Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
Sounds a bit like Andrea Dworkin "all men are rapists".
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
The media isn’t interested in any good economic news and there’s a section of the public that will just keep swallowing the “ everything is terrible “ mantra .
True enough but IF the economy improves slowly and steadily by 2029, it will be a strong argument for Labour to deploy against the "unknown" policies of Reform.
Those who are inherently anti-Labour will always find ways to feed that - just as those who are anti-Conservative, anti-Reform and anti-Lib Dem do.
Labour has multiple illusions. It still thinks that the EU is a liberal, high-minded and Left-leaning project when in reality it is a corporatist and at times coercive project moving further to the Right, even to the hard Right.
It thinks it can sit in Westminster and idly float ideas about Europe without the slightest understanding of what Brussels will entertain. It thinks that British industry, technology, farming, and finance are pining for the firm smack of European commissars and judges.
The greatest illusion of all is to think that crawling back under the EU’s legal order will somehow unleash a turbo-blast of economic growth.
Sensible article on the whole but you also of course cannot prosecute without clear evidence and otherwise accusation can be libel. Where is the evidence most prostitutes are trafficked, if two adults wish to have consensual sex and one of them is paid for it that should't really be a focus for law enforcement otherwise. Possession of indecent images may only lead to a suspended sentence or community order but it will also usually require being on the Sex Offenders Register for a period and suppliers and creators of indecent images will normally face a jail sentence
Yes, the reality of the situation is that there will be cases where you have some suspicions about a person, but they are insufficient to take action. In one case, a former employee told me that another former employee had sexually harassed her, but she didn't want to make a complaint. I entirely believe her and respect her decision not to make a complaint if she does not want to go through that, but what am I meant to do? Find out where the harrasser now works, ring up and say, "Hi, you don't know me and I don't have any evidence I can show you, but I believe that X has sexually harrassed someone in the past"?
Are most sex workers trafficked? That's very hard to research. Jana et al. (2013, https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdt095 ) developed a programme whereby sex workers themselves could help combat trafficking. They note:
Sex work can thus be voluntary or involuntary—while many sex workers choose to enter the profession, others are induced under false pretences or otherwise coerced.5
The problem of human trafficking is related but much broader, involving coercion in the economic exploitation of men, women or children.5,6 Most trafficking of persons involves other sectors and types of labour, including agriculture, construction and domestic work. In these areas, differentiation is generally made between the majority of workers who migrate voluntarily and those who are trafficked.
Where the sex trade is concerned, however, distinctions between consensual and coerced work are often blurred.5–7 Evidence suggests that trafficking accounts for a minority of those entering sex work—1 in 5–10 by recent estimates from Andrah Pradesh, India and Thailand8,9 Nevertheless, anti-trafficking organizations frequently cast a wide net, conflating all sex work with trafficking.10,11
Labour has multiple illusions. It still thinks that the EU is a liberal, high-minded and Left-leaning project when in reality it is a corporatist and at times coercive project moving further to the Right, even to the hard Right.
It thinks it can sit in Westminster and idly float ideas about Europe without the slightest understanding of what Brussels will entertain. It thinks that British industry, technology, farming, and finance are pining for the firm smack of European commissars and judges.
The greatest illusion of all is to think that crawling back under the EU’s legal order will somehow unleash a turbo-blast of economic growth.
I have not seen the Govt wanting to crawl back under the "EU's legal order". What did I miss?
AFAICS it is about removing unnecessary obstacles that had been left in place.
I have seen chatter on rejoining the Customs Union, but not official chatter, but I don't see that being feasible as it involves handing back negotiation rights and losing many of our Trade Agreements. Unless it is a new version of Customs Union that has not existed before.
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
Its not just if people think the economy is better but also who thinks the economy is better and how it is better and why it is better and whether they give the government any credit.
I'm feeling happier this morning because my pensions and investments are up a few thousand from yesterday.
But I'm not going to give Starmer and Reeves credit for that.
Other people will have other economic requirements - more jobs, better jobs, higher pay, cheaper workers, lower prices, reduced taxes, affordable housing - which are harder to achieve and which can be incompatible with what someone else wants.
With respect, I doubt very much you are on the Labour side of any street and the truth is the credit usually goes to the team on whose watch the better times happen even if it was a previous team which set the foundations.
I'd argue that's not how the less partisan might see it and Labour may well gain undeserved credit for this.
And the blame also usually goes to the team currently in power.
My point was that if those who are benefitting from any economic improvements aren't willing to give any credit to the government then any economic improvements they receive are effectively wasted in political terms.
And it looks easier to see economic improvements for the oldies than the young threated with AI, globalisation, student debt and unaffordable housing.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
Depends on the role, Popes of course are certainly frowned on for showing any ambition for the role before Conclave
That doesn't stop people being ambitious (you and I both spend enough time around clergy to know that), but it does reward those who hide it better.
"Ultimately, I became a priest to serve God. If others were to discern that the best place for me to serve was the Vatican, how could I refuse?"
Jon Sopel - You were a remainer when Cameron was PM, you were a brexiteer under Boris, you said it was shameful that Truss was still in the party but voted for her budget & now that the Tories are languishing in the polls you go to the party leading in the polls. https://x.com/mikoh123/status/2024616236730982713
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
My first thought on the surplus was - was this because there are more self-employed than expected? Or is it not that simple.
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
The media isn’t interested in any good economic news and there’s a section of the public that will just keep swallowing the “ everything is terrible “ mantra .
And there were people who got upset with my recounting the story of Tebbit, Brian Redhead and the unemployment figures....
'Twas ever thus. Good news rarely leads.
News and papers really should finish with a good news story or 2. Otherwise it just creates further depression
Labour has multiple illusions. It still thinks that the EU is a liberal, high-minded and Left-leaning project when in reality it is a corporatist and at times coercive project moving further to the Right, even to the hard Right.
It thinks it can sit in Westminster and idly float ideas about Europe without the slightest understanding of what Brussels will entertain. It thinks that British industry, technology, farming, and finance are pining for the firm smack of European commissars and judges.
The greatest illusion of all is to think that crawling back under the EU’s legal order will somehow unleash a turbo-blast of economic growth.
I have not seen the Govt wanting to crawl back under the "EU's legal order". What did I miss?
AFAICS it is about removing unnecessary obstacles that had been left in place.
I have seen chatter on rejoining the Customs Union, but not official chatter, but I don't see that being feasible as it involves handing back negotiation rights and losing many of our Trade Agreements. Unless it is a new version of Customs Union that has not existed before.
I'm sensing a bit of panic within the British Right: Nigel hasn't been having the best time of it, Sir Keir has lived to fight another day, and as for Trump... Stirring up the old Brexit wars again is a way of returning to a time when everything was certain and everything was lovely.
For someone who considers themselves the most moral person on the planet you are prertty good at throwing unfounded accusations around like confetti. I am surprised PB gives you this pulpit.
I've read the header twice and I don't see any unfounded accusations. Give an example
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Quite. If we are paying too much tax we are then clearly living beyond our means and need to drastically cut spending.
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
The media isn’t interested in any good economic news and there’s a section of the public that will just keep swallowing the “ everything is terrible “ mantra .
And there were people who got upset with my recounting the story of Tebbit, Brian Redhead and the unemployment figures....
'Twas ever thus. Good news rarely leads.
I was travelling on the train from Manchester to London 1st class and I found myself sitting opposite Brian Redhead. After breakfast as we were coming into Euston I noticed a smartly dressed man collecting the receipts off the tables. I pointed this out to him. "Good Heavens" he said. "I've never seen that before. I'm going to mention it on my programme this morning". And he did
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
For someone who considers themselves the most moral person on the planet you are prertty good at throwing unfounded accusations around like confetti. I am surprised PB gives you this pulpit.
I think the accusations in question are quite well-founded. Many powerful people, across the political spectrum, and in all walks of life, abuse their positions to extort sex.
Or in that "it seemed funny at the time" line from Frasier:
Daphne: Oh, come on now, Dr Crane. It's not like men have never used sex to get what they want. Frasier: How can we possibly use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want.
Actually, the case of Mandelson shows it's a bit more complicated than that. There are other manifestations of power and excitement that can be craved just as much. But sex is the main one.
Did I imagine a reference to a Brazilian in regard of Mandelson? Are we quite sure there was no sexual interest with him?
Labour has multiple illusions. It still thinks that the EU is a liberal, high-minded and Left-leaning project when in reality it is a corporatist and at times coercive project moving further to the Right, even to the hard Right.
It thinks it can sit in Westminster and idly float ideas about Europe without the slightest understanding of what Brussels will entertain. It thinks that British industry, technology, farming, and finance are pining for the firm smack of European commissars and judges.
The greatest illusion of all is to think that crawling back under the EU’s legal order will somehow unleash a turbo-blast of economic growth.
I have not seen the Govt wanting to crawl back under the "EU's legal order". What did I miss?
AFAICS it is about removing unnecessary obstacles that had been left in place.
I have seen chatter on rejoining the Customs Union, but not official chatter, but I don't see that being feasible as it involves handing back negotiation rights and losing many of our Trade Agreements. Unless it is a new version of Customs Union that has not existed before.
Morning all!!!
The odd (to are anyway) feature of this is that back in the 1960's & 70's, the Conservatives were (mostly at any rate) extremely enthusiastic about joining the Common Market, as it then was, and Labour, especially the Left, very doubtful. Now it seems to the other way round, although I suspect the Left is still doubtful about participating in an overtly capitalist enterprise.
For someone who considers themselves the most moral person on the planet you are prertty good at throwing unfounded accusations around like confetti. I am surprised PB gives you this pulpit.
I was waiting for the standard @Roger objection. Vague, but “I don’t like it”.
What unfounded accusations, @Roger? There’s oceans of court cases, tribunal, researched stories that illustrate every single point @Cyclefree is making.
Or is it that you feel we should owe a certain deference to The Right People?
Well I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting too long. You now have the rest of the day to do someting productive. If it gives you a warm feeling to read reams of 'holier-than-thou' scribbles I'm sure you can apply for a back catalogue. In my experience not everyone's motives are suspect nor is everyone malign.
Some very good economic data this morning and a huge boost to Reeves .
Not just the huge budget surplus but big bounce back in retail sales .
Next Wednesday the new energy price cap is expected to show a decent fall . This better all round news too late to effect the by-election result but looking forward to May .
Reeves delivers her spring statement next month and although there’s unlikely to be some major announcements given the much better than expected borrowing figures we might see a few smaller changes aimed at boosting Labour in the run up to the May elections .
Cash borrowing now £23bn below the OBR's forecast fiscal year to date. Excellent news.
Indeed and the question for Labour is how long will it be before people "feel" the economy has turned the corner. You can quote all the statistics you like, good and bad, but perception matters and until people see for themselves the economy is improving, they won't be convinced.
Nonetheless, a strong start to the day for the Government.
My first thought on the surplus was - was this because there are more self-employed than expected? Or is it not that simple.
There is also a big lag on self-assessment returns. So if your view is the UK is currently in a devastating depression, that's something to cling to. *
*The other, timeous data doesn't support that though...
Retail sales grew more than expected in January, according to official data.
The amount of goods bought rose by 1.8% in January, up from 0.4% in December, the ONS reported.
City economists had expected a rise of 0.2%.
Wow Super Rachel knocking it for six yet again
She certainly has on unemployment.
How many of those are NEETs dumped on the scrap heap 2021 onwards.
Solving that problem and the min wage conundrum will define the next 12 months.
Could we see a return to some form of Community based Workfare and greater investment in Apprenticeships
No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment.
"No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment."
Do you wish for the rest of Labour's vote to decamp to the Greens? Because that sounds an excellent way to do it.
Some alternatives, which might actually work and not collapse Labour to 5% -
- Investigate the collapse in the mechanism of recruitment. I keep coming across employers who can't recruit. They talk of fake CVs, candidates who don't show up. Meanwhile candidates report fake jobs, vast numbers of applications sent without reply. - Merging apprenticeships with degrees, fully and formally. The Universities are complaining of a collapse in foreign students. And we can guess that down the line a few year, the problem with some apprenticeships will be they are not transferable - an apprenticeship from Rolls-Royce Nuclear will probably be good in the job market, but what about XYZZY Metals? Make the universities responsible for the quality, rigor and the academic portion, in conjunction with the companies. - Some actual programs have been tried for getting long term unemployed back into work. They tend to be expensive, require detailed work and depend on the quality of people working in them. But they actually exist. And some even work.
@MaxPB rightly raised the sisue of youth unemployment the other day and as with homelessness and other seemingly intractable problems, it's easy to push them into the background and worry about some bloke in his 60s in Norfolk but the truth is they are serious issues which need time and thought.
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
I think the lesson from the last decade is the "feel good" factor is entirely related to inflation, even if real wages are increasing or the economy growing. And it's more a "not feel shite factor". A good example of prospect theory.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Retail sales grew more than expected in January, according to official data.
The amount of goods bought rose by 1.8% in January, up from 0.4% in December, the ONS reported.
City economists had expected a rise of 0.2%.
Wow Super Rachel knocking it for six yet again
She certainly has on unemployment.
How many of those are NEETs dumped on the scrap heap 2021 onwards.
Solving that problem and the min wage conundrum will define the next 12 months.
Could we see a return to some form of Community based Workfare and greater investment in Apprenticeships
No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment.
"No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment."
Do you wish for the rest of Labour's vote to decamp to the Greens? Because that sounds an excellent way to do it.
Some alternatives, which might actually work and not collapse Labour to 5% -
- Investigate the collapse in the mechanism of recruitment. I keep coming across employers who can't recruit. They talk of fake CVs, candidates who don't show up. Meanwhile candidates report fake jobs, vast numbers of applications sent without reply. - Merging apprenticeships with degrees, fully and formally. The Universities are complaining of a collapse in foreign students. And we can guess that down the line a few year, the problem with some apprenticeships will be they are not transferable - an apprenticeship from Rolls-Royce Nuclear will probably be good in the job market, but what about XYZZY Metals? Make the universities responsible for the quality, rigor and the academic portion, in conjunction with the companies. - Some actual programs have been tried for getting long term unemployed back into work. They tend to be expensive, require detailed work and depend on the quality of people working in them. But they actually exist. And some even work.
@MaxPB rightly raised the sisue of youth unemployment the other day and as with homelessness and other seemingly intractable problems, it's easy to push them into the background and worry about some bloke in his 60s in Norfolk but the truth is they are serious issues which need time and thought.
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
Is that the case ?
The argument is over how fast the youth minimum wage should rise towards the level of the national minimum wage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6g57j3meo ..The government has already made a start on ending the gap between minimum pay for younger and older workers. The hourly for rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 85p to £10.85 in April, with under-18s and apprentices getting 45p more to £8 an hour. That comes on top of 16.3% rise for 18 to 20-year-olds in 2024. The minimum wage for those aged 21 and over has been rising at a slower rate and is due to go up by 50p to £12.71 an hour in April. That leaves a gap of £1.86 an hour between younger and older workers, which the government has committed to closing before the next election in 2029...
I do wish the media didn't gorge itself on a single story. Part of the reason I hardly ever watch TV news any more.
The alternative view of that is that if they don't, it only helps the coverups. I understand the point - the creation of the kind of scapegoat Cyclefree refers to in her header might prevent light being shed elsewhere - but I don't really buy it.
The long running stories on Mandelson and Andrew are just as likely to increase pressure to take action on the rest of the Epstein class. In support of that you only need look at the reaction to those stories in the US - "why is no one facing such consequences here ?".
As I understand it, the FBI has said that they are not investigating anyone in relation to the Epstein files. So while I would like to think that action will be taken, why would it if no investigations are happening?
Retail sales grew more than expected in January, according to official data.
The amount of goods bought rose by 1.8% in January, up from 0.4% in December, the ONS reported.
City economists had expected a rise of 0.2%.
Wow Super Rachel knocking it for six yet again
She certainly has on unemployment.
How many of those are NEETs dumped on the scrap heap 2021 onwards.
Solving that problem and the min wage conundrum will define the next 12 months.
Could we see a return to some form of Community based Workfare and greater investment in Apprenticeships
No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment.
"No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment."
Do you wish for the rest of Labour's vote to decamp to the Greens? Because that sounds an excellent way to do it.
Some alternatives, which might actually work and not collapse Labour to 5% -
- Investigate the collapse in the mechanism of recruitment. I keep coming across employers who can't recruit. They talk of fake CVs, candidates who don't show up. Meanwhile candidates report fake jobs, vast numbers of applications sent without reply. - Merging apprenticeships with degrees, fully and formally. The Universities are complaining of a collapse in foreign students. And we can guess that down the line a few year, the problem with some apprenticeships will be they are not transferable - an apprenticeship from Rolls-Royce Nuclear will probably be good in the job market, but what about XYZZY Metals? Make the universities responsible for the quality, rigor and the academic portion, in conjunction with the companies. - Some actual programs have been tried for getting long term unemployed back into work. They tend to be expensive, require detailed work and depend on the quality of people working in them. But they actually exist. And some even work.
@MaxPB rightly raised the sisue of youth unemployment the other day and as with homelessness and other seemingly intractable problems, it's easy to push them into the background and worry about some bloke in his 60s in Norfolk but the truth is they are serious issues which need time and thought.
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
In the 70's we had things called Industrial; Training Boards. Employers were levied, depending on size, BUT rewarded if they encouraged employees to attend training courses, not necessarily apprenticeships. One of our directors (small retail company) was a member of one of the Boards, so our staff went on all the courses we could find, and they found it encouraging and fulfilling. One of the first things Thatcher did was to abolish Boards.
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
I think the lesson from the last decade is the "feel good" factor is entirely related to inflation, even if real wages are increasing or the economy growing. And it's more a "not feel shite factor". A good example of prospect theory.
Perhaps its even more prices than inflation.
People feel entitled to pre covid prices or like the oldie here
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
I think the lesson from the last decade is the "feel good" factor is entirely related to inflation, even if real wages are increasing or the economy growing. And it's more a "not feel shite factor". A good example of prospect theory.
That has interesting implications for attitudes to deflation. Maybe we should aim for falling consumer prices.
Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
This pastor thinks women should not have the vote.
He has also never had any good sex, IMO.
I spent the day in hospital yesterday and am spending the next few days curled up in front of the fire reading.
Jon Sopel - You were a remainer when Cameron was PM, you were a brexiteer under Boris, you said it was shameful that Truss was still in the party but voted for her budget & now that the Tories are languishing in the polls you go to the party leading in the polls. https://x.com/mikoh123/status/2024616236730982713
I watched last night. Jenrick got a bit spicy to Sopel about (a) Mandelson and (b) Huw Edwards. Was funny, but confirmed that Jenrick is a prick who had to make it personal.
On James Talarico (Texas State Senator) whom we mentioned other day, here is an interview he gave 3 days ago to CBS about how Christian Nationalism is an abuse of power, not a reasonable result of a faith, including arguing that separation of Church and State is a 'sacred duty'.
CBS refused to screen it on the Stephen Colbert Show, because of the "equal time" directive modified by Trump's head of the FCC (ie they must now give equal time to an opponent on interview / magazine shows, which have now been changed from being a "news category" exception after umpteen years).
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
I think the lesson from the last decade is the "feel good" factor is entirely related to inflation, even if real wages are increasing or the economy growing. And it's more a "not feel shite factor". A good example of prospect theory.
That has interesting implications for attitudes to deflation. Maybe we should aim for falling consumer prices.
Which requires falling labour costs.
That was done by transferring production to cheaper countries and importing cheaper workers but that ultimately follows the law of diminishing marginal returns.
Not to mention leading to lower pay and fewer jobs in this country and more dependence on other countries.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
For someone who considers themselves the most moral person on the planet you are prertty good at throwing unfounded accusations around like confetti. I am surprised PB gives you this pulpit.
I was waiting for the standard @Roger objection. Vague, but “I don’t like it”.
What unfounded accusations, @Roger? There’s oceans of court cases, tribunal, researched stories that illustrate every single point @Cyclefree is making.
Or is it that you feel we should owe a certain deference to The Right People?
Well I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting too long. You now have the rest of the day to do someting productive. If it gives you a warm feeling to read reams of 'holier-than-thou' scribbles I'm sure you can apply for a back catalogue. In my experience not everyone's motives are suspect nor is everyone malign.
So NO examples then.
One feature of Cyclefree's complaints about sex is that she denies women agency. Sex workers are sluts but women are chaste so they must have been trafficked and forced into degrading themselves. Some have, of course, but for many women, sex for money is a perfectly rational trade. More subtly, though, sometimes the trade is not sex for money but sex for access to power or fame, including the most talented, richest, or most powerful men on the planet. I don't suppose Monica Lewinski was paid in luncheon vouchers but she did get to rub shoulders (!) with the leader of the free world.
This is why we need to be careful about the age of consent, of course, and why in recent years we have added further limits where there are power imbalances.
Then we have medical scandals like the Bristol heart cases, and more recently Lucy Letby. If we closed every unit with a below-par survival rate in a month, we'd have no hospitals left. Look at the peaks and troughs in economic statistics, for instance, even in today's news. On the other hand, if we wait for certainty, many will die or be maimed who could and should have been saved.
But I'm not sure acting on rumour, even when (especially when) that rumour coincides with one's own prejudice, is the answer.
Retail sales grew more than expected in January, according to official data.
The amount of goods bought rose by 1.8% in January, up from 0.4% in December, the ONS reported.
City economists had expected a rise of 0.2%.
Wow Super Rachel knocking it for six yet again
She certainly has on unemployment.
How many of those are NEETs dumped on the scrap heap 2021 onwards.
Solving that problem and the min wage conundrum will define the next 12 months.
Could we see a return to some form of Community based Workfare and greater investment in Apprenticeships
No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment.
"No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment."
Do you wish for the rest of Labour's vote to decamp to the Greens? Because that sounds an excellent way to do it.
Some alternatives, which might actually work and not collapse Labour to 5% -
- Investigate the collapse in the mechanism of recruitment. I keep coming across employers who can't recruit. They talk of fake CVs, candidates who don't show up. Meanwhile candidates report fake jobs, vast numbers of applications sent without reply. - Merging apprenticeships with degrees, fully and formally. The Universities are complaining of a collapse in foreign students. And we can guess that down the line a few year, the problem with some apprenticeships will be they are not transferable - an apprenticeship from Rolls-Royce Nuclear will probably be good in the job market, but what about XYZZY Metals? Make the universities responsible for the quality, rigor and the academic portion, in conjunction with the companies. - Some actual programs have been tried for getting long term unemployed back into work. They tend to be expensive, require detailed work and depend on the quality of people working in them. But they actually exist. And some even work.
@MaxPB rightly raised the sisue of youth unemployment the other day and as with homelessness and other seemingly intractable problems, it's easy to push them into the background and worry about some bloke in his 60s in Norfolk but the truth is they are serious issues which need time and thought.
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
Is that the case ?
The argument is over how fast the youth minimum wage should rise towards the level of the national minimum wage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6g57j3meo ..The government has already made a start on ending the gap between minimum pay for younger and older workers. The hourly for rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 85p to £10.85 in April, with under-18s and apprentices getting 45p more to £8 an hour. That comes on top of 16.3% rise for 18 to 20-year-olds in 2024. The minimum wage for those aged 21 and over has been rising at a slower rate and is due to go up by 50p to £12.71 an hour in April. That leaves a gap of £1.86 an hour between younger and older workers, which the government has committed to closing before the next election in 2029...
I've heard the likes of Tice this week arguing for a reduction in the NMW for those aged 16-24 and while the Conservatives haven't got involved, it wouldn't surprise me if they thought the same.
I'll be honest - if the difference between employing a young person and not employing them is £1.86 an hour, there are other questions which need to be asked about the attitude of employers to employing young people.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
Not a knock against Miss Cyclefree.
Interesting
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
Retail sales grew more than expected in January, according to official data.
The amount of goods bought rose by 1.8% in January, up from 0.4% in December, the ONS reported.
City economists had expected a rise of 0.2%.
Wow Super Rachel knocking it for six yet again
She certainly has on unemployment.
How many of those are NEETs dumped on the scrap heap 2021 onwards.
Solving that problem and the min wage conundrum will define the next 12 months.
Could we see a return to some form of Community based Workfare and greater investment in Apprenticeships
No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment.
"No work no benefits and proper out of work face to face health assessment."
Do you wish for the rest of Labour's vote to decamp to the Greens? Because that sounds an excellent way to do it.
Some alternatives, which might actually work and not collapse Labour to 5% -
- Investigate the collapse in the mechanism of recruitment. I keep coming across employers who can't recruit. They talk of fake CVs, candidates who don't show up. Meanwhile candidates report fake jobs, vast numbers of applications sent without reply. - Merging apprenticeships with degrees, fully and formally. The Universities are complaining of a collapse in foreign students. And we can guess that down the line a few year, the problem with some apprenticeships will be they are not transferable - an apprenticeship from Rolls-Royce Nuclear will probably be good in the job market, but what about XYZZY Metals? Make the universities responsible for the quality, rigor and the academic portion, in conjunction with the companies. - Some actual programs have been tried for getting long term unemployed back into work. They tend to be expensive, require detailed work and depend on the quality of people working in them. But they actually exist. And some even work.
@MaxPB rightly raised the sisue of youth unemployment the other day and as with homelessness and other seemingly intractable problems, it's easy to push them into the background and worry about some bloke in his 60s in Norfolk but the truth is they are serious issues which need time and thought.
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
In the 70's we had things called Industrial; Training Boards. Employers were levied, depending on size, BUT rewarded if they encouraged employees to attend training courses, not necessarily apprenticeships. One of our directors (small retail company) was a member of one of the Boards, so our staff went on all the courses we could find, and they found it encouraging and fulfilling. One of the first things Thatcher did was to abolish Boards.
We have an apprenticeship system now, where companies are incentivised to send employees on them. But it's a ridiculously complex and over-engineered system. Complete nightmare.
It would be churlish to knock good economic news so I’m really pleased that there’s some better metrics coming through. You can’t criticise the government every time some bad news comes through and then not give them the benefit of the good, so I am pleased with the data this morning and I can accept that Labour do appear to have at least got a grip on some economic metrics.
This doesn’t change the fundamental issues that we face around excessive debt, low productivity and over-regulation. Those will continue to be millstones for any government and Reeves has shown a striking disinterest in them. But at least for today the Treasury can bask in a good headline for once.
I’d agree with this. Like you I’m pleased with this good news.
I did post earlier in the month the PMI numbers which were the highest for 17 months which was also excellent news.
However for the reasons you say, as well as future excessive govt spending, no reform to the benefits bill, the threat from AI too to the jobs market.
We have many challenges ahead and I don’t feel the govt are up to it. I’d rather they keep Reeves and SKS than put some idiot like Rayner or Miliband in charge.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
The problem is heirarcy itself. These abuses nearly always occur in the context of "lick up, kick down" organisations. In egalitarian structures the issue of needing courage is much less.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
You need to get in with Jeffrey Epstein whose activities included matching universities and researchers needing research money with billionaires and philanthropists doling it out. Yum yum.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
You need to get in with Jeffrey Epstein whose activities included matching universities and researchers needing research money with billionaires and philanthropists doling it out. Yum yum.
I had a small breast cancer project a while back and we looked at funding from the Olivia Newton John foundation. Sadly they only seemed to want projects that validated lots of the more esoteric ways of treating cancer. Luckyguy would have been proud.
Jon Sopel - You were a remainer when Cameron was PM, you were a brexiteer under Boris, you said it was shameful that Truss was still in the party but voted for her budget & now that the Tories are languishing in the polls you go to the party leading in the polls. https://x.com/mikoh123/status/2024616236730982713
Sopel is a slimy little twat. Rather like Jenrick but Jenrick owned him here. Stopped clock syndrome in action.
Quite frankly both are loathsome. It’s like the Al Fayed v Jhon Hamilton court case. You’d like both to lose. But it’s always nice to see a smug former beeboid on the back foot.
Looks like a pack of pork scratchings too, so really getting into local culture.
I thought you meant the ambassador looked like a pack of pork scratchings and thought that was uncharacteristically harsh from you! Watching the video cleared things up.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
The NHS is notorious for going after every whistle-blower or internal complainant in this fashion. Occasionally some poor soul puts their head above the parapet & has their life destroyed by NHS management “pour encourager les autres”.
It’s all very well for Cyclefree to argue that people should simply be braver, but when you are part of a system that will cheerfully destroy your ability to work in your chosen career ever again, it (unsurprisingly) turns out that few people are willing to call out bad behaviour when the price of doing so is so very, very high.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
One can only assume he means the 50p per £10 less interest on halved debt and so there will be lots of 50p's to splash out.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Morning all. Chaos in rightwingville One of this weeks Restore defectors has undefected 2 days later......
We'll just wait for Jenrick to announce he's rejoined the Tories on a Friday evening and for the 1922 to announce he has enough nominations to trigger a leadership ballot at 8am on the Monday morning
So they didn't tip off the King but they did tip off Matt. Sounds about right.
Lol. But on the point, it rather looks as if exactly and only one photographer was in the right place to get the universally used pic of Andrew leaving the nick yesterday. I wonder how he/Reuters knew.
Earlier this morning I saw a news items on how the photographer got that picture but I've forgotten the detailed answer! The picture was one of a rapid sequence taken on chance.
The point I do remember is that there were two cars with protection people in the first.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
It took me a while in academia to understand that grant income trumped all else (at least at our uni). The promotion criteria did not make it explicit, but when I got a fairly competitive fellowship I was immediately urged to go for promotion, which I got, even though I thought my publication record was a bit light (I'd changed fields and didn't have a lot in my new field at the time).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
The problem is heirarcy itself. These abuses nearly always occur in the context of "lick up, kick down" organisations. In egalitarian structures the issue of needing courage is much less.
I am sure that is right. What sorts of egalitarian structures on any sort of scale are striking examples of this? And do even egalitarian structures how signs of coming to believe that while all animals are equal, some are more equal than others?
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
More good news. Flash PMI is the highest since April 24 and there has been a big rebound in construction. It is still sub 50 but has really jumped from mid thirties it had been.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
But if their votes are exercised on their behalf by their parents, then the country will still not be run in the interests of the young, but in the interests of the middle aged.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Certainly.
But the young are themselves passing on the bills to the generations that will follow them.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Or perhaps age weight the vote. So your vote is = 18/your age. At 18 you get a full vote, as you age your vote gets less and less.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
The key point is that the vast majority of perpetrators are male, though there are also women who commit such crimes. And if this is going to be addressed in any sort of meaningful way, male behaviour has to be the focus. That makes it uncomfortable for men, I realise. But #NotAllMen - while true - is avoidance and denial and those two mean the problem continues and worsens.
That is exactly what happened in the City until the stench and the problems got so bad that some action had to be taken and was forced on it. Will the Epstein files, grooming gangs, all the evidence we have of sexual abuse of children, of women etc lead to change? Or, as @Phil has pointed out, we are not prepared to do what is necessary - financially or otherwise - and so implicitly accept that this will continue and children and women will be harmed? Because that is what it looks like.
Surgeon who sexually harassed colleagues can work again
James Gilbert, a transplant surgeon who sexually harassed junior colleagues for more than a decade, is now free to work again in the UK after regulators lost a second attempt to have him struck off the medical register.
A medical practitioners tribunal ruled in August 2024 that Gilbert should be suspended for eight months for sexually harassing four junior colleagues, including inappropriately touching three of them, and making sexual and racist remarks.1
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
It took me a while in academia to understand that grant income trumped all else (at least at our uni). The promotion criteria did not make it explicit, but when I got a fairly competitive fellowship I was immediately urged to go for promotion, which I got, even though I thought my publication record was a bit light (I'd changed fields and didn't have a lot in my new field at the time).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
Yes, for most of my academic career its been obvious that grant money is the main/only measure of success. Now if you look at the promotion criteria that might not be fully obvious, as there are lots of other things looked at (membership on committees, teaching roles, conferences, publications etc) but really it boils down to cash. If you want to be a prof you need to be bringing in multi million pound grants and leading decent size research groups.
The PMIs are quite good as well (and better than for the EZ countries):
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
I think the lesson from the last decade is the "feel good" factor is entirely related to inflation, even if real wages are increasing or the economy growing. And it's more a "not feel shite factor". A good example of prospect theory.
That has interesting implications for attitudes to deflation. Maybe we should aim for falling consumer prices.
Which requires falling labour costs.
That was done by transferring production to cheaper countries and importing cheaper workers but that ultimately follows the law of diminishing marginal returns.
Not to mention leading to lower pay and fewer jobs in this country and more dependence on other countries.
The cost of labour isn't the only relevant input. Cheaper energy or technological innovation would do it too.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
One can only assume he means the 50p per £10 less interest on halved debt and so there will be lots of 50p's to splash out.
Not the ‘one has spunked £12m for nothing’ special edition presumably.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
The key point is that the vast majority of perpetrators are male, though there are also women who commit such crimes. And if this is going to be addressed in any sort of meaningful way, male behaviour has to be the focus. That makes it uncomfortable for men, I realise. But #NotAllMen - while true - is avoidance and denial and those two mean the problem continues and worsens.
That is exactly what happened in the City until the stench and the problems got so bad that some action had to be taken and was forced on it. Will the Epstein files, grooming gangs, all the evidence we have of sexual abuse of children, of women etc lead to change? Or, as @Phil has pointed out, we are not prepared to do what is necessary - financially or otherwise - and so implicitly accept that this will continue and children and women will be harmed? Because that is what it looks like.
What do you want me, a man, to do about it? And in what sense am I in avoidance and denial?
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
Not a knock against Miss Cyclefree.
Interesting
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
Male victims were (briefly) mentioned during initial reports of the Rotherham grooming scandal. Since when, they've been almost entirely omitted.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
There is of course an issue with teaching, in that some people want to teach and others manage other teachers and/or use it as a stepping stone into an education management career.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
The NHS is notorious for going after every whistle-blower or internal complainant in this fashion. Occasionally some poor soul puts their head above the parapet & has their life destroyed by NHS management “pour encourager les autres”.
It’s all very well for Cyclefree to argue that people should simply be braver, but when you are part of a system that will cheerfully destroy your ability to work in your chosen career ever again, it (unsurprisingly) turns out that few people are willing to call out bad behaviour when the price of doing so is so very, very high.
Addendum: You have to fix this system that inevitably punishers whistle blowers if you want lasting change. Exhorting ordinary people to “be brave!” seems to me to be implicitly accusing them of the sin of not being brave enough to sacrifice their livelihoods for the objectively small chance of punishing someone with far more power than they will ever have. Not many people are that brave, it turns out & can one really blame them?
This focus on individual responsibility at the expense of systemic issues is a criticism I have of a lot of Cyclefree’s otherwise articulate & well argued articles. It’s not that it’s wrong - ultimately individuals are responsible for their choices after all - it’s just not the whole story.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
But if their votes are exercised on their behalf by their parents, then the country will still not be run in the interests of the young, but in the interests of the middle aged.
Well that's a not-unreasonable criticism, which I would deflect rather than totally rebut by saying that when I vote, it is pretty much solely about what I perceive to be best for my kids. At present what I would vote for is lower house prices and lower university tuition fees and apprenticeships and jobs for the young. These are very much in their interests rather than mine. My biggest worry is them starting out in adulthood. Now, this is very much me voting for my kids' interests, rather than all kids interests (other parents might vote for certain policies in primary education which I am now almost through, for example), but that balances out across the population. I believe most parents would be the same. (Though I accept not all).
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
He should have stuck to his guns and included the triple lock in the pension review.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Or perhaps age weight the vote. So your vote is = 18/your age. At 18 you get a full vote, as you age your vote gets less and less.
I think we should weight weight our vote, I would have 2 then.
Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
Sounds a bit like Andrea Dworkin "all men are rapists".
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
"Marriage and prostitution are flip sides of the same sexist coin." - Grand Ayatollah Nudistani.
Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
Sounds a bit like Andrea Dworkin "all men are rapists".
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
It's a very extreme version of "male headship" and complementarian views, and the consequences read into family life. But Pete Hegseth is a convert in a Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches member church, so has the zeal plus the siloed theology which is so common in small US denominations. This one only has 160 congregations, and little variation.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
It took me a while in academia to understand that grant income trumped all else (at least at our uni). The promotion criteria did not make it explicit, but when I got a fairly competitive fellowship I was immediately urged to go for promotion, which I got, even though I thought my publication record was a bit light (I'd changed fields and didn't have a lot in my new field at the time).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
Yes, for most of my academic career its been obvious that grant money is the main/only measure of success. Now if you look at the promotion criteria that might not be fully obvious, as there are lots of other things looked at (membership on committees, teaching roles, conferences, publications etc) but really it boils down to cash. If you want to be a prof you need to be bringing in multi million pound grants and leading decent size research groups.
That’s true to a degree, but not always. Promotion committees sometimes look more broadly, and I think more of them are moving in that direction. I got promoted to professor off the back of good publications, lots of collaborative work, good teaching and some knowledge transfer work, without having being PI on multi-million pound grants and without leading a research group.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
Comments
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
Those who are inherently anti-Labour will always find ways to feed that - just as those who are anti-Conservative, anti-Reform and anti-Lib Dem do.
Are most sex workers trafficked? That's very hard to research. Jana et al. (2013, https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdt095 ) developed a programme whereby sex workers themselves could help combat trafficking. They note:
Sex work can thus be voluntary or involuntary—while many sex workers choose to enter the profession, others are induced under false pretences or otherwise coerced.5
The problem of human trafficking is related but much broader, involving coercion in the economic exploitation of men, women or children.5,6 Most trafficking of persons involves other sectors and types of labour, including agriculture, construction and domestic work. In these areas, differentiation is generally made between the majority of workers who migrate voluntarily and those who are trafficked.
Where the sex trade is concerned, however, distinctions between consensual and coerced work are often blurred.5–7 Evidence suggests that trafficking accounts for a minority of those entering sex work—1 in 5–10 by recent estimates from Andrah Pradesh, India and Thailand8,9 Nevertheless, anti-trafficking organizations frequently cast a wide net, conflating all sex work with trafficking.10,11
https://x.com/AmbJapanUK/status/2024194826829287850
AFAICS it is about removing unnecessary obstacles that had been left in place.
I have seen chatter on rejoining the Customs Union, but not official chatter, but I don't see that being feasible as it involves handing back negotiation rights and losing many of our Trade Agreements. Unless it is a new version of Customs Union that has not existed before.
My point was that if those who are benefitting from any economic improvements aren't willing to give any credit to the government then any economic improvements they receive are effectively wasted in political terms.
And it looks easier to see economic improvements for the oldies than the young threated with AI, globalisation, student debt and unaffordable housing.
"Ultimately, I became a priest to serve God. If others were to discern that the best place for me to serve was the Vatican, how could I refuse?"
Jon Sopel - You were a remainer when Cameron was PM, you were a brexiteer under Boris, you said it was shameful that Truss was still in the party but voted for her budget & now that the Tories are languishing in the polls you go to the party leading in the polls.
https://x.com/mikoh123/status/2024616236730982713
The early PMI data for February bring further signs of an encouraging start to the year for the UK economy. A solid rise in output across manufacturing and services has been reported in both January and February, with the rate of expansion gaining pace.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/ed507499ae624608aed481432d5cc8d0
but:
The survey data so far this year are consistent with GDP rising by just over 0.3% in the first quarter if this performance is sustained into March.
The UK is going to need a lot more than 0.3% and for a lot more than one quarter before there's any sort of economic feel good factor.
https://x.com/PenguinSix/status/2024576041491071443
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
The odd (to are anyway) feature of this is that back in the 1960's & 70's, the Conservatives were (mostly at any rate) extremely enthusiastic about joining the Common Market, as it then was, and Labour, especially the Left, very doubtful.
Now it seems to the other way round, although I suspect the Left is still doubtful about participating in an overtly capitalist enterprise.
*The other, timeous data doesn't support that though...
The kneejerk response from some has been to argue for a cut or indeed abolition of the NMW for those aged 16-24 but that's impractical given levels of UC (though others are arguing for further cuts or restrictions in UC especially for then young).
The problem (and I experienced this in the 80s) especially for those coming out of higher education is the lack of commercial experience. Firms want second jobbers and they want people even with 6 months of commercial experience so the trap is sprung - how do you gain the commercial experience if no one will hire you to let you get that experience?
Local authorities plugged the gap to some degree by paying much less and offering professional people the chance to qualify and learn on the council's time before moving on to the private sector.
Outside the professional groups, though, we need to find a way of persuading/cajoling firms to take on people and teach them - you can call it apprenticeships if you like but it has to work not just for the educated and the professional but for those with few if any qualifications and little or no skill. Work has to exist for everyone, not just those with a degree.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
The argument is over how fast the youth minimum wage should rise towards the level of the national minimum wage:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6g57j3meo
..The government has already made a start on ending the gap between minimum pay for younger and older workers.
The hourly for rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 85p to £10.85 in April, with under-18s and apprentices getting 45p more to £8 an hour.
That comes on top of 16.3% rise for 18 to 20-year-olds in 2024.
The minimum wage for those aged 21 and over has been rising at a slower rate and is due to go up by 50p to £12.71 an hour in April.
That leaves a gap of £1.86 an hour between younger and older workers, which the government has committed to closing before the next election in 2029...
One of the first things Thatcher did was to abolish Boards.
Chaos in rightwingville
One of this weeks Restore defectors has undefected 2 days later......
People feel entitled to pre covid prices or like the oldie here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn7lyd3zrrro
think that a cup of tea in a cafe should be 20p.
They're happy to keep the pay, pension and benefit increases though.
He has also never had any good sex, IMO.
I spent the day in hospital yesterday and am spending the next few days curled up in front of the fire reading.
CBS refused to screen it on the Stephen Colbert Show, because of the "equal time" directive modified by Trump's head of the FCC (ie they must now give equal time to an opponent on interview / magazine shows, which have now been changed from being a "news category" exception after umpteen years).
Streisand Effect: so they put it on Youtube and 3 days later it has 8 million views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A
That was done by transferring production to cheaper countries and importing cheaper workers but that ultimately follows the law of diminishing marginal returns.
Not to mention leading to lower pay and fewer jobs in this country and more dependence on other countries.
This is why we need to be careful about the age of consent, of course, and why in recent years we have added further limits where there are power imbalances.
Then we have medical scandals like the Bristol heart cases, and more recently Lucy Letby. If we closed every unit with a below-par survival rate in a month, we'd have no hospitals left. Look at the peaks and troughs in economic statistics, for instance, even in today's news. On the other hand, if we wait for certainty, many will die or be maimed who could and should have been saved.
But I'm not sure acting on rumour, even when (especially when) that rumour coincides with one's own prejudice, is the answer.
I'll be honest - if the difference between employing a young person and not employing them is £1.86 an hour, there are other questions which need to be asked about the attitude of employers to employing young people.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
I did post earlier in the month the PMI numbers which were the highest for 17 months which was also excellent news.
However for the reasons you say, as well as future excessive govt spending, no reform to the benefits bill, the threat from AI too to the jobs market.
We have many challenges ahead and I don’t feel the govt are up to it. I’d rather they keep Reeves and SKS than put some idiot like Rayner or Miliband in charge.
Quite frankly both are loathsome. It’s like the Al Fayed v Jhon Hamilton court case. You’d like both to lose. But it’s always nice to see a smug former beeboid on the back foot.
https://x.com/ukj0n/status/2024759561727484412?s=61
It’s all very well for Cyclefree to argue that people should simply be braver, but when you are part of a system that will cheerfully destroy your ability to work in your chosen career ever again, it (unsurprisingly) turns out that few people are willing to call out bad behaviour when the price of doing so is so very, very high.
At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
The point I do remember is that there were two cars with protection people in the first.
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
Manufacturing is positive too.
https://x.com/frencheconomics/status/2024792641154556124?s=61
But the young are themselves passing on the bills to the generations that will follow them.
The key point is that the vast majority of perpetrators are male, though there are also women who commit such crimes. And if this is going to be addressed in any sort of meaningful way, male behaviour has to be the focus. That makes it uncomfortable for men, I realise. But #NotAllMen - while true - is avoidance and denial and those two mean the problem continues and worsens.
That is exactly what happened in the City until the stench and the problems got so bad that some action had to be taken and was forced on it. Will the Epstein files, grooming gangs, all the evidence we have of sexual abuse of children, of women etc lead to change? Or, as @Phil has pointed out, we are not prepared to do what is necessary - financially or otherwise - and so implicitly accept that this will continue and children and women will be harmed? Because that is what it looks like.
Surgeon who sexually harassed colleagues can work again
James Gilbert, a transplant surgeon who sexually harassed junior colleagues for more than a decade, is now free to work again in the UK after regulators lost a second attempt to have him struck off the medical register.
A medical practitioners tribunal ruled in August 2024 that Gilbert should be suspended for eight months for sexually harassing four junior colleagues, including inappropriately touching three of them, and making sexual and racist remarks.1
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
Big question is how the engines will stack up once they start firing in anger.
If you want to know what’s going on in Trumpworld just loiter here.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/48773-what-does-britain-think-of-sex-work-and-sex-workers
This focus on individual responsibility at the expense of systemic issues is a criticism I have of a lot of Cyclefree’s otherwise articulate & well argued articles. It’s not that it’s wrong - ultimately individuals are responsible for their choices after all - it’s just not the whole story.
But having no spine he folded.
From what I’ve heard Ferrari know they can start the car quickly when on the start lane but the other engines can’t