for every man, woman and child in the country assuming there are roughly 70m of us. This is despite record tax receipts on the back of the tax increases in the last budget. Our state is spending completely and utterly unsustainable sums of money to pay us what we somehow believe we are entitled to.
Reality on government spending makes England's batting look dull and predictable.
You’re out by a factor of 10, the deficit is only £1,700 per person per year.
Still horrifically bad though.
yeah, you're right. My phone was struggling with the number of zeros. As you say, still horrific and significantly worse than last year despite us having supposedly been put on a secure path at the last budget.
Combine that story with the story about the Dutch chipmaker and you have a picture of how Europe is at the mercy of both the US and China. And compared to those two, Russia should be easy, but Europe isn't really dealing with the war with Russia with much in the way of decisiveness and strength.
I find it hard to understand the timidity of European leaders (among which, I include my own country’s). When reading about the 1930’s, I used to ask myself “how could they be so cowardly and stupid?” The question still applies.
I'd say European leaders have, on the whole, done a pretty good job over my 60-year lifetime. Democracy has spread throughout most of the continent, we still have some of the best standards of living in the world, and very few of us have had to fight or die in wars.
Edit: Ah, I just read the tweet that started this thread. I agree, that is appaling.
And, SFAICS, Europe/EU/EuroNATO is sitting around taking for granted that it is the USA's job, not our job to fix a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine, when this is our continent's war and the USA bias is obvious.
If you were the leader of Europe, what would you be doing differently?
There is no more a 'leader of Europe' than there is a king of France, but if there were, they should be the person leading both the European defence of Ukraine and permanently seeking to negotiate peace in eastern Europe; this would be on the basis of my predecessors having linked the EU (under whatever name) and EuroNATO, and created a single market capable of keeping the UK within it. There would by now be an independent European nuclear deterrent which prevented the possibility of it being safe to attack Kiev.
You asked for a wish list from a person who doesn't exist. There you are.
I was going to put "leader of Europe" in quotes in my previous post, bit thought it might sound a bit sarcastic. Yes, of course there is no leader of Europe, which is really an answer to your question. Europe (sadly) isn't a country; the US is, and can therefore act more decisively. Also, though, Europe can't really broker a peace because Europe is in Ukraine's corner. We aren't neutral observers, and we don't have the leverge over Russia that the US has.
I can't really think of a neutral observer at the moment. Paraguay? Bhutan? As to one with leverage, none come to mind.
Comments
Had I claimed off the state for it, I wouldn’t have been keeping my side of the deal. The free NHS has created a culture of ‘Destroy yourself and we will pick up the pieces’, rather than ‘look after yourself and use us sparingly so those who are ill through no fault of their own get the best treatment’
Cutting overseas aid in half is drop meeting ocean - we could cut defence but we've made commitments to increase it. As for the others, the NHS, Pensioners, Welfare, Public Safety - good luck getting any traction in real time reductions in any of those.
Not everyone gets benefits but those who do have a vote as well and it will be human nature to say "I have nothing, there's a lot of wealth out there, that's what you should be taxing". There are plenty of wealthy pensioners but there are plenty of poor ones too.
I am increasingly of the view property wealth is the place to start - as we know, there are huge inequities in the Council Tax regime which in no way really reflects the value of property any longer (if it ever did).
Land Value Taxation is another idea whose time has surely come.
I agree we need to rebalance the relationship between State and citizen - either the State does less and the citizen has to pay for more of what they are currently getting for nothing (such as visits to a GP) or the State continues and the citizen pays more via greater taxation (direct or indirect) for the services.
at least will be a Conservative gain at the next general election
Still horrifically bad though.
England can’t end up ahead here, can they?
It’s happening.
Have we no humanity.
The latter were decades in the making; policies to solve them will also be the work of decades rather than years.
You can change done things quite rapidly - tax rates; immigration numbers; trade treaties etc
But their effects take many years to work through.
And there are no very simple levers to (for example) significantly improve the rate of economic growth.
I'm finding the current by-election climate quite depressing for the number of votes being garnered by the Greens.
121 for 8
Edit
121-9
Welfare funded consumption is what the population of Europe desires.
This one day stuff is all very well, but it isn't the real thing.
https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1991536201233273022?s=20
Elon's plan to depict himself as the bestest human there has ever been not going quite to plan.
https://x.com/steinkobbe/status/1991635307687543124?s=20
I have not seen detailed figures (anyone?), but that is the trend.
10. U.S. security guarantees:
a. The U.S. will receive compensation for providing guarantees.
b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantees.
c. If Russia invades Ukraine (except for a rapid coordinated military response), all global sanctions will be restored and recognition of new territories will be revoked.
d. If Ukraine unintentionally fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the guarantees become invalid.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-tour-of-australia-1978-79-61735/australia-vs-england-2nd-test-63221/full-scorecard
Hertfordshire Police said the man, who was arrested last month, had been released on bail under investigation.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgmgyrdlxdo
Macclesfield Central (Cheshire East) Council By-Election Result:
🌍 GRN: 41.8% (+19.7)
🌹 LAB: 28.6% (-25.7)
➡️ RFM: 15.8% (New)
🌳 CON: 9.1% (-4.5)
⚖️ EQU: 2.5% (New)
🔶 LDM: 2.2% (-7.7)
Green GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2023.
The Greens did well in Hale and Altrincham a few years back by getting the nimby vote out against the Timperley Wedge/Davenport Green proposals.
He goes through it with Red, Green and Brown (for sh*t) pens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX9KY84gZRE
You could take that list and construct a multi decade program to encourage the creation of alternatives, on the ground of national (international?) security.
It would have been an effective attack point for the Dems, if they hadn't run Biden as their own candidate.
A clear irrefutable link yet one that cannot be explained by any scientific theory as yet developed. We think we're so clever and knowledgeable but so much remains to be discovered.
You asked for a wish list from a person who doesn't exist. There you are.
Which sets up the provocation by Russia to start round 2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings
Watch that blood pressure at your our age, M'Lud !
(Open to correction)
So if, for example, the EU had a payments competitor to VISA/Mastercard it's not obvious that it would help anyone sanctioned by the US, because any such payments provider would want to do business in the US, and so they would have to comply with US sanctions.
Ultimately, it looks like the main gap is a diplomatic one - the EU, Dutch and French should be working hard to have the US lift the sanctions.
Frankly, if the Ukrainians thought they were losing on the battlefield, then Russia would (probably) know that too, and would be completely uninterested in signing a deal like this if they thought they could get a better outcome by continuing the war.
The only way this agreement gets implemented is if the US strong-arms Europe into implementing it. But the US has already pulled out of funding the war - the money is all coming from Europe now, even some of it is it’s buying US arms. Cutting off Europe from using their US supplied armaments in Ukraine would instantly kill any demand for US arms manufacture from Europe so it seems extremely unlikely that the US MIC will permit that to happen. What other leverage does the US have? Threatening to pull out of NATO maybe?
His comment about the Cabinet Room a century ago is incisive and illustrates why the system runs the way it does.
I further recall a story about the time a Thatcher era minister wanted to present some graphics to the cabinet - overhead projectors IIRC. The Yes Minister style shenanigans from civil servants to try and prevent that....
In addition, there was the comic moment when some European politicians suggested that it could be paid for by jamming the free GPS signal in Europe.
4.187. Mr Johnson told the Inquiry that he thought it was “highly unlikely” that the imposition of earlier restrictions would have avoided a lockdown.442 However, had stringent restrictions short of a mandatory lockdown been introduced earlier than 16 March 2020 – when the number of Covid-19 cases was lower – the mandatory lockdown might have been shorter or, conceivably, avoided entirely. At the very least, there would have been time to establish what the effect of those restrictions on levels of incidence were and whether there was a sustained reduction in social contact. This would have enabled the governments to assess whether stringent restrictions short of a lockdown would suffice to prevent health services across the UK being overwhelmed and whether they were therefore a feasible policy option.
4.188. The reality is that the UK government and devolved administrations, through their slow responses in late February and early March 2020, denied themselves the possibility of being able to make that assessment. In effect, the likelihood of a mandatory lockdown significantly increased as a result of the failure to act more speedily before 16 March. That more stringent restrictions were not implemented before 16 March was the result of failures on the part of decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers.
I note that last sentence castigating "decision-makers, senior officials and scientific advisers". The report does not let anyone off.
RFM: 32% (-1)
GRN: 18% (+1)
CON: 17% (+1)
LAB: 16% (+1)
LDM: 11% (=)
SNP: 2% (-1)
Via @FindoutnowUK, 19 Nov.
Changes w/ 12 Nov.
LET THE DEATH OF THE BLUE/RED TORY DUOPOLY BE SLOW AND PAINFUL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Cheshire_East_Council_election
Hale Central by contrast was a Conservative held seat in 2019 before going Green in 2022 and has now gone back to Conservative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Trafford_Metropolitan_Borough_Council_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Trafford_Metropolitan_Borough_Council_election
I'm interested if any UK parties have policies on this, and what my MP Lee Anderson would say (if he's heard of the ICC). Do the Tories have a defined view on the ICC?
You'd hope there would be sufficient pushback against this in the US to prevent it happening, but one of the purposes of proposing this plan will be to influence US domestic opinion and cast Ukraine as the main impediment to peace.
By that metric, a man might be blamed for not picking winning lottery numbers.
The US will find it increasingly difficult to sell weapons to Europe, once programmes in the pipeline are cleared it will be much rarer for a US company to win a bid.
Beyond that there are big projects underway to wholely replace capabilities that NATO currently relies entirely on the US for. It won't be quick but I do believe we are heading towards a NATO that doesn't need or include the US.
4.202. The Inquiry acknowledges the difficulties facing the UK government’s scientific and medical advisers. They were working under extreme pressure and in conditions of evidential uncertainty. However, they were aware that the absence of adequate data was likely to mislead as to the true extent of infection and the resulting impact on health services. Prior to 13 March 2020, they knew that they likely did not have an accurate understanding of the point at which the NHS would be overwhelmed. Accordingly, they should not have advised decision-makers up to mid-March that restrictions should not yet be implemented. At the very least, they should have made clearer to decision-makers the higher level of risk for the NHS that would arise from following that scientific advice, given the data gaps and assumptions on which it was based. In particular, Professor Whitty should have made clearer to decision-makers that his advice that public compliance with restrictions might wane if restrictions were implemented too early (the notion of ‘behavioural fatigue’) was based on an assumption he had made – and therefore could prove to be incorrect. He should have made it clearer that a decision to wait longer before implementing restrictions based on that assumption would therefore entail running certain risks in relation to NHS capacity.
That will also work the other way, perhaps. If European arms purchases from the USA. At the moment we are still on the "Oh God we need it all NOW" Ukraine bulge, but when it has reduced by half or two-thirds in a few years' time ... Hmmm.