Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
Rubbish, it was Boris who won the biggest Conservative landslide since Thatcher in 2019 when under May we were heading for a hung parliament and possibly Corbyn as PM. It was removing Boris that saw Reform surge
It's quite possible that you're both right.
Some say (and I agree) that the May 1997 election result was determined in April 1992. Major's win made his subsequent defeat inevitable.
In the same way, BoJo's 2019 win came at a price, of the sort that Johann Georg Faust might have stopped and said "you know what, I'll pass on that one". All those promises that he couldn't have kept...
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
It's very hard and almost certainly misguided to ascribe a single 'want' to a large amorphous blob of people, but, with misgivings, I'm going to try: I would argue that for 'them', leaving the EU was never the main priority, just the one they got a vote on. The main priority was always immigration, specifically unskilled third world immigration of people with a very different set of behavioural norms. I would argue that the EU vote would havr been won - comfortably - by remain had the mainland EU not itself been facing considerable difficulty itself with that sort of immigration in the summer of 2016.
The irony of course is the sort of immigration that followed Brexit.
And to give Johnson credit where credit is due. He did explain that a side effect of leaving the EU would be the Boriswave, and he was right. And as it stands Mahmood and Starmer are throwing the baby out with the bathwster.
No, Boris won't join Reform and he made clear that he was still backing Kemi and the Tories when Jenrick defected. For starters he has no interest in playing second fiddle to Farage.
Remember too apart from Brexit on immigration and spending and net zero and social issues Boris was often on the left of the Conservative Party, indeed in 2001 when first elected as an MP Boris even backed Ken Clarke to be Tory leader over the more Thatcherite IDS and Portillo. On Brexit Boris still got a deal with the EU and took a relaxed approach to immigration via his points system even if he ended EEA free movement
In the Times this morning Cherie Blair says she feels sorry for Mandelson. Words fail me.
I've never been quite sure why Cherie and Tony married.
From a far, they seem very different people to me.
Opposite attracts but watching the recent documentary it is clear they love each other and if events had turned out differently she would have become the politician and Tony the judge.
Anyhoo here's the full Cherie Blair quite, where she doesn't use the word sorry.
“I feel very sad that it’s come to this,” she said. “I think … when anyone’s life falls apart, we should remember that there’s still a human being. And also, of course, we should also remember that they’re entitled to a fair trial.”
She added: “In the media, and particularly today with social media, too many people forget that the people that they’re talking about are human beings with feelings and can be hurt.”
I doubt it, Tony Blair was always a very average lawyer and barrister, he probably wouldn't even have made QC/KC had he stayed in the law. Cherie however was a top lawyer and always was going to be QC/KC and judge material.
Cherie was much less charismatic than her husband though and Tony was always the more natural politician of the two so it made sense for him to be elected as an MP and not her, the electors also decided that hence Tony won a seat in 1983 and Cherie lost.
They are the mirror image of the Clintons, Hillary was always the better lawyer than Bill but Bill the more natural politician with the charisma. Hence Bill won 2 presidential elections and Hillary was defeated in her 2016 bid
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
No, Boris won't join Reform and he made clear that he was still backing Kemi and the Tories when Jenrick defected. For starters he has no interest in playing second fiddle to Farage.
Remember too apart from Brexit on immigration and spending and net zero and social issues Boris was often on the left of the Conservative Party, indeed in 2001 when first elected as an MP Boris even backed Ken Clarke to be Tory leader over the more Thatcherite IDS and Portillo. On Brexit Boris still got a deal with the EU and took a relaxed approach to immigration via his points system even if he ended EEA free movement
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
There's a big queue to join the ranks of the 'suffering' high earners!
Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
Rubbish, it was Boris who won the biggest Conservative landslide since Thatcher in 2019 when under May we were heading for a hung parliament and possibly Corbyn as PM. It was removing Boris that saw Reform surge
You could argue the way Johnson comported himself in office brought the Parliamentary Party to the point when they could no longser support him as leader - you will of course argue the MPs sould have shown more loyalty and spine and stuck with Boris who would have recovered and won the 2024 election.
The problem is the very MPs for whom you go and pound the streets are profoundly ungrateful - look what they did to Margaret Thatcher after she won three election victories. They challenged John Major after he won an election and then conspired to weaken his Government so much they were comprehensively defeated by Blair.
Had Boris stayed PM 100 more Tory MPs would have held their seats, so those Tory MPs sealed their own fate.
Replacing Thatcher with Major at least made some electoral sense as the Tories won a general election in 1992 Thatcher would probably have lost to Kinnock after the poll tax which Major dumped
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
Who exactly has ever suggested that?
Quotation required.
Otherwise that's not even a strawman.
BigG. He seems to think opening up licences will solve this.
The whole response from those instinctively opposed to Net Zero, renewables etc has been risible - we're currently living through our second hydrocarbons crisis in four years and people are still clinging to the idea that our green energy policy is to blame for high prices.
Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
Rubbish, it was Boris who won the biggest Conservative landslide since Thatcher in 2019 when under May we were heading for a hung parliament and possibly Corbyn as PM. It was removing Boris that saw Reform surge
It's quite possible that you're both right.
Some say (and I agree) that the May 1997 election result was determined in April 1992. Major's win made his subsequent defeat inevitable.
In the same way, BoJo's 2019 win came at a price, of the sort that Johann Georg Faust might have stopped and said "you know what, I'll pass on that one". All those promises that he couldn't have kept...
nah he shat the bed - he could have been in power for a decade but he threw it away through pure laziness
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
The Conservative Party coalition was built on economic competence, and controlled immigration.
He destroyed both.
It was Truss who destroyed the former at least, not Boris. To be fair to Rishi he did restore it in part and controlled immigration better than Boris did
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
Housebuilding is excellent in Scotland - we've significantly increased the stock compared to our population change (which is essentially flat). Giving first-time buyers a boost to help compete with BTL leeches is a good thing, though I'd rather they did it by targeting landlords (particularly from outside Scotland using it as an investment) than this method.
I found out before Christmas that two flats in my tenement are owned by a property firm based in London. They've bought over 40 in the last two years (all cash, so young people can't compete), and flip them in order to turf tenants out . ****s.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Serious observation. People don't in general think about counterfactuals. So they may criticise the genuinely high cost of investment in renewables (blame Miliband), but they don't consider what it means if you have less renewable energy and the unavoidable costs of continuing with fossil fuels, including necessary new investments in polluting industries.
Now we see an energy sufficiency problem with fossil fuels, so they criticise the lack of investment in fossil fuels they didn't consider the first time (blame Miliband again).
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
Rubbish, it was Boris who won the biggest Conservative landslide since Thatcher in 2019 when under May we were heading for a hung parliament and possibly Corbyn as PM. It was removing Boris that saw Reform surge
It's quite possible that you're both right.
Some say (and I agree) that the May 1997 election result was determined in April 1992. Major's win made his subsequent defeat inevitable.
In the same way, BoJo's 2019 win came at a price, of the sort that Johann Georg Faust might have stopped and said "you know what, I'll pass on that one". All those promises that he couldn't have kept...
nah he shat the bed - he could have been in power for a decade but he threw it away through pure laziness
His weaknesses were perfectly exposed by Covid though. Without Covid, he would doubtless have thrown himself into levelling up the North, which would have been quite the legacy - politically as well as personal.
On topic, FWIW, I think Boris is a Tory to his bones.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
We need some regulations but not so many they cripple business and the professions
The professions depend on regulations and laws. That's the main source of their income. If you work in law or accountancy you want as much complex red tape as possible - that's why American accountancy firms lobby so hard to stop individuals doing their own tax returns, for example.
See also the tech news today that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp) is behind the funding of NGOs pushing age verification.
It’s almost as if a company that sells user data for a living, would be all in favour of more data and more accurate data on its products. It’s “product” is you by the way, well not me because I don’t use any of them.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
Soldiers’ grievances drive pretty much, almost every successful revolution. Any authoritarian regime which can’t pay its soldiers is in a lot of trouble. That’s when people start wondering whether it’s safer to defect from the regime than to stick with it.
It's a no brainer of an offer if it means what it says, but Swinney's bank account will soon run out. I think it means that Swinney has promised £10,000 of someone else's money to a third party.
... all to chase a fixed and inadequate supply. So prices overall go up, making housing less affordable for everybody else.
Really I can't help but feel that this country's legislatures are homes for the economically illiterate.
The really worrying bit is when you talk to many such politicians.
They aren’t just playing economic illiteracy to get votes. They really believe that stuff like the above works.
Yes and it's not just economics. The inability to think anything through and grasp the most basic second order consequences of policy decisions is a hallmark of our political class. Also the desire to do something, no matter how gimmicky and rubbish, just to get headlines that day, which obviously predisposes to ineffective and expensive action.
Having spent years working in government I'm perhaps more conscious of this than many. It can be truly frightening when you see it up close.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
One of the medium sized charities told the government that this is “rationalisation” of the charity sector.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
That may be true for the upper leadership, who may be pressured to flee the country if they lose their grasp.
For the grunts who are expected to pull the trigger on any protestors?
Precedent is widespread that failing to pay them collapses the options for regime survival.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
Who exactly has ever suggested that?
Quotation required.
Otherwise that's not even a strawman.
BigG. He seems to think opening up licences will solve this.
The whole response from those instinctively opposed to Net Zero, renewables etc has been risible - we're currently living through our second hydrocarbons crisis in four years and people are still clinging to the idea that our green energy policy is to blame for high prices.
I did not say it would solve it
The renewables undertaken by the conservatives was extraordinary and that should continue, but we must not to be a prisoner to some arbitrary target that the US, Russia and even China have no intention of following
I said it economic vandalism not to add the billions of tax to our revenue as we transition over 20 years
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
One of the medium sized charities told the government that this is “rationalisation” of the charity sector.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
Minor violations like theft or sexual assault?
Or major violations like not keeping a proper audit trail to document compliance with anti-discrimination regulations?
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
I never have - billions more will be needed from other sources but do not destroy one that is available
Johnson was the most pro-immigration PM we’ve ever had.
It’s absolutely astonishing how anyone says the Tories are good on lowering immigration.
And, quite possibly, he killed the Conservative Party.
Liverpool’s council elections, where the Conservatives went from 48% in 1970, to 1.4% in 2023, from 6,000 votes in Aigburth in 1979, to 8 on Thursday, show that a big party can die.
The Conservative Party coalition was built on economic competence, and controlled immigration.
He destroyed both.
It was Truss who destroyed the former at least, not Boris. To be fair to Rishi he did restore it in part and controlled immigration better than Boris did
Boriswave was inexcusable, but it was Johnson who destroyed Johnson and all by himself
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
That may be true for the upper leadership, who may be pressured to flee the country if they lose their grasp.
For the grunts who are expected to pull the trigger on any protestors?
Precedent is widespread that failing to pay them collapses the options for regime survival.
We shall see. I just think the example of a country like Ukraine, living though unimaginable hardship this winter and with tens of thousands dead and maimed, would suggest this isn't as simple as you might think.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Billions here, billions there and soon we are talking real money.
The same can be said about any sector. Deflating figures by counting them as a percentage of the total economy is disingenuous, unless you can come up with cuts to our expenditure equivalent to at least that 0.1% too. Good luck with that!
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
It is solely for first time buyers and is the kind of incentive I could see Kemi being attracted to
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
That may be true for the upper leadership, who may be pressured to flee the country if they lose their grasp.
For the grunts who are expected to pull the trigger on any protestors?
Precedent is widespread that failing to pay them collapses the options for regime survival.
We shall see. I just think the example of a country like Ukraine, living though unimaginable hardship this winter and with tens of thousands dead and maimed, would suggest this isn't as simple as you might think.
Who said simple?
The difference is the Ukrainian public is behind the Ukrainian government and wants Ukraine to survive.
The Iranian public hates its own regime and it only survives because the military is willing to kill its own people.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Billions here, billions there and soon we are talking real money.
The same can be said about any sector. Deflating figures by counting them as a percentage of the total economy is disingenuous, unless you can come up with cuts to our expenditure equivalent to at least that 0.1% too. Good luck with that!
I don't disagree at all - just trying to put to bed the notion this the panacea to both our economic and tax challenges, and our energy security issues. It's whataboutery from people who can't accept that getting onto domestic renewables is the only rational response to what is going on right now (and I think the economic gains from doing that massively outweigh squeezing a little bit more oil and gas out of the North Sea, conditional on market reform).
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Hegseth is even being called out by one of the main Newsmax hosts who served in Iraq - he has made the point that all the shit-talking and taunting Iran by Hegseth is fine until you are a pilot who gets shot down and captured and so Negseth needs to stop that stupid behaviour.
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Hegseth is even being called out by one of the main Newsmax hosts who served in Iraq - he has made the point that all the shit-talking and taunting Iran by Hegseth is fine until you are a pilot who gets shot down and captured and so Negseth needs to stop that stupid behaviour.
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
Is Dubai some sort of holding facility for total tossers, a sort of Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B?
Harsh on the B Arkers.
As for Dubai, I'm sure it wasn't the intention, but the setup is catnip to a certain sort of total tosser, so it's not surprising that so many end up there.
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Hegseth is even being called out by one of the main Newsmax hosts who served in Iraq - he has made the point that all the shit-talking and taunting Iran by Hegseth is fine until you are a pilot who gets shot down and captured and so Negseth needs to stop that stupid behaviour.
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
It’s a real problem to have a military campaign led by people who think winning wars is all about being hard men, and that using your brain is a form of mutiny.
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Billions here, billions there and soon we are talking real money.
The same can be said about any sector. Deflating figures by counting them as a percentage of the total economy is disingenuous, unless you can come up with cuts to our expenditure equivalent to at least that 0.1% too. Good luck with that!
I don't disagree at all - just trying to put to bed the notion this the panacea to both our economic and tax challenges, and our energy security issues. It's whataboutery from people who can't accept that getting onto domestic renewables is the only rational response to what is going on right now (and I think the economic gains from doing that massively outweigh squeezing a little bit more oil and gas out of the North Sea, conditional on market reform).
Well do not accuse me of that because I support renewables, have solar panels, and expect over the next 20 years we will have largely transitioned away from fossil fuels
It is just madness not to take as much tax revenue from the North Sea as we can in that period
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
That may be true for the upper leadership, who may be pressured to flee the country if they lose their grasp.
For the grunts who are expected to pull the trigger on any protestors?
Precedent is widespread that failing to pay them collapses the options for regime survival.
We shall see. I just think the example of a country like Ukraine, living though unimaginable hardship this winter and with tens of thousands dead and maimed, would suggest this isn't as simple as you might think.
Who said simple?
The difference is the Ukrainian public is behind the Ukrainian government and wants Ukraine to survive.
The Iranian public hates its own regime and it only survives because the military is willing to kill its own people.
I meant that the IRGC is going to be resilient to this. Sadly it doesn't take that many people to control a population, and 200,000 religious fanatics is likelly more than enough, particularly when they conrol all elements of government and the economy. It won't be the IRGC not being paid and fed.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
One of the medium sized charities told the government that this is “rationalisation” of the charity sector.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
Minor violations like theft or sexual assault?
Or major violations like not keeping a proper audit trail to document compliance with anti-discrimination regulations?
All of the above.
It includes telling female volunteers doing disaster relief not to upset certain rich businessman demanding “favours”.
Then being complicit in “paid NDAs” resulting from such.
Morning all. The idea that Boris Johnson would do the 'Nigel Farage is the man to lead the UK' humiliation ritual is for the birds. Its more likely he will run for London Mayor in 2028 for the Tories (without rating that itself as very likely, just as possible)
That 34% ethical is interesting in so much as it mirrors the Labour vote in 2024.
I don't believe the question "is Starmer unethical or ethical" is the best question. "Does Starmer appear ethical or unethical" would generate a much sharper divergence
I'd like him to fall on his sword, the level of hatred against the man is off the scale and a distraction for functional government. Some of that contempt is well deserved (he is shockingly bad at politics) but a great deal has been confected by the media due to his demand for a second Referendum and his undermining poor Boris.
Speaking of hatred, Miliband's doing his bit to stir up a little against the evil private sector, who are clearly raising fuel prices for reasons unrelated to any real world events. Ahem. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626mdvn6d5o
Feel sorry for those working in petrol stations getting abuse because the green zealot's trying to blame the private sector ahead of a potential government hike in income tax because a moron in America didn't realise starting an unplanned, pointless war in the Middle East had the obvious consequence of a rise in oil prices.
We discussed this yesterday. Are the retailers price gouging? Some said yes, some said they are entitled to increase the retail price of their current stock in anticipation of the increased cost of the next delivery.
We did agree that those abusing minimum wage cashiers at petrol stations deserve their own place in idiot's corner/ Hell.
Besides- the free market selling price of everything is as much as the seller can get away with. Always has been, that's how the system is meant to work. The only question is what mechanisms stop that price being all but infinite.
(Same as the free market buying price of a thing is the lowest the seller can be persuaded/forced to swallow. Those two things don't have to overlap, but when they do, wonderful things can happen.)
Well yes, supply and demand enters the picture. One man's profiteering is another man's sound economics.
It's not quite as simple as that - it's long been known that competition in this sector is rather weak. There's considerable market power and the CMA has been investigating it for some time. In that case profiteering is sound economics.
This is one of those topics where PB is out of touch with public sentiment - just check out the comments on the BBC article. And blaming the government for abusive behaviour from some motorists to retail staff is just...mad.
Public sentiment is they dont like high energy prices.
Milibands policy of raining prices will bite Labour in the arse.
Miliband is the reason British forces didn't take part in the initial strike on Iran which has caused this mess in the first place. He's also advocating the kind of energy that isn't vulnerable to whims of the Iranian regime of Vladimir Putin. In the battle of political narratives, I think he's in a reasonably strong position.
(Though I must say I've been disappointed the government isn't pushing that point more forcefully).
Yep. Labour should definitely pin the UK energy situation on Miliband. Incredibly high and rising prices being down to him is just the ticket.
I expect Reeves will give in on North Sea licences as economic reality kicks in
What in the last eighteen months makes you think that Reeves has any connection to, or even awareness of, economic reality?
O&G only represents about 1% of the UK economy. Issuing some new licenses isn't going to boost that to any significant degree, and won't have a material effect for several years, and it's trending downwards anyway. Long term decisions aren't going to be made on a oil/gas price that we hope is only temporarily inflated.
Those suggesting this will solve our economic and fiscal woes in the face of an energy crisis are those with no connection to economic reality. #everylittlehelps though, I guess.
It is the tax take of billions over time that is the benefit
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
I don't disagree. But don't pretend it solves what we are currently dealing with.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Billions here, billions there and soon we are talking real money.
The same can be said about any sector. Deflating figures by counting them as a percentage of the total economy is disingenuous, unless you can come up with cuts to our expenditure equivalent to at least that 0.1% too. Good luck with that!
I don't disagree at all - just trying to put to bed the notion this the panacea to both our economic and tax challenges, and our energy security issues. It's whataboutery from people who can't accept that getting onto domestic renewables is the only rational response to what is going on right now (and I think the economic gains from doing that massively outweigh squeezing a little bit more oil and gas out of the North Sea, conditional on market reform).
Well do not accuse me of that because I support renewables, have solar panels, and expect over the next 20 years we will have largely transitioned away from fossil fuels
It is just madness not to take as much tax revenue from the North Sea as we can in that period
That depends, doesn't it?
After all, if maximising GDP and tax take were the only sane criterion, there's a much bigger policy decision of the last decade that we should reverse ASAP.
(There are plenty of sound political reasons for not doing so, or not doing so yet, anyway. But not everything that fails to maximise tax take is madness.)
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
It is solely for first time buyers and is the kind of incentive I could see Kemi being attracted to
Kemi sensibly proposed abolishing Stamp Duty instead
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
I do that right now.
You get all the liability (bear in mind: for no money or reward) and lots of criticism by people who don't lift a finger.
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Hegseth is even being called out by one of the main Newsmax hosts who served in Iraq - he has made the point that all the shit-talking and taunting Iran by Hegseth is fine until you are a pilot who gets shot down and captured and so Negseth needs to stop that stupid behaviour.
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
Absolutely!
Hegseth and Trump are utter fools.
Please. That’s really rude to some utter fools.
Nearly all of the people who sent their life savings to a Prince in Nigeria wouldn’t do a tithe of a tithe of the things that duo have done
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
One of the medium sized charities told the government that this is “rationalisation” of the charity sector.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
Name and shame as there must be far more than just one.
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
It is solely for first time buyers and is the kind of incentive I could see Kemi being attracted to
Kemi sensibly proposed abolishing Stamp Duty instead
Neither of them is sensible.
Both of them will see house prices rise to absorb the incentive, so the money will accrue to sellers.
Remember that, in a free market, prices are the most that the purchaser can be forced to pay.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
yeah hmrc are forcing them all to register for vat / corporation tax too at which point I'd be noping out
One of the medium sized charities told the government that this is “rationalisation” of the charity sector.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
Minor violations like theft or sexual assault?
Or major violations like not keeping a proper audit trail to document compliance with anti-discrimination regulations?
An awful lot of middle class people are quite happy building a bureaucratic career for decades where they take no risk, make no decisions, make pedantic and trifling rules for others that they delight in policing, and then retire on a nice pension at 60, or before.
They have produced nothing their whole working lives.
Hegseth & co. believe in the kind of pop history that produces “300”. They would think that eg Genghis Khan won his campaigns because he was a hard man, who did not shrink from massacring millions. In reality, he won by gathering intelligence on his enemies, planning his invasions in meticulous detail (the invasions of Nothern China and Central Asia took years of planning), establishing supply lines, exploiting divisions among his enemies. He swallowed insults, and bided his time to take revenge at the most opportune moment.
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
Soldiers’ grievances drive pretty much, almost every successful revolution. Any authoritarian regime which can’t pay its soldiers is in a lot of trouble. That’s when people start wondering whether it’s safer to defect from the regime than to stick with it.
Yes. Every revolution is at root a money crisis. The ideology that is prevalent then gives it form and direction.
'The new Archbishop of Canterbury will embark on a six-day pilgrimage to prepare for her installation service.
Dame Sarah Mullally, along with her husband Eamonn, will walk the 140km (87 mile) route from St Paul's Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral before the service on 25 March.
It is the first time in modern history that an Archbishop of Canterbury has undertaken a pilgrimage of this nature in the lead-up to their installation.
While walking the Becket Way, her group will join prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting with other pilgrims and visiting schools.
The Archbishop will walk along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, which is the pilgrimage route celebrating the conversion of English-speaking people to Christianity.
Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Lambeth Palace says.'
Im not sure Farages comments that he wished they hadnt bothered taking over Worcestershire CC are wise 2 months before local elections that might see them having to make many such decisions on hung councils and be asking for votes to put them in that position
Pete Hegseth's Pastor on the country he wants to see, on the Jesse Dollemore podcast. If I have him right, Dollemore is a Republican secularist where the state is concerned, who is not a Trump fan:
Hegseth is even being called out by one of the main Newsmax hosts who served in Iraq - he has made the point that all the shit-talking and taunting Iran by Hegseth is fine until you are a pilot who gets shot down and captured and so Negseth needs to stop that stupid behaviour.
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
That comes back to Trump saying international law is meaningless, which means that if they follow Trump's values Iran can abuse and torture prisoners as much as they like.
I'm not sure if I have quoted it here, but my image of Hegseth is of an 11 year old trying convince a 13 year old that his balls have dropped, and he is a big boy now, by shooting a sparrow with an air pistol.
There's a takedown of Hegseth's press conference from a religious viewpoint by a retired Pastor who was on the Christian Right for 3 decades here. He calls Hegseth a "pornographer of war", in that his rhetoric and presentation aims only to arouse, not to justify or reflect or consider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG46pYZw7tA
Well, that remark is out of context, in the sense that he goes on to claim they are lower than they were under Biden due to Trump's policies.
Which is both true, in the sense that they were a lot higher at the start of the SMO in Ukraine (although surely even Vance doesn't really think that was Biden's fault) and at the same time rather a stupid thing to say given they are currently spiking due to Not At All A Paedo Guy trying to demonstrate the size of his button mushroom.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
And the Sayle comment is just a different kind of populism.
The reality was something closer to "It turns out that the libraries in Wolverhampton were being paid for by the taxes on bankers doing stupid stuff. When the bubble burst, you lose your libraries, because the hospitals come first. Maybe do things different next time?"
No, austerity was predicated on the notion that Conservatism understands the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Binning the Surestart programme has cost far more, both socially and financially than Osborne saved.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
And the Sayle comment is just a different kind of populism.
The reality was something closer to "It turns out that the libraries in Wolverhampton were being paid for by the taxes on bankers doing stupid stuff. When the bubble burst, you lose your libraries, because the hospitals come first. Maybe do things different next time?"
No, austerity was predicated on the notion that Conservatism understands the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Binning the Surestart programme has cost far more, both socially and financially than Osborne saved.
So ignore the bond markets while trying to borrow from them? It’s not very novel.
Austerity wasn't the only option on the table. If we feel they are worthy and we want services like libraries in Wolverhampton taxation is another option.
It comes back to my point about saving some cash by jettisoning Surestart has cost more over the medium term both financially and socially.
Taxing your way out of a recession isn’t a novel idea, either. It doesn’t work.
When they left office in 2024 the Conservatives at that point had the highest tax burden for British voters in history and they decimated public served. So they had their cake and they ate it.
No Tory who accepts Brexit has any right to lecture others on balancing government spending and taxation policy. Perhaps economic growth could have helped keep taxes low and services high if we had not voted to impose economic sanctions on ourselves.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
Lol politics has been doing nothing but dancing to these numpties' tune for the last decade. Other voters are available.
Who have been pandered to since God was a child, and still are.
'The new Archbishop of Canterbury will embark on a six-day pilgrimage to prepare for her installation service.
Dame Sarah Mullally, along with her husband Eamonn, will walk the 140km (87 mile) route from St Paul's Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral before the service on 25 March.
It is the first time in modern history that an Archbishop of Canterbury has undertaken a pilgrimage of this nature in the lead-up to their installation.
While walking the Becket Way, her group will join prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting with other pilgrims and visiting schools.
The Archbishop will walk along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, which is the pilgrimage route celebrating the conversion of English-speaking people to Christianity.
Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Lambeth Palace says.'
Give me my scallop shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope’s true gage, And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer, No other balm will there be given, Whilst my soul, like a white palmer, Travels to the land of heaven; Over the silver mountains, Where spring the nectar fountains; And there I’ll kiss The bowl of bliss, And drink my eternal fill On every milken hill. My soul will be a-dry before, But after it will ne’er thirst more; And by the happy blissful way More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have shook off their gowns of clay, And go apparelled fresh like me. I’ll bring them first To slake their thirst, And then to taste those nectar suckets, At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells, Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
If the IRGC is the kind of outfit we think it is (and I think their slaughter of tens of thousands of protestors is incontrevtible proof of that), they aren't going waiver in the face of a little financial hardship.
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
Soldiers’ grievances drive pretty much, almost every successful revolution. Any authoritarian regime which can’t pay its soldiers is in a lot of trouble. That’s when people start wondering whether it’s safer to defect from the regime than to stick with it.
Yes. Every revolution is at root a money crisis. The ideology that is prevalent then gives it form and direction.
I enjoyed watching a podcast, recently, by Sean Gabb, in which he explained, pretty convincingly, that Nero’s downfall was caused, not by his excesses, but by a financial crisis. The cost of the Boudicca revolt, the war in Armenia, and the Judaean revolt simply put his government under intolerable strain.
So in other words Swinney has offered more taxes from long suffering middle and higher earning Scots pockets for a deposit of less than 10% of the average Scottish house price. Building more homes for first time buyers would be a better use of his time
It is solely for first time buyers and is the kind of incentive I could see Kemi being attracted to
Kemi sensibly proposed abolishing Stamp Duty instead
Neither of them is sensible.
Both of them will see house prices rise to absorb the incentive, so the money will accrue to sellers.
Remember that, in a free market, prices are the most that the purchaser can be forced to pay.
Well, that remark is out of context, in the sense that he goes on to claim they are lower than they were under Biden.
Which is both true, in the sense that they were a lot higher at the start of the SMO in Ukraine (although surely even Vance doesn't really think that was Biden's fault) and at the same time rather a stupid thing to say given they are currently spiking due to Not At All A Paedo Guy trying to demosntrate the size of his button mushroom.
Which is why I thoughtfully included a video that didn't cut Vance off after the words Donald Trump. We can be sure no-one else will be that thoughtful.
Vance's "thanks to Donald Trump" words only make sense (if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not trying to undermine his boss) if the very brief spike in oil prices in 2022 is attributed to Biden, not Putin.
Prices are heading in the same direction now and this time may not be so short lived.
'The new Archbishop of Canterbury will embark on a six-day pilgrimage to prepare for her installation service.
Dame Sarah Mullally, along with her husband Eamonn, will walk the 140km (87 mile) route from St Paul's Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral before the service on 25 March.
It is the first time in modern history that an Archbishop of Canterbury has undertaken a pilgrimage of this nature in the lead-up to their installation.
While walking the Becket Way, her group will join prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting with other pilgrims and visiting schools.
The Archbishop will walk along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, which is the pilgrimage route celebrating the conversion of English-speaking people to Christianity.
Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Lambeth Palace says.'
'The new Archbishop of Canterbury will embark on a six-day pilgrimage to prepare for her installation service.
Dame Sarah Mullally, along with her husband Eamonn, will walk the 140km (87 mile) route from St Paul's Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral before the service on 25 March.
It is the first time in modern history that an Archbishop of Canterbury has undertaken a pilgrimage of this nature in the lead-up to their installation.
While walking the Becket Way, her group will join prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting with other pilgrims and visiting schools.
The Archbishop will walk along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, which is the pilgrimage route celebrating the conversion of English-speaking people to Christianity.
Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Lambeth Palace says.'
Give me my scallop shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope’s true gage, And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer, No other balm will there be given, Whilst my soul, like a white palmer, Travels to the land of heaven; Over the silver mountains, Where spring the nectar fountains; And there I’ll kiss The bowl of bliss, And drink my eternal fill On every milken hill. My soul will be a-dry before, But after it will ne’er thirst more; And by the happy blissful way More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have shook off their gowns of clay, And go apparelled fresh like me. I’ll bring them first To slake their thirst, And then to taste those nectar suckets, At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells, Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
Written while awaiting in the Tower of London. Eventually put to death for treason by King James 1. He may have been the 'passionate man' awaiting death - his final pilgrimage.
So, rather not on a Saturday morning but a quick stocktake on Iran. We have a vicious, deeply ideological Islamist regime, backs to the wall, intent on causing mayhem across the Middle East. We have a pumped-up belicose Israel hellbent on the same and with all the time and weapons in the world to do it. And then - the kicker, why this is a potential shitshow of the very highest order - we have in the White House a US president of astonishing emotional and intellectual immaturity, prone to impulse and easily manipulated, who is showing clear signs of becoming addicted to 'big man military options' projection. Worrying times and I'm worried.
So, rather not on a Saturday morning but a quick stocktake on Iran. We have a vicious, deeply ideological Islamist regime, backs to the wall, intent on causing mayhem across the Middle East. We have a pumped-up belicose Israel hellbent on the same and with all the time and weapons in the world to do it. And then - the kicker, why this is a potential shitshow of the very highest order - we have in the White House a US president of astonishing emotional and intellectual immaturity, prone to impulse and easily manipulated, who is showing clear signs of becoming addicted to 'big man military options' projection. Worrying times and I'm worried.
On the one side, a bunch of murderous dictators and sex offenders who blow up/shoot/molest their own people, threaten their neighbours to distract from problems at home, and hold power through fraud, vote rigging, intimidation and control of the courts based on theocratic fundamentalist positions and constitutions that are routinely abused or ignored.
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
Is Dubai some sort of holding facility for total tossers, a sort of Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B?
"Sunny place for shady people"
French Riviera when Somerset Maugham wrote those words. Presumably will be somewhere else after Dubai.
Interesting you should mention Somerset Maugham. I was taking a walk on Cap Ferrat and a black squirrel ran across the road in front of me. I'm very interested in squirrels and have never come across a black one before. So I went back the next day and met someone who lived on the road and she said there was a colony of them which lived on that very short stretch of road. I went back several times but never saw another one.
A couple of months later back in England at a doctors surgery waiting for a covid jab an old man started a conversation and said he was just back from France. 'Where'? I asked. "Cap Ferrat" he said. I then told him my black squirrel story and he said 'That's an even bigger coincidence. That's where I was staying!' He then told me that his daughter had married a man whose father owned the house next to Somerset Maugham's. 'If they invite me again I'll ask them if they've seen any black squirrels'
Sounds like a Somerset Maugham short story. Unfortunately that's where it ends
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
And the Sayle comment is just a different kind of populism.
The reality was something closer to "It turns out that the libraries in Wolverhampton were being paid for by the taxes on bankers doing stupid stuff. When the bubble burst, you lose your libraries, because the hospitals come first. Maybe do things different next time?"
No, austerity was predicated on the notion that Conservatism understands the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Binning the Surestart programme has cost far more, both socially and financially than Osborne saved.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
And the Sayle comment is just a different kind of populism.
The reality was something closer to "It turns out that the libraries in Wolverhampton were being paid for by the taxes on bankers doing stupid stuff. When the bubble burst, you lose your libraries, because the hospitals come first. Maybe do things different next time?"
No, austerity was predicated on the notion that Conservatism understands the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Binning the Surestart programme has cost far more, both socially and financially than Osborne saved.
So ignore the bond markets while trying to borrow from them? It’s not very novel.
Austerity wasn't the only option on the table. If we feel they are worthy and we want services like libraries in Wolverhampton taxation is another option.
It comes back to my point about saving some cash by jettisoning Surestart has cost more over the medium term both financially and socially.
Taxing your way out of a recession isn’t a novel idea, either. It doesn’t work.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
But even when you give them what they want they demand more.
They got Brexit and all the Eastern Europeans went home with considerable economic damage to our country. Hurrah! Now they worry about immigration numbers, and as they drop down towards net zero, they are complaining that too many Isabel Oakeshotts leaving for Dubai is not a fair balance with the arrival of too many nurses from India.
So this ridiculous government panders to them again at great economic harm to our country. A failing health serve and social care, Universities bereft of the foreign student dollar. Hurrah. Next it will be their small boats win and then they will train their eye on people of the "wrong" cut who have been here for generations. Yet the Daily Mail reading squeezed middle flag wavers are having life with jam on it.
The poor who can't get a leg up have been gas lit for years. "It's the fault of the EU and foreigners, and that is why we need to be austere and cut all your services. It's them over there, not us who own newspapers and billion dollar hedge funds". It goes back to that Alexei Sayle joke that the World banking crisis was caused by too many libraries in Wolverhampton. And those who claim not to be listened to, believe the narrative..
It's very hard and almost certainly misguided to ascribe a single 'want' to a large amorphous blob of people, but, with misgivings, I'm going to try: I would argue that for 'them', leaving the EU was never the main priority, just the one they got a vote on. The main priority was always immigration, specifically unskilled third world immigration of people with a very different set of behavioural norms. I would argue that the EU vote would havr been won - comfortably - by remain had the mainland EU not itself been facing considerable difficulty itself with that sort of immigration in the summer of 2016.
The irony of course is the sort of immigration that followed Brexit.
And to give Johnson credit where credit is due. He did explain that a side effect of leaving the EU would be the Boriswave, and he was right. And as it stands Mahmood and Starmer are throwing the baby out with the bathwster.
True, and I don't disagree, but an added nuance: the Boriswave looks very different depending on where you are: if you are in my comfortable middle class suburb, it is highly visible, but unthreatening: lots from HK trying hard to integrate, the cricket club bolstered by keen new players from India. Engineers and doctors. Smiles aplenty. But I suspect it looks very different if you're in Cheetham Hill or Halliwell or Failinge.
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
When they FINALLY get their ducks in a row, the US is in a very strong negotiating position.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Reforms policy is just deport loads of people and that will solve everything. A section of the public who swallow this seem to be the same ones who decided Brexit was the answer to all of the UKs problems .
And still the penny doesn't drop that it would be a good idea for 'decent' parties to take the concerns of those voters seriously.
Labour are taking their concerns seriously, and Sunak’s administration was too. Immigration has been massively reduced. Deportations are up. Numbers seeking asylum are down (slightly).
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
When they FINALLY get their ducks in a row, the US is in a very strong negotiating position.
Their planning should have got them there sooner.
If that was the plan, why did they try bombing Tehran instead of seizing Kharg Island in the first hour?
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
When they FINALLY get their ducks in a row, the US is in a very strong negotiating position.
Their planning should have got them there sooner.
They are sending 5000 marines and specialized ships now, 3 weeks late. If the marines take key positions (whatever they are) then perhaps the US 'wins'. If Iran sinks one of those ships...
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
That's a amazing definition of "sensible". I have no doubt that 31st MEU can capture it, they're Marines and they'll take the fucking hill if you order them to. Keeping them resupplied and mostly alive while we all wait for the blackmail to work is another thing entirely.
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
When they FINALLY get their ducks in a row, the US is in a very strong negotiating position.
Their planning should have got them there sooner.
If that was the plan, why did they try bombing Tehran instead of seizing Kharg Island in the first hour?
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
Apparently Trump has told Iran to open the Straights of Hormuz or he will destroy the oil facilities on Kharg island
High stakes, and two irrational and irresponsible leaders out of control
I don't think Iran are being irrational at all, they are playing a shit hand well.
Nor can we be certain that Iran is being lead by "a leader", irrational or otherwise. More likely a group behind the figure head are actually making decisions. Mojtaba may even be dead. Plenty of analysis saying the IRGC are running things or acting independently.
As the war in europe ended there was situation where not quite clear to the allies who would be doing the surrendering or negotiation. iirc Himmler went off to Sweden to try and find a way out that benefited him for example.
A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.
Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.
So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.
Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.
Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?
So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?
The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."
That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".
Populism is partly right. By and large, people in power in Western democracies don’t care for, or about, the people they govern. Their empathy (assuming they have any at all), is restricted to their peers.
But, populists rarely have good solutions.
That's a fair point, but it's one of communication and empathy, not so much of policy. In terms of "how to run the economy to best deliver a good life to people", the answer has settled a while back- a moderately open, moderately mixed economy. Everything else in the parameter space ends up worse.
The much harder question is how far the state should take from those who win in the lottery of life to support the losers. And we all have grimly predictable views on that, mostly predictable on the basis of whether we see ourselves as winners or losers.
Yet it is part of policy.
The Optima's of our political tend to ideas such as "If a small business goes under because of increased taxes or regulation, it was a zombie business". And then are surprised at the lack of enthusiasm among the small business owners at the Circus Maximus on race day.
Between the dreary love of Process as a God and the psychosis of DOGE - you get a few wittering about John Lewis style service and government. But what we need is a radically *moderate* approach to reforming government so as to be a *service for people*
When Sir Johnny Ives came up with a design for a phone that didn't need a small but thick book (printed in a font too tiny to read) to operate, he sparked a revolution. And government is still stuck in the "Another 10,000 pages of rules will do it".
I do not think it is possible for a solicitors’ firm (other than the very largest, who in turn, run the risk that they are so large that employees can go rogue), not to be in breach of some the absolute cascade of regulations to which they are now subject. And, I’m sure that goes for any number of businesses.
There is a belief that society can be perfected through regulations.
It is basically impossible, in domestic small building (think loft conversion scale) to not be massively in breach of regulations. Because paying double for paperwork is simply not pssoible Mr & Mrs Miggin of No 32. Who just want to do a loft conversion so their son can have a proper room.
I had mine house done safely and to the intent of regs - insulation etc. The paperwork - no.
Two doors down, they've just had a nice cheap job done. It's will burn well, I think, when the electrics they've had bodged go.
But bad drives out good.
We are constantly told that it is not good enough to comply with the regulations. You must record and document your compliance, and establish a paper trail which can be audited.
It’s debatable whether one would have any time left to practise law, if one did so.
This, I think, is what will kill off small charities reliant on volunteer leadership.
I do that right now.
You get all the liability (bear in mind: for no money or reward) and lots of criticism by people who don't lift a finger.
It is becoming very hard to find volunteers.
Shirley you just pull a Kids Company and deny legal responsibility for the legal responsibilities you’d voluntarily assumed for the prestige of being on a charity board?
If the US wanted to destroy the whole of Kharg island they could so it seems like a game of chicken here .
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
The sensible thing for the US to do is capture Kharg Island, and hold it hostage against the enriched uranium Iran possesses and free flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
When they FINALLY get their ducks in a row, the US is in a very strong negotiating position.
Their planning should have got them there sooner.
If that was the plan, why did they try bombing Tehran instead of seizing Kharg Island in the first hour?
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
US military action has cost over $11.3 billion so far. The US could just have offered every Iranian armed forces serviceman $18,500 instead.
Iran without 90% of its oil income is a solid negotiating chip.
It leaves Iran with nowhere to go except sink every ship they possibly can, which I am sure is exactly the outcome Donny boy was aiming for...
Something they're already doing.
Cut their oil revenue and choke their finances.
Bankruptcy is a plausible route to regime change. Grunts want to be paid.
I don't buy that at all. I don't think terrorists demand the National Living Wage. They are in it for the "love of the game", as my Gen Z colleagues say all the time.
Who said terrorists? You mock, but soldiers absolutely expect to be paid.
The regime is hated, but they have the military.
Several regime collapses have been in no small part due to the inability to pay the military properly, which undercuts their survival.
Ceaușescu ran out of money and could not pay his soldiers properly. When protests occured and soldiers decided not to shoot them, the result was regime change.
There are plenty of other authoritarian regimes that have changed because they could no longer pay the military, so the military turned against them.
US military action has cost over $11.3 billion so far. The US could just have offered every Iranian armed forces serviceman $18,500 instead.
Comments
Some say (and I agree) that the May 1997 election result was determined in April 1992. Major's win made his subsequent defeat inevitable.
In the same way, BoJo's 2019 win came at a price, of the sort that Johann Georg Faust might have stopped and said "you know what, I'll pass on that one". All those promises that he couldn't have kept...
And to give Johnson credit where credit is due. He did explain that a side effect of leaving the EU would be the Boriswave, and he was right. And as it stands Mahmood and Starmer are throwing the baby out with the bathwster.
My wife just got sent a bunch of offers on 5* hotels for the next week, we picked one and are going tonight. Updates to follow, @Leon style.
Cherie however was a top lawyer and always was going to be QC/KC and judge material.
Cherie was much less charismatic than her husband though and Tony was always the more natural politician of the two so it made sense for him to be elected as an MP and not her, the electors also decided that hence Tony won a seat in 1983 and Cherie lost.
They are the mirror image of the Clintons, Hillary was always the better lawyer than Bill but Bill the more natural politician with the charisma. Hence Bill won 2 presidential elections and Hillary was defeated in her 2016 bid
It is economic vandalism not to add it to the exchequer over the next 20 years as we transaction away from fossil fuels
Espeially when up against very bad people who are also morons.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2032730192289181773?s=20
Replacing Thatcher with Major at least made some electoral sense as the Tories won a general election in 1992 Thatcher would probably have lost to Kinnock after the poll tax which Major dumped
The whole response from those instinctively opposed to Net Zero, renewables etc has been risible - we're currently living through our second hydrocarbons crisis in four years and people are still clinging to the idea that our green energy policy is to blame for high prices.
Deep link: https://youtu.be/icUK_P5GWj8?t=171
A revolution would be absolutely disastrous for them because ordinary Iranians will do them like the Italians did Mussolini. There is no circumstance in which they will simply give up.
cost of investment in renewables (blame Miliband), but they don't consider what it means if you have less renewable energy and the unavoidable costs of continuing with fossil fuels, including necessary new investments in polluting industries.
Now we see an energy sufficiency problem with fossil fuels, so they criticise the lack of investment in fossil fuels they didn't consider the first time (blame Miliband again).
On topic, FWIW, I think Boris is a Tory to his bones.
https://x.com/pirat_nation/status/2032579629618172036
It’s almost as if a company that sells user data for a living, would be all in favour of more data and more accurate data on its products. It’s “product” is you by the way, well not me because I don’t use any of them.
(and the cumulative impact is still relatively tiny. Over 25 years, taking the OEUK figures, it will represent about 0.1% of our tax revenues).
Having spent years working in government I'm perhaps more conscious of this than many. It can be truly frightening when you see it up close.
Same charity is about to be done for grotesque violations of just about all the rules.
For the grunts who are expected to pull the trigger on any protestors?
Precedent is widespread that failing to pay them collapses the options for regime survival.
The renewables undertaken by the conservatives was extraordinary and that should continue, but we must not to be a prisoner to some arbitrary target that the US, Russia and even China have no intention of following
I said it economic vandalism not to add the billions of tax to our revenue as we transition over 20 years
Or major violations like not keeping a proper audit trail to document compliance with anti-discrimination regulations?
The same can be said about any sector. Deflating figures by counting them as a percentage of the total economy is disingenuous, unless you can come up with cuts to our expenditure equivalent to at least that 0.1% too. Good luck with that!
The difference is the Ukrainian public is behind the Ukrainian government and wants Ukraine to survive.
The Iranian public hates its own regime and it only survives because the military is willing to kill its own people.
Destroying the islands oil infrastructure will stop nearly all exports from Iran , this surely would cause a further oil spike .
Iran could retaliate with trying to cause further damage to the Gulf states oil refineries .
If they are losing Newsmax people then they are really in a mess.
Hegseth and Trump are utter fools.
It is just madness not to take as much tax revenue from the North Sea as we can in that period
High stakes, and two irrational and irresponsible leaders out of control
It includes telling female volunteers doing disaster relief not to upset certain rich businessman demanding “favours”.
Then being complicit in “paid NDAs” resulting from such.
The idea that Boris Johnson would do the 'Nigel Farage is the man to lead the UK' humiliation ritual is for the birds.
Its more likely he will run for London Mayor in 2028 for the Tories (without rating that itself as very likely, just as possible)
After all, if maximising GDP and tax take were the only sane criterion, there's a much bigger policy decision of the last decade that we should reverse ASAP.
(There are plenty of sound political reasons for not doing so, or not doing so yet, anyway. But not everything that fails to maximise tax take is madness.)
You get all the liability (bear in mind: for no money or reward) and lots of criticism by people who don't lift a finger.
It is becoming very hard to find volunteers.
Nearly all of the people who sent their life savings to a Prince in Nigeria wouldn’t do a tithe of a tithe of the things that duo have done
Both of them will see house prices rise to absorb the incentive, so the money will accrue to sellers.
Remember that, in a free market, prices are the most that the purchaser can be forced to pay.
They have produced nothing their whole working lives.
(I originally thought it was an old speech taken out of context by his opponents but it was from just yesterday)
“The reason why gas prices are where they are today is because of Donald Trump”
https://bsky.app/profile/headquartersnews.bsky.social/post/3mgxpmgzc3j2e
Dame Sarah Mullally, along with her husband Eamonn, will walk the 140km (87 mile) route from St Paul's Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral before the service on 25 March.
It is the first time in modern history that an Archbishop of Canterbury has undertaken a pilgrimage of this nature in the lead-up to their installation.
While walking the Becket Way, her group will join prayer services at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, as well as meeting with other pilgrims and visiting schools.
The Archbishop will walk along stretches of the Thames Path, the Via Britannica and the Augustine Camino, which is the pilgrimage route celebrating the conversion of English-speaking people to Christianity.
Stops will include Southwark Cathedral, Aylesford Priory, the Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Lesnes Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Lambeth Palace says.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yjm9zdn8no
'They cant be bothered to serve you'
I'm not sure if I have quoted it here, but my image of Hegseth is of an 11 year old trying convince a 13 year old that his balls have dropped, and he is a big boy now, by shooting a sparrow with an air pistol.
There's a takedown of Hegseth's press conference from a religious viewpoint by a retired Pastor who was on the Christian Right for 3 decades here. He calls Hegseth a "pornographer of war", in that his rhetoric and presentation aims only to arouse, not to justify or reflect or consider:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG46pYZw7tA
Which is both true, in the sense that they were a lot higher at the start of the SMO in Ukraine (although surely even Vance doesn't really think that was Biden's fault) and at the same time rather a stupid thing to say given they are currently spiking due to Not At All A Paedo Guy trying to demonstrate the size of his button mushroom.
No Tory who accepts Brexit has any right to lecture others on balancing government spending and taxation policy. Perhaps economic growth could have helped keep taxes low and services high if we had not voted to impose economic sanctions on ourselves.
Nice to have some redress for a change.
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given,
Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,
Travels to the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after it will ne’er thirst more;
And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay,
And go apparelled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first
To slake their thirst,
And then to taste those nectar suckets,
At the clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
Vance's "thanks to Donald Trump" words only make sense (if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not trying to undermine his boss) if the very brief spike in oil prices in 2022 is attributed to Biden, not Putin.
Prices are heading in the same direction now and this time may not be so short lived.
The 25th is a Wednesday [Warhammer reveal show at Adepticon day] so the middle two days of the pilgrimage will be the weekend.
It'll be interesting to see whether many people join her on the pilgrimage.
And on the other the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Meanwhile, the UAE is reminding Iran that most of the regime’s banking is done in Dubai. There’s a lot of Iranian money all over the GCC.
The Iranians are evil, but not evidently stupid
The US are (also evil) but evidently very stupid
Who wins?
Trump and Khamanei, pistols at dawn? With the site of the duel being hit by something big and heavy?
A couple of months later back in England at a doctors surgery waiting for a covid jab an old man started a conversation and said he was just back from France. 'Where'? I asked. "Cap Ferrat" he said. I then told him my black squirrel story and he said 'That's an even bigger coincidence. That's where I was staying!' He then told me that his daughter had married a man whose father owned the house next to Somerset Maugham's. 'If they invite me again I'll ask them if they've seen any black squirrels'
Sounds like a Somerset Maugham short story. Unfortunately that's where it ends
Their planning should have got them there sooner.
It's not a rational threat
As the war in europe ended there was situation where not quite clear to the allies who would be doing the surrendering or negotiation. iirc Himmler went off to Sweden to try and find a way out that benefited him for example.
No, wait, you can’t.
Not #NU10K