I am off again to North America shortly, forget the WC, hotel prices have become absolutely insane there. £200-250 a night for a bog standard hotel and not talking for Manhattan.
Given the collapse of international tourism thanks to Trump that seems really odd. Anyone know what is driving it (other than greed, of course).
My guess would be cost of labour is much higher, most chain hotels are now a franchise model that get squeezed for fees / revenue share, US upper middle class still have money and still big demand for travel e.g. loads of national parks have introduced timed entries as getting overrun.
There are also prices set by algorithm to maximise profit over occupancy.
Another issue is AirBnB has got super expensive, so far less competition.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
Reform wouldn't need to overturn anything - primary legislation would mean that anything they can get a majority for in the HoC overrides everything else.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
I still don't see the evidence for your near future predictions. I don't trust Reform not to try to abolish the rule of law. Farage's reactions to questions over the £5 million, and his initial failure to declare it, are very Trumpian. They're not going to tolerate any questioning in government, just as Reform councils are currently shutting out local newspaper reporters.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
Reform wouldn't need to overturn anything - primary legislation would mean that anything they can get a majority for in the HoC overrides everything else.
Anything not in their manifesto can be held up in the Lords. I'd expect a Reform government to end up making a lot of use of secondary legislation and ministerial executive powers previously legislated for by Parliament.
Edit: Also shenanigans like designating legislation as money bills so that they can't be blocked by the Lords. I think there's been a little bit of that recently over the last decade.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
It would be very much in the Green's interest to sabotage Labour. A bit too transparent, though, to be maximally effective.
Why? If the Greens are a real party then it's reasonable for the Greens to seek election here, there, or anywhere. If they are just a cadet branch of Labour then there need to be some serious questions asked about last week's campaign finances.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
“Trump purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of Nvidia chips to China.” https://x.com/LeeHepner/status/2055088323757244656
The major announcement is that Trump is settling his own lawsuit against his own government (which was about to get thrown out of court, for a bargain $1.7bn. Plus an agreement from the IRS to quash all and any investigations into any of his tax affairs.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
I still don't see the evidence for your near future predictions. I don't trust Reform not to try to abolish the rule of law. Farage's reactions to questions over the £5 million, and his initial failure to declare it, are very Trumpian. They're not going to tolerate any questioning in government, just as Reform councils are currently shutting out local newspaper reporters.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
The mistake both sides make is assuming Reform are more ideologically coherent than they actually are.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, pensioner populism, anti-immigration sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Farage.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
The technical term for the basis of by blithe assumption is 'guesswork'. Elucidating (though I don't think we shall find out, as thankfully there won't be a Reform government) I would say this. Farage and his party would not dare take on the UK legal and judicial establishment. He would not dare take on the other parties, the House of Lords, and the UK middle class. He would not dare take on the civil disobedience stemming from millions of dull law abiding people (I think I am one). He would not dare disobey an order of the court. he would not risk the Supreme Court declaring an Act of Parliament to be null and void. (This lies within their unused and unusable powers.) It is not impossible that significant steps to abolish the rule of law would end up with HMKCIII getting involved.
A hospital trust has admitted that nearly 50 staff members looked inappropriately at the medical records of victims of the Southport knife attack.
The data breach happened at Aintree Hospital in Liverpool, where some of the injured were treated, in the days after the July 2024 attack but has only emerged this week.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. When you give people access to data they will look at it. People are very curious [aka nosy].
You can only prevent this by not giving people access to the data in the first place - e.g. tying access to the data to scanning the patient barcode on their ID wrist strap, or to a specific workflow (consultant scheduled to operate on patient).
This is why a digital ID system/ID cards as generally conceived by the British state has to be resisted. The result would be to make all your data available to every government employee at all times.
The Single Patient Record will be available to all health and care staff in real time, meaning patients get higher quality, safer, joined-up and more personalised care.
Robust protections will be built in, including different levels of access to reflect different needs and clear audit trails – ensuring the public can trust that their data is always secure.
Will be interesting to see what those "robust protections" are. Something like an automatic email every time your record is accessed would be reassuring.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
I really really really hate this nickel and diming / constant trying to upsell approach.
I had once in the US, charged me for extra for parking (I think another $20-30) on a $500 a night room, but no you werent allows to self park, ever, so I then have to pay, I mean tip, the valet, $10 everytime I want to either get the car out or return it. So you are nickel and diming me another $100 night on parking on an expensive hotel.
In Asia for that money, they get a driver to drive you to where you want to go for free.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
If Burnham wins the by election though it would be an equally devastating blow to Farage given Reform won most seats in the Makerfield area in last week's local elections. It will be high stakes for Labour and Reform.
If Burnham loses then Streeting will still launch a leadership challenge to Starmer anyway, blaming Starmer for the defeat having endorsed Burnham this morning to be Labour candidate in the by election.
The Green voteshare in Makerfield is also nowhere near what it was in Gorton
A hospital trust has admitted that nearly 50 staff members looked inappropriately at the medical records of victims of the Southport knife attack.
The data breach happened at Aintree Hospital in Liverpool, where some of the injured were treated, in the days after the July 2024 attack but has only emerged this week.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. When you give people access to data they will look at it. People are very curious [aka nosy].
You can only prevent this by not giving people access to the data in the first place - e.g. tying access to the data to scanning the patient barcode on their ID wrist strap, or to a specific workflow (consultant scheduled to operate on patient).
This is why a digital ID system/ID cards as generally conceived by the British state has to be resisted. The result would be to make all your data available to every government employee at all times.
The Single Patient Record will be available to all health and care staff in real time, meaning patients get higher quality, safer, joined-up and more personalised care.
Robust protections will be built in, including different levels of access to reflect different needs and clear audit trails – ensuring the public can trust that their data is always secure.
Will be interesting to see what those "robust protections" are. Something like an automatic email every time your record is accessed would be reassuring.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
Not using a private car is un-American. They'd probably charge you $50 a day for that.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh, just totted everything (Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Musee D'Orsay, Louvre, Einaudi concert, Moulin Rouge show, food, drink, flights, hotel) to £3.5k for the (Very busy) week we were there.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
The technical term for the basis of by blithe assumption is 'guesswork'. Elucidating (though I don't think we shall find out, as thankfully there won't be a Reform government) I would say this. Farage and his party would not dare take on the UK legal and judicial establishment. He would not dare take on the other parties, the House of Lords, and the UK middle class. He would not dare take on the civil disobedience stemming from millions of dull law abiding people (I think I am one). He would not dare disobey an order of the court. he would not risk the Supreme Court declaring an Act of Parliament to be null and void. (This lies within their unused and unusable powers.) It is not impossible that significant steps to abolish the rule of law would end up with HMKCIII getting involved.
If they pass a law as primary legislation, what stops that?
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh
It didnt used to be. That was part of the American dream, road tripping, cheap gas, cheap motel / chain hotel. Not very exciting places, but perfectly serviceable.Unless you want to be in a shoot out, they dont seem to exist now.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh
It is pretty much everywhere now adds a 15% to 20% service charge and then act like you're a serial killer when you refuse to pay it.
In some places, hotel wise, you easily add $100 a night to the room rate with all the non-optional fees.
I am off again to North America shortly, forget the WC, hotel prices have become absolutely insane there. £200-250 a night for a bog standard hotel and not talking for Manhattan.
Given the collapse of international tourism thanks to Trump that seems really odd. Anyone know what is driving it (other than greed, of course).
My guess would be cost of labour is much higher, most chain hotels are now a franchise model that get squeezed for fees / revenue share, US upper middle class still have money and still big demand for travel e.g. loads of national parks have introduced timed entries as getting overrun.
There are also prices set by algorithm to maximise profit over occupancy.
Has anyone ever done otherwise? I mean, less automatically of course. But why would a hotel have ever tried to make less profit?
There's video of a massive explosion in Kaspiysk, on the Russian coast of the Caspian Sea, with reports of explosions continuing for several hours and more than 30 Russian personnel wounded. The Ukrainian Defence forces are claiming that the targets there were a missile boat and a minesweeper, so it would seem that Ukraine is intent on dismantling the entire Russian navy, after rendering the Black Sea fleet largely ineffective (except as a series of underwater reefs).
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
I still don't see the evidence for your near future predictions. I don't trust Reform not to try to abolish the rule of law. Farage's reactions to questions over the £5 million, and his initial failure to declare it, are very Trumpian. They're not going to tolerate any questioning in government, just as Reform councils are currently shutting out local newspaper reporters.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
The mistake both sides make is assuming Reform are more ideologically coherent than they actually are.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, pensioner populism, anti-immigration sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Farage.
Now do the Greens;
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, youth populism, anti-Jewish/Israeli sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Polanski.
Underrated possibility that Burnham wins the by-election, seizes the leadership and becomes PM, then becomes the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat at the next election.
That would be even funnier if Labour win most seats too.
I'm rooting for Andy Burnham to win the by-election because it would put a spoke in the wheels of Reform. Derailing their journey to power is my absolute number one political priority.
However I see this whole Burnham thing as yet another sign of how our politics is getting dumbed down and obsessed with personality. Labour are desperate to change leader not because of policy direction but because Starmer can't connect. Something about him turns people off.
That's the 'change' being made. Swapping him for somebody with a more appealing persona. Hoping that will turn the polls. I hope so too. But let's not go thinking there's a bunch of affordable policies out there just waiting to be unleashed once the dead hand of Starmer is prised off the tiller that will transform how the great British public feel about life.
it's more that Starmer is indecisive and lacks courage.......
He spent a week boasting about not getting involved in Iran withouut telling us why.
Because Trump will be cross with him
So he ends up with neither credit for a courageous decision nor a principled one.
Same with the EU.
He wants to get closer to the EU without the Customs Union or freedom of movement.
Thereby reminding us what we were missing out on.
Why were we missing out?
Because he'd be breaking a manifesto pledge!
You want to tell him to just give us a proper leader who didn't come to office with his hands tied behind his back
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh
It is pretty much everywhere now adds a 15% to 20% service charge and then act like you're a serial killer when you refuse to pay it.
In some places, hotel wise, you easily add $100 a night to the room rate with all the non-optional fees.
Tipping is so out of control now, its not a tip, its a shake down. Want your next drink to arrive in thr next year, pay up.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
I still don't see the evidence for your near future predictions. I don't trust Reform not to try to abolish the rule of law. Farage's reactions to questions over the £5 million, and his initial failure to declare it, are very Trumpian. They're not going to tolerate any questioning in government, just as Reform councils are currently shutting out local newspaper reporters.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
The mistake both sides make is assuming Reform are more ideologically coherent than they actually are.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, pensioner populism, anti-immigration sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Farage.
But as with TrumpMaga the funders and backers are right wing idealogues looking to use the vehicle to get what they want.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Yes, of course they could lose.
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
Not just the Greens. Clearly the Tories are coming nowhere in that seat, it is going to be a race between Labour and Reform. I could see myself voting Labour in such a scenario, especially to get rid of Starmer.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Yes, of course they could lose.
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
If the Greens are not squeezed down below 2% (they only received 4.4% at the GE) then something has likely gone very wrong for Our Lord And Saviour Andy Burnham.
Anyway, I'm not seeing any formal notice of Josh Simons being appointed to an office of profit under the crown yet. Lost in the post? Are they hoping to get the nod from the NEC that Burnham will be allowed to stand before they go through with it formally?
Underrated possibility that Burnham wins the by-election, seizes the leadership and becomes PM, then becomes the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat at the next election.
That would be even funnier if Labour win most seats too.
I'm rooting for Andy Burnham to win the by-election because it would put a spoke in the wheels of Reform. Derailing their journey to power is my absolute number one political priority.
However I see this whole Burnham thing as yet another sign of how our politics is getting dumbed down and obsessed with personality. Labour are desperate to change leader not because of policy direction but because Starmer can't connect. Something about him turns people off.
That's the 'change' being made. Swapping him for somebody with a more appealing persona. Hoping that will turn the polls. I hope so too. But let's not go thinking there's a bunch of affordable policies out there just waiting to be unleashed once the dead hand of Starmer is prised off the tiller that will transform how the great British public feel about life.
it's more that Starmer is indecisive and lacks courage.......
He spent a week boasting about not getting involved in Iran withouut telling us why.
Because Trump will be cross with him
So he ends up with neither credit for a courageous decision nor a principled one.
Same with the EU.
He wants to get closer to the EU without the Customs Union or freedom of movement.
Thereby reminding us what we were missing out on.
Why were we missing out?
Because he'd be breaking a manifesto pledge!
You want to tell him to just give us a proper leader who didn't come to office with his hands tied behind his back
Well Starmer used to be indecisive. He's not so sure these days.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh
It is pretty much everywhere now adds a 15% to 20% service charge and then act like you're a serial killer when you refuse to pay it.
In some places, hotel wise, you easily add $100 a night to the room rate with all the non-optional fees.
Tipping is so out of control now, its not a tip, its a shake down. Want your next drink to arrive in thr next year, pay up.
I went to Boston in 2016, and in the hotel bar every time somebody brought us a drink they added a $5 tray charge plus a 15% service charge on top of that.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Yes, of course they could lose.
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
Not just the Greens. Clearly the Tories are coming nowhere in that seat, it is going to be a race between Labour and Reform. I could see myself voting Labour in such a scenario, especially to get rid of Starmer.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
The technical term for the basis of by blithe assumption is 'guesswork'. Elucidating (though I don't think we shall find out, as thankfully there won't be a Reform government) I would say this. Farage and his party would not dare take on the UK legal and judicial establishment. He would not dare take on the other parties, the House of Lords, and the UK middle class. He would not dare take on the civil disobedience stemming from millions of dull law abiding people (I think I am one). He would not dare disobey an order of the court. he would not risk the Supreme Court declaring an Act of Parliament to be null and void. (This lies within their unused and unusable powers.) It is not impossible that significant steps to abolish the rule of law would end up with HMKCIII getting involved.
Why wouldn't he dare do those things? He explicitly talks about taking on the UK legal and judicial establishment, the other parties, and (in not so many words) the UK middle class. He explicitly proposes abolishing the Lords.
Would he disobey an order of the court? Maybe we'll find out. His hero, Trump, does. He is dismissive of rules he's meant to follow, like the Parliamentary code of conduct.
A hospital trust has admitted that nearly 50 staff members looked inappropriately at the medical records of victims of the Southport knife attack.
The data breach happened at Aintree Hospital in Liverpool, where some of the injured were treated, in the days after the July 2024 attack but has only emerged this week.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. When you give people access to data they will look at it. People are very curious [aka nosy].
You can only prevent this by not giving people access to the data in the first place - e.g. tying access to the data to scanning the patient barcode on their ID wrist strap, or to a specific workflow (consultant scheduled to operate on patient).
This is why a digital ID system/ID cards as generally conceived by the British state has to be resisted. The result would be to make all your data available to every government employee at all times.
The Single Patient Record will be available to all health and care staff in real time, meaning patients get higher quality, safer, joined-up and more personalised care.
Robust protections will be built in, including different levels of access to reflect different needs and clear audit trails – ensuring the public can trust that their data is always secure.
Will be interesting to see what those "robust protections" are. Something like an automatic email every time your record is accessed would be reassuring.
There will be a visible audit trail, I presume, albeit probably not an automatic email.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Yes, of course they could lose.
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
Not just the Greens. Clearly the Tories are coming nowhere in that seat, it is going to be a race between Labour and Reform. I could see myself voting Labour in such a scenario, especially to get rid of Starmer.
And then you have Burnham.
Who will raise taxes and debt even more.
I want a government that works and has a sense of direction and purpose. There is absolutely no guarantee that Burnham would provide that but we know for a fact Starmer won't.
I am off again to North America shortly, hotel prices have become absolutely insane.
A colleague has said some hotels in America are now adding insane service charges.
Las Vegas apparently has become a complete joke for this, room + various taxes, non-optional resort fee + tax, parkingz etc etc etc. A £100 hotel room becomes £200.
They wanted to charge him $20 dollars a day for a car park access fee.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
The USA sounds bonkers expensive. Paris wasn't too bad pricewise tbh
It is pretty much everywhere now adds a 15% to 20% service charge and then act like you're a serial killer when you refuse to pay it.
In some places, hotel wise, you easily add $100 a night to the room rate with all the non-optional fees.
Tipping is so out of control now, its not a tip, its a shake down. Want your next drink to arrive in thr next year, pay up.
I went to Boston in 2016, and in the hotel bar every time somebody brought us a drink they added a $5 tray charge plus a 15% service charge on top of that.
There were always certain situations where you expected to have to play the constant tip game e.g. bars, but it.has spread seemingly to if you ever have any human interaction and totally tranactional of want their tip every single time not I will tip you when leaving hotel etc.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
I still don't see the evidence for your near future predictions. I don't trust Reform not to try to abolish the rule of law. Farage's reactions to questions over the £5 million, and his initial failure to declare it, are very Trumpian. They're not going to tolerate any questioning in government, just as Reform councils are currently shutting out local newspaper reporters.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
The mistake both sides make is assuming Reform are more ideologically coherent than they actually are.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, pensioner populism, anti-immigration sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Farage.
Now do the Greens;
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, youth populism, anti-Jewish/Israeli sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Polanski.
‘anti-Jewish/Israeli sentiment’
Conflating Jews with Israel? Isn’t that antisemitic?
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Either way it will be the start of a new political era.
If Burnham wins, he becomes Prime Minister in short order. If he loses, the Labour party will be plunged into existential chaos.
Also if he wins - esp if easily - it will puncture the sense of Reform closing in on power at the next GE. The momentum gained from their excellent local election performance will be destroyed.
I am off again to North America shortly, forget the WC, hotel prices have become absolutely insane there. £200-250 a night for a bog standard hotel and not talking for Manhattan.
Given the collapse of international tourism thanks to Trump that seems really odd. Anyone know what is driving it (other than greed, of course).
My guess would be cost of labour is much higher, most chain hotels are now a franchise model that get squeezed for fees / revenue share, US upper middle class still have money and still big demand for travel e.g. loads of national parks have introduced timed entries as getting overrun.
There are also prices set by algorithm to maximise profit over occupancy.
Has anyone ever done otherwise? I mean, less automatically of course. But why would a hotel have ever tried to make less profit?
I dunno. But there was a sort of default assumption that being full was best. So you could sometimes rock up and haggle for an empty room.
Mr Burnham, make your first policy masts up to 30m in height as PD
Given how roughshod mobile phone companies have been putting masts up - nope you will put them in stupid places without any thought.
Gibberish. You can’t put up a new site without planning and approval.
In any case, we make it far too difficult. And if you want fewer masts, allow existing ones to be taller.
You were asking for PD (Permitted Development) rights - which means bypassing planning as you well know.
So not gibberish - you are now talking about something utterly different from what your original post is about...
Yes they should allow masts under PD rights. What is your issue with them?
See my original reply to your first comment. That you then contracted by failing to grasp that you need planning and approval because you don't have PD rights while saying my post was gibberish.
You've shown that someone he is talking gibberish and it's not me.
Currently all masts need permission which is why Ray Pratt, a 92-year-old disabled amateur radio enthusiast based in Yarm, near Stockton-on-Tees ended up having to take his very thin 7.5 mast down as it towered over local homes.
NEW masts require proper permission, replacing or upgrading existing ones in effect don’t in practice.
Why is masts towering over local homes an issue? Lots of things are tall, like flats, or pylons. Who cares?
Rather impacts house prices as people love a nice few without a 20m mast contained within it.
Why are we not building critical infrastructure on the basis of house prices?
In any case, good connectivity improves house prices, not decreases them. This has been shown time and time again.
Do you not think high quality phone signal and broadband is important?
I saw where Vodafone wanted to put the mast for the M6 in South Cumbria - if you are that stupid the answer is Nope forever.
The mast would have been visible from Skipton - given that the hill is visible from Skipton..
So do you think coverage on a major motorway is not important?
Again, why does it matter if you can see it? Every mast is visible, they have to be.
We all have different values and ideas about what is important.
Many millions of people value the ability to be connected at every single instant of their lives to the rest of the world and all its wonders. Many millions of people value unspoilt beauty of nature and all its wonders. Many millions fall into both categories.
I know you fall into the first category as you have made clear. I fall into the third. I also believe from your previous statements on this that you have some connection to the Telecomms industry so I would assume you are predisposed towards their side of the argument.
I don't say either side is wrong even though I prefer one to the other.
There has to be some way to balance both of these competing calls on the landscape.
But it starts with accepting that the status quo is slanted ridiculously to a default “no”, or do you not agree with that?
Why can infrastructure built on existing buildings in cities even be rejected? Why is this not automatic PD?
No to be honest I don't agree with that. If you look at the massive proliferation* of masts over the last decade the it would be very hard to claim that there is not a huge slant in favour of approval.
This includes putting masts in places that are clearly unsuitable - blocking sight lines on junctions is a common issue. I agree that generally in urban areas the presumption should be in favour of planning unless there are listed building/heritage issues. Sticking one on Marble Arch would probably raise a few eyebrows
But just to remind you the comment I replied to was about [pputting one in the countryside of South CUmbria, not in an urban setting. Again, I agree they are necessary in rural areas - I live in the sticks and want a mobile phone signal - but there should be some thought given to the issue of the effect on the landscape on both sides of the debate.
*please excuse the language I use there, I don't actually disagree with the masts, it is just the simplest phrase to use to describe the number of masts appearing
A hospital trust has admitted that nearly 50 staff members looked inappropriately at the medical records of victims of the Southport knife attack.
The data breach happened at Aintree Hospital in Liverpool, where some of the injured were treated, in the days after the July 2024 attack but has only emerged this week.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. When you give people access to data they will look at it. People are very curious [aka nosy].
You can only prevent this by not giving people access to the data in the first place - e.g. tying access to the data to scanning the patient barcode on their ID wrist strap, or to a specific workflow (consultant scheduled to operate on patient).
This is why a digital ID system/ID cards as generally conceived by the British state has to be resisted. The result would be to make all your data available to every government employee at all times.
The Single Patient Record will be available to all health and care staff in real time, meaning patients get higher quality, safer, joined-up and more personalised care.
Robust protections will be built in, including different levels of access to reflect different needs and clear audit trails – ensuring the public can trust that their data is always secure.
Will be interesting to see what those "robust protections" are. Something like an automatic email every time your record is accessed would be reassuring.
There will be a visible audit trail, I presume, albeit probably not an automatic email.
But visible to whom and with what consequences?
If you sack everyone who takes an inquisitive peek at records they have no business looking at I'd guess the NHS recruitment crisis would be multiplied tenfold.
I worked at the then Inland Revenue for a few months almost a quarter of a century ago. I had access to the entire National Insurance and Self Assessment databases (not including the VIP data). We were regularly reminded that the records we accessed were logged. There was weekly news about the former employees prosecuted for assisting fraud of one sort or another - but I didn't hear about anyone getting into trouble for looking at their neighbour's tax records.
I just don't think you can put that temptation in front of people and not expect so many people to look that you can't effectively discipline them for it.
“Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow to Burnham”
Guardian
I do wonder if Burnham could lose here. It will an enormous blow to Labour at the worst possible time
Yes, of course they could lose.
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
Not just the Greens. Clearly the Tories are coming nowhere in that seat, it is going to be a race between Labour and Reform. I could see myself voting Labour in such a scenario, especially to get rid of Starmer.
And then you have Burnham.
Who will raise taxes and debt even more.
I want a government that works and has a sense of direction and purpose. There is absolutely no guarantee that Burnham would provide that but we know for a fact Starmer won't.
Exactly the same logic that led people to vote for Starmer over Sunak.
The full story is the coalition is with Greens, libdems and independents.
I think Kemi has to realise she's not in charge of local government, the councillors have to make it work. She may have to need to get a few pointers for possibly after the next General Election.
Mrs Badenoch dropped the ball here. I still remain unsure whether she considers Reform to be friend or foe. I suspect she isn't sure either.
As the next GE gets closer it seems clear that the question will distil into a fairly simple one of 'Reform government or Not Reform Government', and that this is really the subtext for non activists, who are mostly not very political social democrat centrists with better things to do than post on PB.
For the majority who don't want a Reform government this will become a more urgent than usual question. Reform is tied up with Trumpism, dog whistle ethnocentrism, noisy nationalism, 'ICE UK', plutocratic cash from abroad, people who post vile stuff on X and scapegoating. In addition offering belief in simple answers to complex problems. It is different in kind from the older knockabout of Tory v Labour etc.
Avoiding Reform government at this stage involves other more or less house trained parties getting strong support. Refinements come later.
Burnham, who I don't personally care much for, looks like being the best prospect of Labour beating Reform in actual seats, such as mine.
The greatest danger if he succeeds in the current project is a repeat of the ludicrous messianism we have seen before with Boris, Corbyn, Truss and of course Farage.
I think the mistake you make is thinking that non activists are mostly social democrat centrists. If that were the case then Labour or the Lib Dems would romp home at every election.
Depends how you define social democrats. Lab + LD/Lib is a higher vote share than Con at most elections going back decades, as far as I can see from a quick Google. Now, not all LD/Lib voters are social democrats (I'm not sure I'd take that label!) but some are. And the Con-Lib coalition is good evidence to not lump Lab and LD together*. But are social democrats the largest group in the electorate? I'd say it's quite possible and depends how they are defined.
*the subsequent collapse in support for LD suggests that lumping Con and LD together was also not welcome to many LD voters!
In general the political argument of the great majority in the UK is within the constraints of post WWII social democracy. We are finding and will continue to find even Reform coming into line, with the exception of their UK nationalism. The voters of Clacton are social democrats (welfare state+private enterprise+NATO etc) to a man and woman.
You keep saying this. The evidence for it remains poor. Look at MAGA. MAGA voters are just as reliant on govt largesse, but the Trump administration is absolutely not following a post-WWII consensus playbook.
I am taking no view about USA and MAGA voters. I am taking a view about UK political reality. Once allowance is made for self interest, such as our preference for other people paying tax, UK voters vote for a welfare state, private enterprise, regulation or public ownership of natural monopolies (preferring whichever is not prevailing at the time), NATO, NHS, free education to 18.
This is the essence of the post WWII social democrat consensus. The evidence of UK voters' support for it is so overwhelming that I mention it too often because the plain reality is so often denied.
UK voters have supported it, but we're seeing unprecedented changes in UK voting patterns, so we can't just assume it will continue, and that Reform and Reform voters will bend to the orthodoxy.
Generations of US politicians in the South have successfully sold policies that seem unhelpful to their working class voters' interest. This is a classic discussion in US political science: why do poor Southerners vote Republican? One proposed answer is racial identity. Working class, white Southerners get to feel they're not bottom of the pile because they're given a group below them. (See Thomas Frank's "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", 2004, and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land", 2016.) Reform are perhaps offering the same and perhaps it will work for them. That is, Reform can replace the post-WWII social democrat consensus with libertarian, small state, pro-oligarch policies fueled by status threat, scaremongering around immigrants &/or Muslims.
Yes, all this is possible but it does not derogate from what I have said, about which we are, SFAICS, more or less agreed. I don't assume either that the post WWII social democratic consensus is possible in the future, or that people in the future will vote for it if given other options.
My opinion about the future only goes to the next election and its subsequent 5 year term - about 2034. It is this: Reform will stand on ticket of social democracy (as I have too frequently defined and described) + GB nationalism + slowing down of net zero + deportation of illegals + limited inward migration + a modest degree of withdrawal from international treaties consistent with that. They will not return migrants to war zones but will loosen the concept of legitimate refugee. The young wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers living near me are safe. As are my doctor friends with ILR/dual nationality unless they rob a bank.
Unlike Trump Reform would not try to abolish the rule of law and separation of powers.
Reform will not form a government, though the policy I outline here gives them their best chance. Only the Greens might possibly stand on a platform moving away from social democracy towards a socialist dirigiste state. They won't win. The rest will stand on social democratic platforms, as they always do, with the usual variety of emphases. If by any chance one of them were likely to be competent I will vote for them.
Your basis for that blithe assertion is?
This is someone who has just taken a £5 million bribe. He's not going to do things by the book.
We don't have separation of powers in the UK, and nor should we.
Comments
A bit too transparent, though, to be maximally effective.
Their policy pronouncements have expanded beyond deporting those illegally in the country to much wider and ultimately deporting many who are, as of now, here legally, including to war zones. They're not going to just "loosen the concept of legitimate refugee": they're basically abolishing the concept.
They're not talking about "slowing down" net zero. They're going with completely abolishing it, and plenty of climate change denial. They're also courting anxi-vaxx stuff (shades of MAGA again).
Where they will stand on tax and spend, on social democracy, is less clear. Probably lots of unfunded commitments! They've committed to the triple lock, but I think they'll slash benefits to the working age. They're working hard to get into government because much of the party (rather than its supporters) wants to deliver significant tax cuts to the rich. Christopher Harborne hasn't given them many millions of pounds in return for continuing a social democrat consensus.
Your repeated assertions that Reform will basically stick to a social democratic consensus until 2034 do not appear to me to be based in evidence. What we see is a party that strongly models itself after Trump.
Edit: Also shenanigans like designating legislation as money bills so that they can't be blocked by the Lords. I think there's been a little bit of that recently over the last decade.
Despite him not using the car park, he used Ubers/local taxis.
“Trump purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of Nvidia chips to China.”
https://x.com/LeeHepner/status/2055088323757244656
The major announcement is that Trump is settling his own lawsuit against his own government (which was about to get thrown out of court, for a bargain $1.7bn.
Plus an agreement from the IRS to quash all and any investigations into any of his tax affairs.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, pensioner populism, anti-immigration sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Farage.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/better-patient-care-as-nhs-set-to-introduce-single-patient-record
Robust protections will be built in, including different levels of access to reflect different needs and clear audit trails – ensuring the public can trust that their data is always secure.
Will be interesting to see what those "robust protections" are. Something like an automatic email every time your record is accessed would be reassuring.
I had once in the US, charged me for extra for parking (I think another $20-30) on a $500 a night room, but no you werent allows to self park, ever, so I then have to pay, I mean tip, the valet, $10 everytime I want to either get the car out or return it. So you are nickel and diming me another $100 night on parking on an expensive hotel.
In Asia for that money, they get a driver to drive you to where you want to go for free.
If Burnham loses then Streeting will still launch a leadership challenge to Starmer anyway, blaming Starmer for the defeat having endorsed Burnham this morning to be Labour candidate in the by election.
The Green voteshare in Makerfield is also nowhere near what it was in Gorton
Yeah right
https://x.com/PeterMakintps/status/2055274932854993303
In some places, hotel wise, you easily add $100 a night to the room rate with all the non-optional fees.
They are currently less a fully formed philosophy than a rolling coalition of grievance, youth populism, anti-Jewish/Israeli sentiment and “why does nothing work properly anymore?” vibes orbiting around Polanski.
He spent a week boasting about not getting involved in Iran withouut telling us why.
Because Trump will be cross with him
So he ends up with neither credit for a courageous decision nor a principled one.
Same with the EU.
He wants to get closer to the EU without the Customs Union or freedom of movement.
Thereby reminding us what we were missing out on.
Why were we missing out?
Because he'd be breaking a manifesto pledge!
You want to tell him to just give us a proper leader who didn't come to office with his hands tied behind his back
It's a challenging seat for Labour.
That said... it is not fertile Green territory. I would expect them to get squeezed hard.
If Burnham wins, he becomes Prime Minister in short order. If he loses, the Labour party will be plunged into existential chaos.
Anyway, I'm not seeing any formal notice of Josh Simons being appointed to an office of profit under the crown yet. Lost in the post? Are they hoping to get the nod from the NEC that Burnham will be allowed to stand before they go through with it formally?
Who will raise taxes and debt even more.
Would he disobey an order of the court? Maybe we'll find out. His hero, Trump, does. He is dismissive of rules he's meant to follow, like the Parliamentary code of conduct.
NEW THREAD
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2055155949242114463
Conflating Jews with Israel? Isn’t that antisemitic?
It really is a huge event.
I would vote for Burnham not least because I want Farage to lose but also it would see Starmer as an ex PM
This includes putting masts in places that are clearly unsuitable - blocking sight lines on junctions is a common issue. I agree that generally in urban areas the presumption should be in favour of planning unless there are listed building/heritage issues. Sticking one on Marble Arch would probably raise a few eyebrows
But just to remind you the comment I replied to was about [pputting one in the countryside of South CUmbria, not in an urban setting. Again, I agree they are necessary in rural areas - I live in the sticks and want a mobile phone signal - but there should be some thought given to the issue of the effect on the landscape on both sides of the debate.
*please excuse the language I use there, I don't actually disagree with the masts, it is just the simplest phrase to use to describe the number of masts appearing
If you sack everyone who takes an inquisitive peek at records they have no business looking at I'd guess the NHS recruitment crisis would be multiplied tenfold.
I worked at the then Inland Revenue for a few months almost a quarter of a century ago. I had access to the entire National Insurance and Self Assessment databases (not including the VIP data). We were regularly reminded that the records we accessed were logged. There was weekly news about the former employees prosecuted for assisting fraud of one sort or another - but I didn't hear about anyone getting into trouble for looking at their neighbour's tax records.
I just don't think you can put that temptation in front of people and not expect so many people to look that you can't effectively discipline them for it.
It's projection.