This whole insane short video captures the moral decline, cultural disaster and political incoherence of the YooKay
“This is Mohammad Baghdadi "Baggy" Khan reporting to duty as a newly elected Councillor in the Halliwell ward, Bolton. He looks composed in his Lamborghini Huracán Spyder, worth £100,000-£200,000, it does 19-23 mpg.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
Just remember folks that 1% is roughly £30bn a year. Not immediately but over time. It’s a hell of a lot of money to find when there are so many things to do with the pittance we have.
IIRC the UK defence budget is something like the size of the US Marine Corp. While they have an advantage of leveraging the procurement of the other services, the disparity of what we achieve is pretty severe.
Quite simply, as with much public spending, we get less for our money than many peer nations.
We need to up our game in public procurement. To start with - contracts.
Lost in the all the nonsense about 4 star hotels for migrants is this - that the government ended up paying premium prices for block booking run down hotels for years. Why did we not get better prices? In fact, often , some simple calculations suggest it would have been cheaper to buy the properties outright.
We need purchasing skills in government that we don't currently possess. A Ministry of Supply? If Tesco can construct a special negotiating facility where they browbeat their suppliers into lower prices, why doesn't the government have one. Staffed with well trained civil service negotiators, who live for this stuff.
Salaries. Anyone who is any good is working for the supplier, not the Civil Service.
You have two choices there.
1) train your own, within the Civil Service. You will lose a bunch to private industry, but just train more. 2) Pay more for specialists who demonstrate actual skills. Which might mean paying more than some senior civili servants. Obviously, this could cause the sun to implode, so we can't do that. 3) Pay them more as tenured contractors. Even the banks have worked out that it is cheaper to employe directly, but hey.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
How is it going relative to say the EU - because there are external (Iran) factors in play here as well as local ones.
France is around 3.6 and Germany around 3.0 compared to the UKs 5.0 % .
Even Greek gilts are less at 3.7.
Because of the weight of the ECB as lender of last resort Eurozone countries have generally lower gilts.
It's two things, the UK carries a moron premium and we have higher inflation expectations that the EMU because the government put taxes up on inflation sensitive areas such as NI and rates which get passed onto consumers.
The BoE is also still unwinding QE which creates secondary supply of gilts raising yields. The ECB isn't running such a foolish policy, only the BoE thinks it's a good idea to sell bond it bought at a high price for a much lower one.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
Just remember folks that 1% is roughly £30bn a year. Not immediately but over time. It’s a hell of a lot of money to find when there are so many things to do with the pittance we have.
IIRC the UK defence budget is something like the size of the US Marine Corp. While they have an advantage of leveraging the procurement of the other services, the disparity of what we achieve is pretty severe.
Quite simply, as with much public spending, we get less for our money than many peer nations.
We need to up our game in public procurement. To start with - contracts.
Lost in the all the nonsense about 4 star hotels for migrants is this - that the government ended up paying premium prices for block booking run down hotels for years. Why did we not get better prices? In fact, often , some simple calculations suggest it would have been cheaper to buy the properties outright.
We need purchasing skills in government that we don't currently possess. A Ministry of Supply? If Tesco can construct a special negotiating facility where they browbeat their suppliers into lower prices, why doesn't the government have one. Staffed with well trained civil service negotiators, who live for this stuff.
Salaries. Anyone who is any good is working for the supplier, not the Civil Service.
Same with all the PFI contracts over the past three decades, and the silly CS adverts for senior IT professionals on starting graduate salaries in the private sector.
But somehow there’s always enough money to pay the external consultants £000s per day.
-2.2C at the vineyard last night and likely colder tonight. Coldest May night since I started recording in 2022. That probably means well over 50% crop loss, depending on how much the cold was concentrated at the bottom of the slope (there the weather station is).
This fucking weather is abominable
I’m off on assignment to Northumberland on Wednesday
🥶🥶
We're used to it up here. Blyth, Seaton Delaval or Ashington fine dining?
It’s a short food trip. Lots of tastings, breweries, foraging, etc
I was really looking forward to it. I love Northumberland and I love these foodie things. But it will be less fun if it’s minus 5 and blowing a hoolie
I’m apparently staying in a place called Tempus. Which seems quite chic for The Far North. Alnwick
Nice. It'll be a balmy 12° and as much as 4° overnight. T-shirt weather.
Woe betide anyone who fancied a late spring break to Croatia...
Kinell. So literally the whole of Europe is freezing. Is this El Niño is it too soon?
I don’t know what that’s a chart of but it’s certainly not either surface temperatures or 850hpa temperatures. It’s not hot in Europe at the moment, it’s more just meh, and the coldest weather is here in Britain.
No El Niño impact on Europe yet, though we do get minor effects from shifts in the tropical Madden-Julian oscillation. In any case we’re one of the regions of the world least affected by the Pacific ENSO state.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
Just remember folks that 1% is roughly £30bn a year. Not immediately but over time. It’s a hell of a lot of money to find when there are so many things to do with the pittance we have.
IIRC the UK defence budget is something like the size of the US Marine Corp. While they have an advantage of leveraging the procurement of the other services, the disparity of what we achieve is pretty severe.
Quite simply, as with much public spending, we get less for our money than many peer nations.
We need to up our game in public procurement. To start with - contracts.
Lost in the all the nonsense about 4 star hotels for migrants is this - that the government ended up paying premium prices for block booking run down hotels for years. Why did we not get better prices? In fact, often , some simple calculations suggest it would have been cheaper to buy the properties outright.
We need purchasing skills in government that we don't currently possess. A Ministry of Supply? If Tesco can construct a special negotiating facility where they browbeat their suppliers into lower prices, why doesn't the government have one. Staffed with well trained civil service negotiators, who live for this stuff.
Salaries. Anyone who is any good is working for the supplier, not the Civil Service.
Same with all the PFI contracts over the past three decades, and the silly CS adverts for senior IT professionals on starting graduate salaries in the private sector.
But somehow there’s always enough money to pay the external consultants £000s per day.
Paying PAYE 6 figures would mean that people who *do things* get paid more than senior managers.
Somehow, there is a cultural opt out for contractors.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
Just remember folks that 1% is roughly £30bn a year. Not immediately but over time. It’s a hell of a lot of money to find when there are so many things to do with the pittance we have.
IIRC the UK defence budget is something like the size of the US Marine Corp. While they have an advantage of leveraging the procurement of the other services, the disparity of what we achieve is pretty severe.
Quite simply, as with much public spending, we get less for our money than many peer nations.
We need to up our game in public procurement. To start with - contracts.
Lost in the all the nonsense about 4 star hotels for migrants is this - that the government ended up paying premium prices for block booking run down hotels for years. Why did we not get better prices? In fact, often , some simple calculations suggest it would have been cheaper to buy the properties outright.
We need purchasing skills in government that we don't currently possess. A Ministry of Supply? If Tesco can construct a special negotiating facility where they browbeat their suppliers into lower prices, why doesn't the government have one. Staffed with well trained civil service negotiators, who live for this stuff.
Salaries. Anyone who is any good is working for the supplier, not the Civil Service.
You have two choices there.
1) train your own, within the Civil Service. You will lose a bunch to private industry, but just train more. 2) Pay more for specialists who demonstrate actual skills. Which might mean paying more than some senior civili servants. Obviously, this could cause the sun to implode, so we can't do that. 3) Pay them more as tenured contractors. Even the banks have worked out that it is cheaper to employe directly, but hey.
They do a bit of (3) - they have to as otherwise posts are vacant. Unfortunately it's a case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, so the contractors they do engage tend to be below market rates and no better than the permanent staff.
-2.2C at the vineyard last night and likely colder tonight. Coldest May night since I started recording in 2022. That probably means well over 50% crop loss, depending on how much the cold was concentrated at the bottom of the slope (there the weather station is).
This fucking weather is abominable
I’m off on assignment to Northumberland on Wednesday
🥶🥶
We're used to it up here. Blyth, Seaton Delaval or Ashington fine dining?
It’s a short food trip. Lots of tastings, breweries, foraging, etc
I was really looking forward to it. I love Northumberland and I love these foodie things. But it will be less fun if it’s minus 5 and blowing a hoolie
I’m apparently staying in a place called Tempus. Which seems quite chic for The Far North. Alnwick
Nice. It'll be a balmy 12° and as much as 4° overnight. T-shirt weather.
Woe betide anyone who fancied a late spring break to Croatia...
Kinell. So literally the whole of Europe is freezing. Is this El Niño is it too soon?
I don’t know what that’s a chart of but it’s certainly not either surface temperatures or 850hpa temperatures. It’s not hot in Europe at the moment, it’s more just meh, and the coldest weather is here in Britain.
No El Niño impact on Europe yet, though we do get minor effects from shifts in the tropical Madden-Julian oscillation. In any case we’re one of the regions of the world least affected by the Pacific ENSO state.
-2.2C at the vineyard last night and likely colder tonight. Coldest May night since I started recording in 2022. That probably means well over 50% crop loss, depending on how much the cold was concentrated at the bottom of the slope (there the weather station is).
This fucking weather is abominable
I’m off on assignment to Northumberland on Wednesday
🥶🥶
We're used to it up here. Blyth, Seaton Delaval or Ashington fine dining?
It’s a short food trip. Lots of tastings, breweries, foraging, etc
I was really looking forward to it. I love Northumberland and I love these foodie things. But it will be less fun if it’s minus 5 and blowing a hoolie
I’m apparently staying in a place called Tempus. Which seems quite chic for The Far North. Alnwick
Nice. It'll be a balmy 12° and as much as 4° overnight. T-shirt weather.
Woe betide anyone who fancied a late spring break to Croatia...
Kinell. So literally the whole of Europe is freezing. Is this El Niño is it too soon?
I don’t know what that’s a chart of but it’s certainly not either surface temperatures or 850hpa temperatures. It’s not hot in Europe at the moment, it’s more just meh, and the coldest weather is here in Britain.
No El Niño impact on Europe yet, though we do get minor effects from shifts in the tropical Madden-Julian oscillation. In any case we’re one of the regions of the world least affected by the Pacific ENSO state.
It's temperature anomaly - how hot/cold it is depending on what you'd expect for the time of year.
There's an obvious way to get Burnham into Parliament.
Starmer gets out the Special Podium - and calls an election...
Makes sense to at least offer the Party that option.
My working (betting) hypothesis* is that Kemi is a drag on the Tories (sorry Big G); Polanski is a flash in the pan; and Reform have a ceiling of about 25%-30%. The next government will be a Labour minority with Farage as LOTO. The choice for Labour is who is best placed to face such a LOTO. So if it is Burnham, then call the election now.
*Other theories available over the period to the next GE.
Kemi certainly isn't a drag on the Tories in London, the Tories had their best London results last week in terms of seats won since Theresa May was leader in 2018 and made gains in areas like Westminster and Barnet and Hillingdon where they lost parliamentary seats at the last general election. In the rest of the country though she isn't making many waves
Yes, London was unexpectedly good for the Conservatives and they were close to winning in Barnet, Enfield and Wandsworth missing out by odd seats.
To make net gains overall was an achievement though with the caveats they were trounced in south west London and Havering. 321 of the 407 Conservative Councillors elected on Thursday are in ten Boroughs - of the others, twelve Boroughs have just 86 Conservative Councillors and in the other ten Boroughs no Conservatives at all.
In essence, the Conservatives, like the Liberal Democrats, are becoming marginalised into areas of strength and reduced elsewhere.
It's also worth noting more than half of all the Conservative seats won on Thursday (407 of 801) were in London while the rest of the country (and you can spin this however you like) saw more heavy losses.
More importantly. There are large areas of the country where they are no longer in any meaningful existence. Their vote share is buttons and a sizeable way fourth or fifth place. Majority government is a long, long way off.
Fair comment. Saw this happen in Scotland. Surprisingly strong results in the southern blue wall (Galloway through to Borders) and the NE, but marginalised elsewhere.
Kemi had managed to 1) see off the existential threat of extinction, 2) establish some real centres of strength. But the third task, re-establishing the party as a national force and contender for govt, still awaits.
Also, has anyone been watching the bonds market? I know that they prefer Reeves to potential alternatives, but they're still putting the rate up. And up. And up.
Surely what's good for Truss is good for Starmer...
Just remember folks that 1% is roughly £30bn a year. Not immediately but over time. It’s a hell of a lot of money to find when there are so many things to do with the pittance we have.
IIRC the UK defence budget is something like the size of the US Marine Corp. While they have an advantage of leveraging the procurement of the other services, the disparity of what we achieve is pretty severe.
Quite simply, as with much public spending, we get less for our money than many peer nations.
We need to up our game in public procurement. To start with - contracts.
Lost in the all the nonsense about 4 star hotels for migrants is this - that the government ended up paying premium prices for block booking run down hotels for years. Why did we not get better prices? In fact, often , some simple calculations suggest it would have been cheaper to buy the properties outright.
We need purchasing skills in government that we don't currently possess. A Ministry of Supply? If Tesco can construct a special negotiating facility where they browbeat their suppliers into lower prices, why doesn't the government have one. Staffed with well trained civil service negotiators, who live for this stuff.
Salaries. Anyone who is any good is working for the supplier, not the Civil Service.
You have two choices there.
1) train your own, within the Civil Service. You will lose a bunch to private industry, but just train more. 2) Pay more for specialists who demonstrate actual skills. Which might mean paying more than some senior civili servants. Obviously, this could cause the sun to implode, so we can't do that. 3) Pay them more as tenured contractors. Even the banks have worked out that it is cheaper to employe directly, but hey.
They do a bit of (3) - they have to as otherwise posts are vacant. Unfortunately it's a case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, so the contractors they do engage tend to be below market rates and no better than the permanent staff.
Pretty obvious really. If you ave no skills in purchasing, and you try and purchase skills in purchasing....
I wonder if he'll get around to announcing funding for the defence review ?
The technological and strategic factors are moving more quickly than they can move the photos of rugged looking squaddies around in the .docx
A lot of vaches sacrées/wastes of money/cherished national institutions should be going in the bin but SKS has neither the political capital nor the courage required to do it.
That is also true, and likely the only way that the UK government can start to square the funding circle is to chuck some programs in the bin.
The problem is that there aren't enough things that can be dispensed with in order to fund everything else. An increase in defence spend is necessary simply in order to avoid losing a large slice of our defence industry. Once gone, we won't get it back.
Lots of it should go. There just isn't the industrial capacity to sustain everything while delivering appropriate systems quickly. That's why it's going to take HMS Glasgow 18 years to go from contract award to commissioning. Hence running the T23s way past their design life until the few that are left barely float.
GCAP will be exactly the same. Years late and massively over-budget to the great detriment of actual defence capability.
I remember somebody from Air Command commenting in the 90s when Eurofighter was pulled back from the brink, "The good news is we've saved BAE, the bad news is we'll have keep saving it."
The primary reason our shipbuilding is so inefficient is that we have hardly built any ships for two decades.
Either we invest for the longer term, or we give up. The T26 is an opportunity to do the former - but for now we seem to have signed over five out of the six in order to Norway, and the fate of the UK order is up in the air.
Similar considerations apply to GCAP. Either we fund it on a multiyear basis (rather than keeping it on life support every six months or so) or we abandon the industry.
You're arguing the latter; I'm advocating the former.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 3s Keir Starmer accuses Nigel Farage of fleeing the scene post-Brexit. Which will come as news to the thousands of Labour councillors who just lost their seats to him.
This whole insane short video captures the moral decline, cultural disaster and political incoherence of the YooKay
“This is Mohammad Baghdadi "Baggy" Khan reporting to duty as a newly elected Councillor in the Halliwell ward, Bolton. He looks composed in his Lamborghini Huracán Spyder, worth £100,000-£200,000, it does 19-23 mpg.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 3s Keir Starmer accuses Nigel Farage of fleeing the scene post-Brexit. Which will come as news to the thousands of Labour councillors who just lost their seats to him.
Isn't the primary objection of his opponents (like me), that Nigel Farage has been doing a bit too much? Such as taking 5 million quid bungs. And running a political party full of racialists*.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2m Joking aside, it genuinely does look as if the overnight trail really was the bulk of the speech. Literally nothing of substance beyond it. Some more apprenticeships. An EU student programme. Rehash of British Steel policy. Some Labour MPs were wondering if he'd have a rabbit.
Nationalisation of British Steel, subject to.terms and conditions....
Do we have any steelworks left to nationalise?
One left capable of producing virgin steel.
I’m not a fan of government owning the means of production, but there’s significant national security reasons for not letting it shut after several failed attempts at ownership.
Nationalising British steel is a relatively small symbolic thing. Starmer didn't drop the red lines. All he offered on Europe were words. Useless words. He needed to pull out the stops to save the party. This wasn't it. Limping ahead as usual. Somebody with bigger nuts need to be in charge.
Nationalising British steel is a relatively small symbolic thing. Starmer didn't drop the red lines. All he offered on Europe were words. Useless words. He needed to pull out the stops to save the party. This wasn't it. Limping ahead as usual. Somebody with bigger nuts need to be in charge.
It was always going to be nationalised as nobody is going to buy the plant. The original sale to the Chiness was well dodgy.
Comments
1) train your own, within the Civil Service. You will lose a bunch to private industry, but just train more.
2) Pay more for specialists who demonstrate actual skills. Which might mean paying more than some senior civili servants. Obviously, this could cause the sun to implode, so we can't do that.
3) Pay them more as tenured contractors. Even the banks have worked out that it is cheaper to employe directly, but hey.
T-Shirt worthy
Just more waffle
The bond markets should be hating this.
At some point him staying in post is going to be priced higher than a replacement....
The BoE is also still unwinding QE which creates secondary supply of gilts raising yields. The ECB isn't running such a foolish policy, only the BoE thinks it's a good idea to sell bond it bought at a high price for a much lower one.
His delusion is off the scale
Round objects
lol
But somehow there’s always enough money to pay the external consultants £000s per day.
No El Niño impact on Europe yet, though we do get minor effects from shifts in the tropical Madden-Julian oscillation. In any case we’re one of the regions of the world least affected by the Pacific ENSO state.
Somehow, there is a cultural opt out for contractors.
Labour mps need to be decisive and take action
All big calls right.
Effects will be 2027
Kemi had managed to 1) see off the existential threat of extinction, 2) establish some real centres of strength. But the third task, re-establishing the party as a national force and contender for govt, still awaits.
Brilliant
(Reckon I have limited opportunities to use that, so indulge me...)
He is an absolute melt isn't he. I wouldn't appoint him as a manager in my business....
Very proud that I voted for the other guys this morning.
Rather glad I didn't bet on that basis.
Either we invest for the longer term, or we give up.
The T26 is an opportunity to do the former - but for now we seem to have signed over five out of the six in order to Norway, and the fate of the UK order is up in the air.
Similar considerations apply to GCAP. Either we fund it on a multiyear basis (rather than keeping it on life support every six months or so) or we abandon the industry.
You're arguing the latter; I'm advocating the former.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
3s
Keir Starmer accuses Nigel Farage of fleeing the scene post-Brexit. Which will come as news to the thousands of Labour councillors who just lost their seats to him.
Have breakfast clubs at school been mentioned yet?
Is that it?
'king 'ell.
*Sorry, I just like this word.
@DPJHodges
·
2m
Joking aside, it genuinely does look as if the overnight trail really was the bulk of the speech. Literally nothing of substance beyond it. Some more apprenticeships. An EU student programme. Rehash of British Steel policy. Some Labour MPs were wondering if he'd have a rabbit.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/2053769338109194304
But then, you don't need much volume of steel for toolmaking.
I’m not a fan of government owning the means of production, but there’s significant national security reasons for not letting it shut after several failed attempts at ownership.
The really lucky involuntary volunteers will get *big* teaspoons to dig with.