BTW, people who I know that still serve report the alcohol aboard is now almost irrelevant for morale purposes. The dominant factor for the morale of the rates is Internet access. If it is off for operational or technical reasons then there's going to be problems...
There is nothing better for morale than access to internet porn so you can whack off in your bunk. Nothing to do with being in contact with family.
Obvs a problem of someone is watching Tom of Finland Sailor porn non stop but got to have a release.
Can’t you just bring a small USB memory device along full of porn? I suspect they want Internet access for more than that.
In my part of Newham, after a busy start to the electioneering week, it's gone a bit quiet but I suspect it will pick up after Easter.
The Newham Independents leafletted those at the Eid-al-Fitr prayers last Monday but we also had Labour doing some canvassing while the Conservatives went round the Hindu businesses and put up posters.
My Ward had a by-election in July 2023 - I'm sure we all remember the excitement. Labour got 61% and the Conservatives 27%. The previous May, at the local elections, Labour got about 60% in the Ward but an Independent who I think had connections to the emerging Mirza group got 957 votes which, while about half the Labour numbers, was still well ahead of the Conservatives, Greens and the CPA.
The Greens have no record in my Ward but I'm wondering if the Conservatives think they have a sniff if the Labour vote shifts to the Newham Independents. If half the Labour vote shifts to the Independents, it could be very close between them and the Conservatives on about 30% each - exciting?
I know the Conservatives, Labour and Newham Independents have three candidates - as to who else will be involved in my Ward, I've no clue though I suspect one of the main local Reform people lives locally.
The Greens seem to be targetting the two Forest Gate wards, Maryland and Royal Victoria.
To put it another way, the Greens are targetting the north and south of the Borough leaving the Newham Independents in the middle.
IF the opposition parties win their targets, we could end with Labour 29, NIP 23 and the Greens 14 at which point the hounds of Hell will be released (I may not be wholly correct about that but it would be fascinating to see how that result works in terms of council administration).
Purely out of curiosity, when did the Tories last have representation in Newham?
Not entirely - the Conservatives won a by-election in the Bemersyde Ward in 1991 which meant they had three sitting councillors up to the 1994 election when all three were defeated.
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
Am I the only person on the left who would rather see a ReFukker elected than a Tory?
Short term pain for long term gain.
I can understand you take the line you would vote Reform over the Kemi led Tories. Would you still vote Reform over even a Cleverly led Tories?
Yes. Destroying the Conservatives as a political force is the objective, regardless of leader.
Reform would then destroy themselves.
And the right of centre voters coalesce around a new project. Or the uber right populists swoop in. The desire to crush socialists and communists wont go away just because the branding does.
Or the LibDems become the mainstream alternative to Labour, and everything further right is the political fringe.
No-one from the LibDems seems to want to replace Davey. Yet, anyway.
They've flatlined in national polling. They are giving ti achieve nothing in Scotland and Wales.
If they don't make sizable gains in England in May then it could be time for Daisy to pounce.
I’m not certain Daisy has a fundamentally different view as to how the LibDems should operate in this new political climate to Davey. A new leader would garner some publicity, but I don’t think voters are going to flock to the LibDems just because it’s Cooper rather than Davey in charge.
The party has built a brand as the sensible, grown up ones. Now, before Taz has conniptions I appreciate that’s not how they’re seen by many politicos, but that’s their brand nonetheless.
Therefore a calm, friendly succession process to Daisy when the time is right, with some cheerful competition in the leadership election, would be the most on-brand approach.
The right time is probably either 6-12 months before the next election, or immediately after but from a position of, hopefully, a solid Westminster seat count.
There's nothing wrong as such with Davey's boring centre-left centrism with a pro-Europe, anti-Trumo tilt.
It's just that wholly unambitious as a platform.
I fear the Lib Dems have been so successful in socially liberal, middle class ex-Tory seats that they have embedded that small-c conservatism into their ethos.
I would rather the party embraced more 'radical centrism' with ideas for reforms that go beyond spending a bit more money here or there. That could be stealing the Green's clothes and being the party of the environment and renewables. Or making a bigger thing of marijuana legalisation policy. Or being the party of housebuilding given how much Labour has failed there. Or any number of other things given more than 2 minutes thought.
We're at a time of unprecedented shift in the British political landscape and the Lib Dems just seem to be a side show clinging onto their 70-80 seats with no voice in the national political debate. I think it's worth rolling the dice and seeing if a new leader can make themselves heard.
LD voters are mostly Nimbys now so they won’t be the party of mass house building. The Greens are already the party of marijuana legalisation and net zero, Labour under Ed Miliband also the latter and for solar panels everywhere
Labour have decreased protection for protected species and are about to decrease it for protected areas, whilst reducing the need for Biodiversity Net Gain for damaging developments. Environmentalists are not going to be voting Labour, except by holding their nose and stopping Reform. The Conservatives did more for the environment than Labour. Not under Kemi they won't though.
That's questionable imo.
The energy saving and renewables program that Miliband has put in place is several times more significant than anything we have seen before.
And during the 2010s there were no offshore wind leasing rounds whatsoever.
There's a lot more to environmentalism than how we generate leccy.
Given the Planning & Infrastructure Bill (as was) managed to unite in opposition voluntary bodies, such as RSPB and Wildlife Trusts, professional organisations like the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and even the government's own Office for Environmental Protection, all stating that the P&I Act (as is) will significantly reduce environmental protection, I think we can safely say this Labour government are not environmentally friendly. That's saying nothing about reducing BNG from the Environment Act 2021 (which is about to be reduced even further) and a new Planning act in the pipeline to reduce protection on internationally designated sites coming soon. Labour's reputation is in the toilet with those that care about biodiversity, often cited as Labour's war on nature.
It's a great paradox that those who beat loudest and longest for the provision of cheap and affordable housing in rural and semi rural and tourist areas, bleat loudest and longest when a Government actually tries to resolve the issue.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I don't know why Matt Goodwin thinks there's an appetite for his views about women's fertility.
To answer the question upthread about who would be preferred out of the Tories and Reform, I believe a Refcon coalition is the likeliest outcome, and I would prefer it to be a Reform-led coalition. My preference list (within the narrow options presented) is: 1. Reform-led Refcon 2. Reform maj 3. Tory-led Refcon 4. Tory maj
Kemi is fond of picking fights, but there's also a bit of weakness and willingness to go with the flow there, as shown by her patchy Ministerial record. A Tory maj scenario would be better than what we have now, but arrogance, complacency, backstabbing briefings, shadowy cabals and Lib Dems in blue rosettes would soon rear their ugly heads and things would diminish fairly rapidly.
Tories but needing Reform would treat Reform like the hired help, and the same as the above would be true but less so.
Reform maj would have good intentions but very little experience of the system.
Ref-led Refcon has the experience of the Tories, but yoked to the energy of Reform.
What is the energy of Reform? Energy to do what? Copy Donald Trump at every opportunity?
I want a party that restores the key pillars of the British constitution, eliminates needless regulation and red tape and the quangocracy that underpins it, rescues key industries like virgin steelmaking (there is no 'Thatcherite' laissez faire way to do this and it's specious of the Tories to pretend there is), legalises fracking and provides a regulatory environment where it can flourish, unleashes the North Sea and SMRs, stands up to Chinese domination whilst we still can, and pursues the national interest vigorously at every opportunity. My preference would be for the Tories to do all this, but I don't trust them to.
That doesn't appear to fit Reform UK that well. Reform UK favour reform and change to the constitution,e.g. introducing PR, creating a new Bill of Rights, abolishing the House of Lords, and replacing civil servants with political appointees. Fracking was not mentioned in their 2024 manifesto, although they do like SMRs. I don't hear Reform talking about China much (zero mentions in the 2024 manifesto) and how much they would pursue the national interest is questionable, given we've seen Reform politicians being bought by Russia. Reform's priorities are around immigration, deportations, restricting Islam and reversing smoking laws.
We have not seen Reform politicians bought by Russia, we saw an ex-Brexit Party politician convicted of being bought by Russia.
I too want a moderation in support for Ukraine based on what we can afford and the many security threats we face, just as I want moderation in support for the USA's attack on Iran. Sometimes the UK's national interest will involve rejecting the latest cause celebre and appearing small, mean, or isolationist. We need to have the confidence and thick skin to do that. I want someone that is prepared to face those sorts of brickbats. So far, Nigel has gone more down that line than other politicians, though I concede his recent support for US adventurism is a slight concern. However, I see why he felt he needed to be supportive.
There was no need to mention China a lot in the 2024 manifesto. Farage has been strong in opposing the super-embassy, and strong in opposing China's dirty tricks in shutting down our virgin steel making capacity. It was an act of flagrant PRC sabotage, and still the useless security risk in number 10 sends a negotiator to 'coordinate much more closely' with Beijing.
As for your impression of Reform's priorities, with a caveat around 'restricting' Islam, I'm comfortable with all that.
Reform and the Brexit Party are the same thing: it was just a name change.
If I might, you have not addressed the mismatch between your desire to “restore[] the key pillars of the British constitution” and Reform’s… well, reformist constitutional offering.
No Party has been bought more by Russia than the Tory Party 2010 to 2026.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I don't know why Matt Goodwin thinks there's an appetite for his views about women's fertility.
There probably is...
...in a segment of half of the population.
(What happened to Professor Goodwin? Did he just study the incel right as an anthropologist, and break the golden rule of anthropologists- namely, Don't Go Native?)
I feel a little odd this election - I’m literally doing nothing. Focus is work work and more work (I was working today and have a couple of hours to do tomorrow).
Will try and clear some time the weekend before and on election day as prob should do *something* to help my side.
In my part of Newham, after a busy start to the electioneering week, it's gone a bit quiet but I suspect it will pick up after Easter.
The Newham Independents leafletted those at the Eid-al-Fitr prayers last Monday but we also had Labour doing some canvassing while the Conservatives went round the Hindu businesses and put up posters.
My Ward had a by-election in July 2023 - I'm sure we all remember the excitement. Labour got 61% and the Conservatives 27%. The previous May, at the local elections, Labour got about 60% in the Ward but an Independent who I think had connections to the emerging Mirza group got 957 votes which, while about half the Labour numbers, was still well ahead of the Conservatives, Greens and the CPA.
The Greens have no record in my Ward but I'm wondering if the Conservatives think they have a sniff if the Labour vote shifts to the Newham Independents. If half the Labour vote shifts to the Independents, it could be very close between them and the Conservatives on about 30% each - exciting?
I know the Conservatives, Labour and Newham Independents have three candidates - as to who else will be involved in my Ward, I've no clue though I suspect one of the main local Reform people lives locally.
The Greens seem to be targetting the two Forest Gate wards, Maryland and Royal Victoria.
To put it another way, the Greens are targetting the north and south of the Borough leaving the Newham Independents in the middle.
IF the opposition parties win their targets, we could end with Labour 29, NIP 23 and the Greens 14 at which point the hounds of Hell will be released (I may not be wholly correct about that but it would be fascinating to see how that result works in terms of council administration).
Purely out of curiosity, when did the Tories last have representation in Newham?
I thought it was as recent as 2006 but I was wrong - 1994 was when the last three Conservatives lost their seats and while the party finished second at every local election (except 2006 when Respect finished second) until 2022, they've never won a seat. Their best shot was the old Royal Docks Ward where they came close in a 2009 by-election, losing by just 15 votes.
The last Lib Dem Councillor on Newham was Alec Kellaway who defected dramatically to Labour during the Newham North East by-election in 1994 when Stephen Timms was first elected, defeating the Conservative Philip Hammond (whatever happened to him?).
Kellaway was a local councillor who had been re-elected the previous month (May 1994).
Thanks! So we are talking Maggies time the last time they actually won a count! Id have been a teen. Sigh. Edit - not quite, i see there was a 1991 by! Still a teen though lol
We had three successive elections (2010, 2014 and 2018) when Labour won every seat. 2010 was the only occasion in recent times when a GE took place on the same day as London local council elections.
In 2006, Labour won 41.4% and Respect 23.2% with the Conservatives on 14.3% and the Christian People's Alliance on 10.2%. Even on those shares, Labour won 54 of the 60 seats (Respect and the CPA won three each).
That's my benchmark for 2026 - will Labour go sub 40% and what will be the impact if the Newham Independents are polling around 30%?
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
In my part of Newham, after a busy start to the electioneering week, it's gone a bit quiet but I suspect it will pick up after Easter.
The Newham Independents leafletted those at the Eid-al-Fitr prayers last Monday but we also had Labour doing some canvassing while the Conservatives went round the Hindu businesses and put up posters.
My Ward had a by-election in July 2023 - I'm sure we all remember the excitement. Labour got 61% and the Conservatives 27%. The previous May, at the local elections, Labour got about 60% in the Ward but an Independent who I think had connections to the emerging Mirza group got 957 votes which, while about half the Labour numbers, was still well ahead of the Conservatives, Greens and the CPA.
The Greens have no record in my Ward but I'm wondering if the Conservatives think they have a sniff if the Labour vote shifts to the Newham Independents. If half the Labour vote shifts to the Independents, it could be very close between them and the Conservatives on about 30% each - exciting?
I know the Conservatives, Labour and Newham Independents have three candidates - as to who else will be involved in my Ward, I've no clue though I suspect one of the main local Reform people lives locally.
The Greens seem to be targetting the two Forest Gate wards, Maryland and Royal Victoria.
To put it another way, the Greens are targetting the north and south of the Borough leaving the Newham Independents in the middle.
IF the opposition parties win their targets, we could end with Labour 29, NIP 23 and the Greens 14 at which point the hounds of Hell will be released (I may not be wholly correct about that but it would be fascinating to see how that result works in terms of council administration).
Purely out of curiosity, when did the Tories last have representation in Newham?
I thought it was as recent as 2006 but I was wrong - 1994 was when the last three Conservatives lost their seats and while the party finished second at every local election (except 2006 when Respect finished second) until 2022, they've never won a seat. Their best shot was the old Royal Docks Ward where they came close in a 2009 by-election, losing by just 15 votes.
The last Lib Dem Councillor on Newham was Alec Kellaway who defected dramatically to Labour during the Newham North East by-election in 1994 when Stephen Timms was first elected, defeating the Conservative Philip Hammond (whatever happened to him?).
Kellaway was a local councillor who had been re-elected the previous month (May 1994).
Thanks! So we are talking Maggies time the last time they actually won a count! Id have been a teen. Sigh. Edit - not quite, i see there was a 1991 by! Still a teen though lol
We had three successive elections (2010, 2014 and 2018) when Labour won every seat. 2010 was the only occasion in recent times when a GE took place on the same day as London local council elections.
In 2006, Labour won 41.4% and Respect 23.2% with the Conservatives on 14.3% and the Christian People's Alliance on 10.2%. Even on those shares, Labour won 54 of the 60 seats (Respect and the CPA won three each).
That's my benchmark for 2026 - will Labour go sub 40% and what will be the impact if the Newham Independents are polling around 30%?
Im using 2013 and the last time the Tories lost Norfolk as the benchmark here. Tories managed 33% and were 3 seats short, the Kippers got 24% and Labour 23% and 15/14 seats and the LDs and Greens picked up 14 between them (10/4 11% and 7%) plus an indy Ukip did the dirty and backed a Labour rainbow in return for collapsimg cabinet government for commiittee. It all fell apart in 2016.
My base expectation is a reverse of the Tory and Kipper (now Reform) shares and seat totals with Labour lower and LDs and Greens higher and an uncertain impact from Rupert Lowe in Yarmouth
Its down to (imo) the Lowe effect and how far up the 20s the Tories can climb in vote share
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'll pose a question for those who will know a lot more than I.
As a lot of the Green vote share is under 25,many in education, University, part time possibly seasonal work.
Living in one place, legally registered but also resident and on voters roll with parents.
Does this suggest that Green vote share could be underrated or overrated or is it accurate.
The bigger question is where their vote is registered and how much the date of a GE could impact on the efficacy of the vote and how tactical will they be in deciding which seat to vote in, uni or home.
In a very tight race that could be significant.
All good questions, and the only fairly sure thing is that very large numbers of young people won't vote. I don't know of any reason to think this will change.
That turnout factor is built into the pollsters modelling and predictions already is it not?
In Gorton and Denton they turned out it seems. If pollsters are underestimating Green voters likelihood to turn out then it could be entertaining indeed.
In inner city areas like Gorton where the population is younger on average then yes it could see bigger than expected Green gains from Labour. I don't expect many Green gains outside the inner cities and some university towns though
2 of the 5 Green MPs are in rural areas. Sure the inner cities are the most likely gains, but I expect to see gains in shire areas too.
Although they gained those before the Polanskigasm and hard shift to the left. Today’s Green Party might not do as well in those areas.
I think you will be surprised in May.
And I think you will be surprised when we get to a GE.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I don't know why Matt Goodwin thinks there's an appetite for his views about women's fertility.
There probably is...
...in a segment of half of the population.
(What happened to Professor Goodwin? Did he just study the incel right as an anthropologist, and break the golden rule of anthropologists- namely, Don't Go Native?)
Well I guess people do sometimes fall in love with what they're studying. Attenborough and those polar bears for example.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
Am I the only person on the left who would rather see a ReFukker elected than a Tory?
Short term pain for long term gain.
I can understand you take the line you would vote Reform over the Kemi led Tories. Would you still vote Reform over even a Cleverly led Tories?
Yes. Destroying the Conservatives as a political force is the objective, regardless of leader.
Reform would then destroy themselves.
And the right of centre voters coalesce around a new project. Or the uber right populists swoop in. The desire to crush socialists and communists wont go away just because the branding does.
Or the LibDems become the mainstream alternative to Labour, and everything further right is the political fringe.
No-one from the LibDems seems to want to replace Davey. Yet, anyway.
They've flatlined in national polling. They are giving ti achieve nothing in Scotland and Wales.
If they don't make sizable gains in England in May then it could be time for Daisy to pounce.
I’m not certain Daisy has a fundamentally different view as to how the LibDems should operate in this new political climate to Davey. A new leader would garner some publicity, but I don’t think voters are going to flock to the LibDems just because it’s Cooper rather than Davey in charge.
The party has built a brand as the sensible, grown up ones. Now, before Taz has conniptions I appreciate that’s not how they’re seen by many politicos, but that’s their brand nonetheless.
Therefore a calm, friendly succession process to Daisy when the time is right, with some cheerful competition in the leadership election, would be the most on-brand approach.
The right time is probably either 6-12 months before the next election, or immediately after but from a position of, hopefully, a solid Westminster seat count.
There's nothing wrong as such with Davey's boring centre-left centrism with a pro-Europe, anti-Trumo tilt.
It's just that wholly unambitious as a platform.
I fear the Lib Dems have been so successful in socially liberal, middle class ex-Tory seats that they have embedded that small-c conservatism into their ethos.
I would rather the party embraced more 'radical centrism' with ideas for reforms that go beyond spending a bit more money here or there. That could be stealing the Green's clothes and being the party of the environment and renewables. Or making a bigger thing of marijuana legalisation policy. Or being the party of housebuilding given how much Labour has failed there. Or any number of other things given more than 2 minutes thought.
We're at a time of unprecedented shift in the British political landscape and the Lib Dems just seem to be a side show clinging onto their 70-80 seats with no voice in the national political debate. I think it's worth rolling the dice and seeing if a new leader can make themselves heard.
LD voters are mostly Nimbys now so they won’t be the party of mass house building. The Greens are already the party of marijuana legalisation and net zero, Labour under Ed Miliband also the latter and for solar panels everywhere
Labour have decreased protection for protected species and are about to decrease it for protected areas, whilst reducing the need for Biodiversity Net Gain for damaging developments. Environmentalists are not going to be voting Labour, except by holding their nose and stopping Reform. The Conservatives did more for the environment than Labour. Not under Kemi they won't though.
That's questionable imo.
The energy saving and renewables program that Miliband has put in place is several times more significant than anything we have seen before.
And during the 2010s there were no offshore wind leasing rounds whatsoever.
There's a lot more to environmentalism than how we generate leccy.
Given the Planning & Infrastructure Bill (as was) managed to unite in opposition voluntary bodies, such as RSPB and Wildlife Trusts, professional organisations like the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and even the government's own Office for Environmental Protection, all stating that the P&I Act (as is) will significantly reduce environmental protection, I think we can safely say this Labour government are not environmentally friendly. That's saying nothing about reducing BNG from the Environment Act 2021 (which is about to be reduced even further) and a new Planning act in the pipeline to reduce protection on internationally designated sites coming soon. Labour's reputation is in the toilet with those that care about biodiversity, often cited as Labour's war on nature.
You say that like reducing the regulation burden which is stopping homes and infrastructure being built is a bad thing?
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
Steady on - have THREE children and get a four bed house.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
There's a certain kind of old-school Conservative who is convinced that's been the policy for decades.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
That's the sort of audacious idea that is needed. It's big enough that it provides an incentive to have children first, and then build a career once the children are in school.
Going to need to build a lot more houses - but then that was needed anyway.
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.
Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.
The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
Is Starmer proposing withdrawal from the ECHR? Deportation of those with settled residence status? Banning the Burka? Banning Muslim prayers in public? Ending the 2 child benefit cap only for those in work? Abolishing inheritance tax? Bringing back more grammar schools via free schools? Increasing oil production? Scrapping EDI schemes? Scrapping net zero? Scrapping completely the family farm and family business tax not just raising the threshold for it? Not that I have noticed yet Farage has proposed all of those policies
And that is why you are a de facto Faragist hiding behind a pro Cleverly agenda
What utter rubbish, Reform lead the polls, if I was really a Faragist I would already have defected to Reform! Cleverly also offers a more moderate One Nation style agenda than Kemi's more Farage adjacent policies anyway
Cleverly is a donkey with no charisma
As I am not a Tory I would be delighted if Kemi was replaced, especially by Cleverly, as it will reduce the number of seats they will win.
Kemi is currently projected to win about 50 to 70 seats, tactical anti Reform votes could hold more Tory seats
Am I the only person on the left who would rather see a ReFukker elected than a Tory?
Short term pain for long term gain.
I can understand you take the line you would vote Reform over the Kemi led Tories. Would you still vote Reform over even a Cleverly led Tories?
Yes. Destroying the Conservatives as a political force is the objective, regardless of leader.
Reform would then destroy themselves.
And the right of centre voters coalesce around a new project. Or the uber right populists swoop in. The desire to crush socialists and communists wont go away just because the branding does.
Or the LibDems become the mainstream alternative to Labour, and everything further right is the political fringe.
No-one from the LibDems seems to want to replace Davey. Yet, anyway.
They've flatlined in national polling. They are giving ti achieve nothing in Scotland and Wales.
If they don't make sizable gains in England in May then it could be time for Daisy to pounce.
I’m not certain Daisy has a fundamentally different view as to how the LibDems should operate in this new political climate to Davey. A new leader would garner some publicity, but I don’t think voters are going to flock to the LibDems just because it’s Cooper rather than Davey in charge.
The party has built a brand as the sensible, grown up ones. Now, before Taz has conniptions I appreciate that’s not how they’re seen by many politicos, but that’s their brand nonetheless.
Therefore a calm, friendly succession process to Daisy when the time is right, with some cheerful competition in the leadership election, would be the most on-brand approach.
The right time is probably either 6-12 months before the next election, or immediately after but from a position of, hopefully, a solid Westminster seat count.
There's nothing wrong as such with Davey's boring centre-left centrism with a pro-Europe, anti-Trumo tilt.
It's just that wholly unambitious as a platform.
I fear the Lib Dems have been so successful in socially liberal, middle class ex-Tory seats that they have embedded that small-c conservatism into their ethos.
I would rather the party embraced more 'radical centrism' with ideas for reforms that go beyond spending a bit more money here or there. That could be stealing the Green's clothes and being the party of the environment and renewables. Or making a bigger thing of marijuana legalisation policy. Or being the party of housebuilding given how much Labour has failed there. Or any number of other things given more than 2 minutes thought.
We're at a time of unprecedented shift in the British political landscape and the Lib Dems just seem to be a side show clinging onto their 70-80 seats with no voice in the national political debate. I think it's worth rolling the dice and seeing if a new leader can make themselves heard.
LD voters are mostly Nimbys now so they won’t be the party of mass house building. The Greens are already the party of marijuana legalisation and net zero, Labour under Ed Miliband also the latter and for solar panels everywhere
Labour have decreased protection for protected species and are about to decrease it for protected areas, whilst reducing the need for Biodiversity Net Gain for damaging developments. Environmentalists are not going to be voting Labour, except by holding their nose and stopping Reform. The Conservatives did more for the environment than Labour. Not under Kemi they won't though.
That's questionable imo.
The energy saving and renewables program that Miliband has put in place is several times more significant than anything we have seen before.
And during the 2010s there were no offshore wind leasing rounds whatsoever.
There's a lot more to environmentalism than how we generate leccy.
Given the Planning & Infrastructure Bill (as was) managed to unite in opposition voluntary bodies, such as RSPB and Wildlife Trusts, professional organisations like the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and even the government's own Office for Environmental Protection, all stating that the P&I Act (as is) will significantly reduce environmental protection, I think we can safely say this Labour government are not environmentally friendly. That's saying nothing about reducing BNG from the Environment Act 2021 (which is about to be reduced even further) and a new Planning act in the pipeline to reduce protection on internationally designated sites coming soon. Labour's reputation is in the toilet with those that care about biodiversity, often cited as Labour's war on nature.
You say that like reducing the regulation burden which is stopping homes and infrastructure being built is a bad thing?
Using nature based solutions could help with both the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis, whilst improving mental health by reintroducing the public to nature. All this whilst helping out with the housing crisis and making places people want to live, clean air and water that's healthy. Simple planning solutions like making sure biodiversity is considered in the very early stages (licenses to be sought at the same time H&S) can reduce waiting and even reduce costs. Or setts could be bulldozed, killing all badgers inside without even needing to bother to look. All for a tiny fraction of the overall price. It doesn't exactly appeal to a nation of animal lovers.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
It probably still is, if you don't mind having a 1970s standard of living.
And there's some middle class nostalgia happening here - Britain only became majority owner occupied in 1971.
Also in 1971 you could have watched this:
John Pilger - Conversations With a Working Man - World in Action (1971)
This is a film about working people and one working man - Jack Walker. Jack represents the silent core of this country - those millions of average Britons who feel they have no voice and have little power to control their way of life.
Hope you're all enjoying the beginning of the cricket season. IPL just started
Most boring "sport" in the world!
You make this point often Sunil. I disagree. I rank sports, from most to least exciting, thus: Rugby union Cricket Golf (but only the Ryder Cup) American Football Rugby League Athletics Snooker Ice Hockey Football (unless I amwatching a game my daughter is playing) Basketball Formula One Tennis
Surely any sport is exciting if you are invested in the result? I'm not a sports fan, I enjoy watching my son's U17 team playing football on a Sunday and I can get into international football tournaments and that's about it. I used to enjoy cricket but have lost interest in it as I've got older. Snooker was good in the 1980s. Cars driving round in circles, posh versions of football and anthing played primarily by Americans leave me cold. I have a deep loathing for golf having grown up in St Andrews.
The best sports are those which can excite you even without any emotional connection to either side. I can happily get excited about any rugby match. Conversely, even if I'm watching a football match in which I'm invested in the result - England or Stockport - it's not 'exciting' because to my eyes so little happens. Watching my 14 year old daughter play football is exciting but watching her play any sport is exciting. And watching her play rugby or cricket or athletics is more exciting than watching her play football.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
That's sort of true... you lived well until there was a bout of inflation, and then mortgage rates were 15%, and you were paying half your salary out every month.
Of course, on the far side of that, the value of your mortgage in real terms had dropped thanks to said inflation, so it wasn't all bad.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
I presume he means at present, rather than ever. Wikipedia has him as the sixth Jewish person to lead a political party in the UK, and that's not counting Tony Cliff founding the SWP.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I don't know why Matt Goodwin thinks there's an appetite for his views about women's fertility.
There probably is...
...in a segment of half of the population.
(What happened to Professor Goodwin? Did he just study the incel right as an anthropologist, and break the golden rule of anthropologists- namely, Don't Go Native?)
Well I guess people do sometimes fall in love with what they're studying. Attenborough and those polar bears for example.
Malinowski's interest in the South Sea Islanders was not always entirely academic.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I think the evidence points the other way tbh. As women have gained independence via education and an income, other options have come available like travel, going out, advancing a career. Substitution effect.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
Women don't need him to tell them that. Reform are politicians, in the business of obtaining power over others, not an advice line
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
There's a certain kind of old-school Conservative who is convinced that's been the policy for decades.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
Do they take it back when one of the kids leaves for college?
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
Do they take it back when one of the kids leaves for college?
Yes. Every so often, they write me agressive letters to that effect.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I think the evidence points the other way tbh. As women have gained independence via education and an income, other options have come available like travel, going out, advancing a career. Substitution effect.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
Though without a career, housing is problematic. Two incomes or bust…
The reason that people can’t buy is that the banks assess their ability to pay a mortgage at far less than they can scrape together for rent.
Many of the properties being sold by individual landlords, recently, are bing bought by larger organisations, not individuals.
Im sad that the Tories and Reform havent cone to see me after my fun chat with the LDs 3 weeks ago. I need canvass capers! No placards up anywhere yet round my way.
I’ve not been canvassed, but I live in a split Lab/Grn ward at present and both parties are leafletting hard.
Im somewhat surprised ive not had anything from Reform yet, im not remotely surprised the Tories havent bothered in a ward they get 2/3rds of the vote in last time the lazy gits.
I was out delivering Tory leaflets this morning
I've just delivered 900 LibDem leaflets but I've also been asked by Nigel if I'll deliver Reform leaflets in my ward. It's very tempting as it'll split the Tory vote.
Perhaps, on current polls it might also see Reform gain the seat
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
Do they take it back when one of the kids leaves for college?
Yes. Every so often, they write me agressive letters to that effect.
I guess you just have to secretly sabotage them so they have to stay home.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
That's sort of true... you lived well until there was a bout of inflation, and then mortgage rates were 15%, and you were paying half your salary out every month.
Of course, on the far side of that, the value of your mortgage in real terms had dropped thanks to said inflation, so it wasn't all bad.
My vision for the future -
“Oh god. The children have just won another house. Voucher in the cornflakes. That makes 8 we have. Can’t get rid of the things. Lenny the guy outside Sainsbury’s who shouts at pigeons already has 5 houses - says he wants a burger instead.”
Im sad that the Tories and Reform havent cone to see me after my fun chat with the LDs 3 weeks ago. I need canvass capers! No placards up anywhere yet round my way.
I’ve not been canvassed, but I live in a split Lab/Grn ward at present and both parties are leafletting hard.
Im somewhat surprised ive not had anything from Reform yet, im not remotely surprised the Tories havent bothered in a ward they get 2/3rds of the vote in last time the lazy gits.
I was out delivering Tory leaflets this morning
I've just delivered 900 LibDem leaflets but I've also been asked by Nigel if I'll deliver Reform leaflets in my ward. It's very tempting as it'll split the Tory vote.
Perhaps, on current polls it might also see Reform gain the seat
Not in Barnes!
Perhaps we Tories should go to Barnes and deliver Green leaflets then to split the LD vote!
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
Some years ago, a prominent medico got howled at for saying pretty much the same thing.
He was an obstetrician, IIRC
There was a somewhat surreal interview with him on the news. He was saying that he had late 40s women or even early 50s turning up and expecting to have children easily. Then he spoke of the age curves for health for the mother and child.
The interviewer was literally saying “but you can’t say that”.
I presume he means at present, rather than ever. Wikipedia has him as the sixth Jewish person to lead a political party in the UK, and that's not counting Tony Cliff founding the SWP.
Disraeli, Samuel, Howard, Miliband.
Who's the other? Serious question as I'm struggling to work it out.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
100 years ago most parents rented their entire life. Both couples earning has pushed up house prices too, if more women were stay at home mothers (or a few fathers stay at home dads) that would be less of an issue.
In the 1970s only 10% went to university, the remaining 90% had children soon after leaving school and their first job. Now 40% go to university but non graduates and working class parents still start having children earlier on average
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
Do they take it back when one of the kids leaves for college?
Yes. Every so often, they write me agressive letters to that effect.
I guess you just have to secretly sabotage them so they have to stay home.
Surely, if you have converted the bin into a secret flat, after 7 years you don’t need retrospective planning permission?
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I think the evidence points the other way tbh. As women have gained independence via education and an income, other options have come available like travel, going out, advancing a career. Substitution effect.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
Though without a career, housing is problematic. Two incomes or bust…
The reason that people can’t buy is that the banks assess their ability to pay a mortgage at far less than they can scrape together for rent.
Many of the properties being sold by individual landlords, recently, are bing bought by larger organisations, not individuals.
I don’t blame the banks for that. It’s a giant 25+ year loan. And if it were otherwise, prices would increase even more with more credit available.
I think you can split it into two camps - young people without enough cash/housing to have kids, and young people with enough cash to go have fun instead. Happily we’ve now done our travelling so are considering it, but we’re a high earning couple and fast approaching the age at which that will start to be difficult. You’d add at least another 5 years to that timeline if you were on £38k..
I’d also much rather spend £25k on scuba, wine and gravel bikes than stamp duty. I’m very angry about that - why am I getting smashed by tax for consolidating two flats into one in order to have kids? (Scottish rates are very high)
I thought East Ham and surrounding areas very quiet with unusually light traffic this afternoon.
I managed to cross the Barking Road TWICE without recourse to pedestrian lights or crossings which hasn't been the case for some five or six years.
Is there any indication people are restricting car travel because of the fuel price or availability?
VERY heavy traffic on the A12 heading eastbound between Gants Hill and Newbury Park all day! Traffic using our road as a rat run too!
Ah, I think I may know what is going on.
Forget conspiracy theories or "the end of days" - according to the AA, the North Circular Road is closed due to emergency repairs southbound from A12 Eastern Avenue (Redbridge Roundabout) to A118 Romford Road (Ilford Flyover).
That explains why it was so quiet in and around East Ham and Barking as nothing could come down from Ilford and points north.
That also explains the heavy traffic on the A12 eastbound as traffic was heading for Gants Hill, turning down to Ilford and coming into Barking from the Cranbrook direction.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
100 years ago most parents rented their entire life. Both couples earning has pushed up house prices too, if more women were stay at home mothers (or a few fathers stay at home dads) that would be less of an issue.
In the 1970s only 10% went to university, the remaining 90% had children soon after leaving school and their first job. Now 40% go to university but non graduates and working class parents start having children earlier on average
Though the issue isn't about buying a house being ruionously expensive (though it often is)... it's also that renting is only just affordable, because the market rent anywhere useful is "every last penny you have" because if you're a landlord, why wouldn't you?
There are some societal problems that are hard to fix, but building enough houses in the vicintiy of places where people work and want to live isn't one of them.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
I think more that women have one child in their thirties and run out of time for a second. The TFR is well above one, but also well below two.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
In my part of Newham, after a busy start to the electioneering week, it's gone a bit quiet but I suspect it will pick up after Easter.
The Newham Independents leafletted those at the Eid-al-Fitr prayers last Monday but we also had Labour doing some canvassing while the Conservatives went round the Hindu businesses and put up posters.
My Ward had a by-election in July 2023 - I'm sure we all remember the excitement. Labour got 61% and the Conservatives 27%. The previous May, at the local elections, Labour got about 60% in the Ward but an Independent who I think had connections to the emerging Mirza group got 957 votes which, while about half the Labour numbers, was still well ahead of the Conservatives, Greens and the CPA.
The Greens have no record in my Ward but I'm wondering if the Conservatives think they have a sniff if the Labour vote shifts to the Newham Independents. If half the Labour vote shifts to the Independents, it could be very close between them and the Conservatives on about 30% each - exciting?
I know the Conservatives, Labour and Newham Independents have three candidates - as to who else will be involved in my Ward, I've no clue though I suspect one of the main local Reform people lives locally.
The Greens seem to be targetting the two Forest Gate wards, Maryland and Royal Victoria.
To put it another way, the Greens are targetting the north and south of the Borough leaving the Newham Independents in the middle.
IF the opposition parties win their targets, we could end with Labour 29, NIP 23 and the Greens 14 at which point the hounds of Hell will be released (I may not be wholly correct about that but it would be fascinating to see how that result works in terms of council administration).
Purely out of curiosity, when did the Tories last have representation in Newham?
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I think the evidence points the other way tbh. As women have gained independence via education and an income, other options have come available like travel, going out, advancing a career. Substitution effect.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
Though without a career, housing is problematic. Two incomes or bust…
The reason that people can’t buy is that the banks assess their ability to pay a mortgage at far less than they can scrape together for rent.
Many of the properties being sold by individual landlords, recently, are bing bought by larger organisations, not individuals.
I don’t blame the banks for that. It’s a giant 25+ year loan. And if it were otherwise, prices would increase even more with more credit available.
I think you can split it into two camps - young people without enough cash/housing to have kids, and young people with enough cash to go have fun instead. Happily we’ve now done our travelling so are considering it, but we’re a high earning couple and fast approaching the age at which that will start to be difficult. You’d add at least another 5 years to that timeline if you were on £38k..
I’d also much rather spend £25k on scuba, wine and gravel bikes than stamp duty. I’m very angry about that - why am I getting smashed by tax for consolidating two flats into one in order to have kids? (Scottish rates are very high)
I recall someone being dismissive of the situation that people living in houses out in the sticks face…
But no. Actually, you have my sympathy.
It’s indicative of the farce of politicians complaining about falling birth rates. But making the path to actually having the space and money to properly support children as difficult as they can.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
Women don't need him to tell them that. Reform are politicians, in the business of obtaining power over others, not an advice line
I think every woman in her thirties is well aware of their biological clock.
The problem is both competing interests and also the immaturity of men the same age.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
@another_richard - that's a great video you shared. It's well worth a watch.
I'm impressed you managed to watch it in five minutes.
No wonder you've been so successful with that level of productivity.
There's lots of good programs on the BBC / ITN / Thames archive channels on YouTube.
Here's a similar one from that era:
North South Divide | Living in the 70s | The cost of living | inflation | This Week | 1973
An investigation about ordinary people's opinion about government price polices. In this episode we show the differences between the life style in two communities: One in Yorkshire are much more concerned about price policies affecting even the every day life compared to the wealthier south eastern community like Guildford where people think the government's policies are right, but they are affecting the housing market.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
I do find it sinister. It's dripping with patriarchal condescension. Is some of this because of who it's coming from rather than the bare words? Yes. But that's integral to understanding something. The message PLUS the medium. Both are relevant. Not (btw) that I'd be a fan of this sort of socio-natal stuff from any politician. Just put forward some policies to encourage men to participate more equally in the rearing of children please. Don't worry about 'explaining' women's fertility cycles to women.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
I think the evidence points the other way tbh. As women have gained independence via education and an income, other options have come available like travel, going out, advancing a career. Substitution effect.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
Though without a career, housing is problematic. Two incomes or bust…
The reason that people can’t buy is that the banks assess their ability to pay a mortgage at far less than they can scrape together for rent.
Many of the properties being sold by individual landlords, recently, are bing bought by larger organisations, not individuals.
I don’t blame the banks for that. It’s a giant 25+ year loan. And if it were otherwise, prices would increase even more with more credit available.
I think you can split it into two camps - young people without enough cash/housing to have kids, and young people with enough cash to go have fun instead. Happily we’ve now done our travelling so are considering it, but we’re a high earning couple and fast approaching the age at which that will start to be difficult. You’d add at least another 5 years to that timeline if you were on £38k..
I’d also much rather spend £25k on scuba, wine and gravel bikes than stamp duty. I’m very angry about that - why am I getting smashed by tax for consolidating two flats into one in order to have kids? (Scottish rates are very high)
I recall someone being dismissive of the situation that people living in houses out in the sticks face…
But no. Actually, you have my sympathy.
It’s indicative of the farce of politicians complaining about falling birth rates. But making the path to actually having the space and money to properly support children as difficult as they can.
That’s an exceptionally unfair characterisation of my position on rural households. I’ve explained it so often and in so much detail it must be deliberate.
Appreciate it you could retract it.
(TLDR: a support payment targeted at only heating oil users is deeply unfair on those households that have invested in other energy sources, and those that didn’t use heating oil in the first place. It also has the miserable effect of disincentivising others from making the switch away from fossil fuels)
@another_richard - that's a great video you shared. It's well worth a watch.
I'm impressed you managed to watch it in five minutes.
No wonder you've been so successful with that level of productivity.
There's lots of good programs on the BBC / ITN / Thames archive channels on YouTube.
Here's a similar one from that era:
North South Divide | Living in the 70s | The cost of living | inflation | This Week | 1973
An investigation about ordinary people's opinion about government price polices. In this episode we show the differences between the life style in two communities: One in Yorkshire are much more concerned about price policies affecting even the every day life compared to the wealthier south eastern community like Guildford where people think the government's policies are right, but they are affecting the housing market.
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
I think more that women have one child in their thirties and run out of time for a second. The TFR is well above one, but also well below two.
You can’t infer that from the TFR. It’s an average. It could mean a few women are having 5+ kids, and the rest are having none at all.
If you’ve got stats to prove that’s happening then fair enough.
I presume he means at present, rather than ever. Wikipedia has him as the sixth Jewish person to lead a political party in the UK, and that's not counting Tony Cliff founding the SWP.
Disraeli, Samuel, Howard, Miliband.
Who's the other? Serious question as I'm struggling to work it out.
This tripped me up a few years ago.
Wikipedia (and some other resources) list Sir Jimmy Goldsmith for his stint as leader of the Referendum Party.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
I think more that women have one child in their thirties and run out of time for a second. The TFR is well above one, but also well below two.
You can’t infer that from the TFR. It’s an average. It could mean a few women are having 5+ kids, and the rest are having none at all.
If you’ve got stats to prove that’s happening then fair enough.
The mean age of first full term pregnancy is now over 30.
Sure there are some women with 5 children, but a single child is far more frequent.
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Idea to make everyone (left and right) scream -
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
I was quite pleased when Trafford Council gave me an 80 litre wheelybin for general waste once we became a family of 5 rather than the standard 40 litre one.
General Waste - inventor of the dust bin!
I've only just remembered the 80s classic 'Dusty Bin'.
I guess this is fine because Israel is a democracy and has the most moral army in the world.
Media association condemns ‘violent assault’ on CNN crew by Israeli soldiers
CNN team detained while reporting on aftermath of attack by settlers in West Bank, Foreign Press Association says
An international media association has condemned what it described as a “violent assault” by Israeli soldiers who detained a CNN crew in the occupied West Bank this week.
A CNN team was reporting on the aftermath of an assault by Israeli settlers and the establishment of an illegal outpost near the Palestinian village of Tayasir on Thursday when it was detained by Israeli soldiers, the Foreign Press Association said on Saturday.
“The soldiers aggressively targeted the crew and Palestinian civilians present, pointing their rifles at them,” the FPA said, even after the journalists identified themselves.
“The soldiers repeatedly tried to infringe the CNN crew’s right to film, ordering the crew to stop filming and threatening to confiscate the camera.
“Later, an IDF soldier approached CNN’s photojournalist from behind, placed him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground and damaged his camera,” said the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and Palestine.
CNN confirmed the details in its own report on the incident, identifying the photojournalist as Cyril Theophilos.
The FPA, which called for an investigation into the incident, said: “This was not a misunderstanding … It was a violent assault on clearly identified journalists and a direct attack on press freedom.
“The use of force was excessive and dangerous. Pointing rifles at journalists and civilians, physically assaulting a cameraman and detaining a crew are actions that cross every line.
“Such behaviour reflects a deeply alarming pattern of hostility toward the media and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”
The military said the incident would be looked into.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, wrote on X: “The soldiers’ conduct and statements in this incident do not represent the IDF, go against what is expected of IDF soldiers and will be investigated.”
A section of older people are a danger to the country . Having screwed their grandkids with the Brexit vote they now seem intent on finishing the country off by voting for the Traitor party .
Which is the Traitor party? ..... Just so I know who I should be voting for.
Very funny ! Reform !
If people voted for Brexit but won’t vote for Reform then they’ll avoid internment ! The double whammy of Brexit and Reform passes the threshold otherwise !
A soft open prison though. The Maximum Security facility is reserved for MAGA voters in swing states.
MAGA voters really are on another planet !
Thankfully the UK remains relatively sane for the timebeing . We have neither an obsession with guns or religion or telling women what to do with their bodies .
He has some point there in that women are more fertile in their twenties and early 30s than their late 30s and early 40s though he could have phrased it a bit more diplomatically
I think women know that and don’t need Matt Goodwin to tell them, but maybe he has more experience of discussing fertility with young women than I do.
Rather than telling women to have children earlier, it would be more useful to think about why they rationally choose not to.
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
I'd say a bigger factor is the utter unaffordability of it all. There may be a bit of rose-tinted glass here, but for the twenty- somethings of the 1970s it was possible to buy a house and luve as a family of three or four on one income. Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Matt Goodwin strikes me as being a piece of work and I don't support his politics. What is however intriguing is the extent to which a sentence he writes, itself the sort of subject millions think and think about and is significant to millions of lives, gives rise to a million expansions, interpretations and distortions, all aimed at saying he is a bad person.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
It's also probably more accurate to say "many women are trying to start families too late in life". The problem isn't so much 38 year old first time mothers, as 38 year olds who can't get pregnant.
I managed to get a 38 yr old pregnant, and then did the trick again when she was 40! By the time she was 45 she’d had enough of me though
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
I guess this is fine because Israel is a democracy and has the most moral army in the world.
Media association condemns ‘violent assault’ on CNN crew by Israeli soldiers
CNN team detained while reporting on aftermath of attack by settlers in West Bank, Foreign Press Association says
An international media association has condemned what it described as a “violent assault” by Israeli soldiers who detained a CNN crew in the occupied West Bank this week.
A CNN team was reporting on the aftermath of an assault by Israeli settlers and the establishment of an illegal outpost near the Palestinian village of Tayasir on Thursday when it was detained by Israeli soldiers, the Foreign Press Association said on Saturday.
“The soldiers aggressively targeted the crew and Palestinian civilians present, pointing their rifles at them,” the FPA said, even after the journalists identified themselves.
“The soldiers repeatedly tried to infringe the CNN crew’s right to film, ordering the crew to stop filming and threatening to confiscate the camera.
“Later, an IDF soldier approached CNN’s photojournalist from behind, placed him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground and damaged his camera,” said the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and Palestine.
CNN confirmed the details in its own report on the incident, identifying the photojournalist as Cyril Theophilos.
The FPA, which called for an investigation into the incident, said: “This was not a misunderstanding … It was a violent assault on clearly identified journalists and a direct attack on press freedom.
“The use of force was excessive and dangerous. Pointing rifles at journalists and civilians, physically assaulting a cameraman and detaining a crew are actions that cross every line.
“Such behaviour reflects a deeply alarming pattern of hostility toward the media and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”
The military said the incident would be looked into.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, wrote on X: “The soldiers’ conduct and statements in this incident do not represent the IDF, go against what is expected of IDF soldiers and will be investigated.”
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
I presume he means at present, rather than ever. Wikipedia has him as the sixth Jewish person to lead a political party in the UK, and that's not counting Tony Cliff founding the SWP.
Disraeli, Samuel, Howard, Miliband.
Who's the other? Serious question as I'm struggling to work it out.
This tripped me up a few years ago.
Wikipedia (and some other resources) list Sir Jimmy Goldsmith for his stint as leader of the Referendum Party.
He counts because for a while they had one MP.
Anyone remember did George Gardner ever sit in the commons as a Ref MP? Seem to remember someone who used to be a Tory MP standing against the Tories for Referendum party at one point
Comments
Since then, the dishes have got smaller…
Trump: "I like to hang around with losers; it makes me feel better"
https://x.com/Number10cat/status/2037952191281955240?s=20
Blatant
Prostitution of power
https://x.com/sirwg202110/status/2037945766950383765
...in a segment of half of the population.
(What happened to Professor Goodwin? Did he just study the incel right as an anthropologist, and break the golden rule of anthropologists- namely, Don't Go Native?)
Will try and clear some time the weekend before and on election day as prob should do *something* to help my side.
In 2006, Labour won 41.4% and Respect 23.2% with the Conservatives on 14.3% and the Christian People's Alliance on 10.2%. Even on those shares, Labour won 54 of the 60 seats (Respect and the CPA won three each).
That's my benchmark for 2026 - will Labour go sub 40% and what will be the impact if the Newham Independents are polling around 30%?
It's not the hypnoboobs thing again, is it?
"I can get away with saying this shit cos I'm ME"
Zack Polanski
@ZackPolanski
For whoever needs to hear this I'm the only Jewish person to lead a political party - third largest in the country.
https://x.com/ZackPolanski/status/2037965284124836204
"EU plot to seize Chagos fishing rights after Starmer’s surrender
One of world’s largest protected marine areas at risk of ‘catastrophic’ exploitation by French and Spanish vessels"
"The European Union has been accused of seeking to exploit Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands surrender by securing fishing rights in the waters of the British territory.
Brussels believes the Prime Minister’s plan to transfer sovereignty “could further increase the relevance” of its existing fishing agreement with Mauritius by opening swathes of ocean around the Chagos Islands to French and Spanish vessels.
A report from the European Commission, seen by The Telegraph, reveals it is watching Britain’s Chagos deal with great interest.
The document, published this month, says the deal could open the door to fishing licences in a major boost to European-owned trawlers."
etc, more here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/61124e980439f9c7
"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance".
Ukip did the dirty and backed a Labour rainbow in return for collapsimg cabinet government for commiittee. It all fell apart in 2016.
My base expectation is a reverse of the Tory and Kipper (now Reform) shares and seat totals with Labour lower and LDs and Greens higher and an uncertain impact from Rupert Lowe in Yarmouth
Its down to (imo) the Lowe effect and how far up the 20s the Tories can climb in vote share
Reform a few short is central guess
The best one imo that he has done since his video about the Australian submarine scandal (in France).
He's sounds a little annoyed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4PA_-Ltj_U
I thought East Ham and surrounding areas very quiet with unusually light traffic this afternoon.
I managed to cross the Barking Road TWICE without recourse to pedestrian lights or crossings which hasn't been the case for some five or six years.
Is there any indication people are restricting car travel because of the fuel price or availability?
Then we might be able to change society so that women can more easily choose to have children at a younger age if they want to.
One thing that does come up when you listen to women is that men of a similar age aren't ready to settle down and have kids. Often a woman will have a long-term relationship in which the man is delaying having children for years.
And, of course, single mothers are a notorious target for the ire of the right, should a woman decide to have a baby when they can't find a man who is ready to do so with them.
So why isn't Matt Goodwin giving a reality check to men about their duty to be a father and have children? Why is it always the fault of women in his eyes?
Both + and -
Corbyn and Your Party are totally f*cked aren't they?
May as well just return all the membership fees now.
Breeding has become almost unaffordable.
Have a child and get a 4 bed house. Free.
Going to need to build a lot more houses - but then that was needed anyway.
Or setts could be bulldozed, killing all badgers inside without even needing to bother to look. All for a tiny fraction of the overall price. It doesn't exactly appeal to a nation of animal lovers.
And there's some middle class nostalgia happening here - Britain only became majority owner occupied in 1971.
Also in 1971 you could have watched this:
John Pilger - Conversations With a Working Man - World in Action (1971)
This is a film about working people and one working man - Jack Walker. Jack represents the silent core of this country - those millions of average Britons who feel they have no voice and have little power to control their way of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS1gdn6vAWc
They say she has been let traumatised by the 'Two Kitchens Miliband' row which erupted in 2015 when Ed was last party leader.
https://x.com/kateferguson4/status/2037969740660932860?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Of course, on the far side of that, the value of your mortgage in real terms had dropped thanks to said inflation, so it wasn't all bad.
This is what he wrote that has caused all the fuss:
"Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
These words put in softer tones, a querying and kindly expression and as an into to a discussion could have been said by Jenni Murray or Emma Barnett on Women's Hour on R4.
Nearly all the crits of Goodwin about this are completely ad hominem. There is a vast amount of more sinister material to attack him with.
Money and housing didn’t stop people having kids in the past. It’s largely a cultural phenomenon. I reckon it’s a u-shaped curve - the rich and the poor have enough money to do all these things and have kids, or only have kids, respectively.
It doesn’t help that the proportion renting has increased so much. Doesn’t matter how many houses you build if they are all bought by BTL landlords, as has happened over the last 20 years. Even if you had a low income and lived in a tiny flat, at least it’s yours - and that’s the bare minimum for considering kids.
The reason that people can’t buy is that the banks assess their ability to pay a mortgage at far less than they can scrape together for rent.
Many of the properties being sold by individual landlords, recently, are bing bought by larger organisations, not individuals.
“Oh god. The children have just won another house. Voucher in the cornflakes. That makes 8 we have. Can’t get rid of the things. Lenny the guy outside Sainsbury’s who shouts at pigeons already has 5 houses - says he wants a burger instead.”
He was an obstetrician, IIRC
There was a somewhat surreal interview with him on the news. He was saying that he had late 40s women or even early 50s turning up and expecting to have children easily. Then he spoke of the age curves for health for the mother and child.
The interviewer was literally saying “but you can’t say that”.
I forget who she was. But she was in her 40s…
Who's the other? Serious question as I'm struggling to work it out.
In the 1970s only 10% went to university, the remaining 90% had children soon after leaving school and their first job. Now 40% go to university but non graduates and working class parents still start having children earlier on average
I think you can split it into two camps - young people without enough cash/housing to have kids, and young people with enough cash to go have fun instead. Happily we’ve now done our travelling so are considering it, but we’re a high earning couple and fast approaching the age at which that will start to be difficult. You’d add at least another 5 years to that timeline if you were on £38k..
I’d also much rather spend £25k on scuba, wine and gravel bikes than stamp duty. I’m very angry about that - why am I getting smashed by tax for consolidating two flats into one in order to have kids? (Scottish rates are very high)
Forget conspiracy theories or "the end of days" - according to the AA, the North Circular Road is closed due to emergency repairs southbound from A12 Eastern Avenue (Redbridge Roundabout) to A118 Romford Road (Ilford Flyover).
That explains why it was so quiet in and around East Ham and Barking as nothing could come down from Ilford and points north.
That also explains the heavy traffic on the A12 eastbound as traffic was heading for Gants Hill, turning down to Ilford and coming into Barking from the Cranbrook direction.
Sell it to China
Give Trump something to really bellyache about.
There are some societal problems that are hard to fix, but building enough houses in the vicintiy of places where people work and want to live isn't one of them.
But no. Actually, you have my sympathy.
It’s indicative of the farce of politicians complaining about falling birth rates. But making the path to actually having the space and money to properly support children as difficult as they can.
The problem is both competing interests and also the immaturity of men the same age.
No wonder you've been so successful with that level of productivity.
There's lots of good programs on the BBC / ITN / Thames archive channels on YouTube.
Here's a similar one from that era:
North South Divide | Living in the 70s | The cost of living | inflation | This Week | 1973
An investigation about ordinary people's opinion about government price polices.
In this episode we show the differences between the life style in two communities: One in Yorkshire are much more concerned about price policies affecting even the every day life compared to the wealthier south eastern community like Guildford where people think the government's policies are right, but they are affecting the housing market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o__AcU-4rM
Appreciate it you could retract it.
(TLDR: a support payment targeted at only heating oil users is deeply unfair on those households that have invested in other energy sources, and those that didn’t use heating oil in the first place. It also has the miserable effect of disincentivising others from making the switch away from fossil fuels)
If you’ve got stats to prove that’s happening then fair enough.
Wikipedia (and some other resources) list Sir Jimmy Goldsmith for his stint as leader of the Referendum Party.
He counts because for a while they had one MP.
Sure there are some women with 5 children, but a single child is far more frequent.
Media association condemns ‘violent assault’ on CNN crew by Israeli soldiers
CNN team detained while reporting on aftermath of attack by settlers in West Bank, Foreign Press Association says
An international media association has condemned what it described as a “violent assault” by Israeli soldiers who detained a CNN crew in the occupied West Bank this week.
A CNN team was reporting on the aftermath of an assault by Israeli settlers and the establishment of an illegal outpost near the Palestinian village of Tayasir on Thursday when it was detained by Israeli soldiers, the Foreign Press Association said on Saturday.
“The soldiers aggressively targeted the crew and Palestinian civilians present, pointing their rifles at them,” the FPA said, even after the journalists identified themselves.
“The soldiers repeatedly tried to infringe the CNN crew’s right to film, ordering the crew to stop filming and threatening to confiscate the camera.
“Later, an IDF soldier approached CNN’s photojournalist from behind, placed him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground and damaged his camera,” said the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and Palestine.
CNN confirmed the details in its own report on the incident, identifying the photojournalist as Cyril Theophilos.
The FPA, which called for an investigation into the incident, said: “This was not a misunderstanding … It was a violent assault on clearly identified journalists and a direct attack on press freedom.
“The use of force was excessive and dangerous. Pointing rifles at journalists and civilians, physically assaulting a cameraman and detaining a crew are actions that cross every line.
“Such behaviour reflects a deeply alarming pattern of hostility toward the media and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”
The military said the incident would be looked into.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, wrote on X: “The soldiers’ conduct and statements in this incident do not represent the IDF, go against what is expected of IDF soldiers and will be investigated.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/28/israeli-soldiers-cnn-crew-west-bank-foreign-press-association
https://x.com/wingsscotland/status/2037825448940363923?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I am either going to wake up two hours before it is due to start or wake up an hour into the race.
Starmer needs to pass a law to stop the clocks changing during Grand Prix weekends.
Seem to remember someone who used to be a Tory MP standing against the Tories for Referendum party at one point
Ref 25.6%
Grn 17.8%
Con 17.8%
Lab 17.7%
LD 12.8%
SNP 2.4%
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vi