Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
I saw something recently that said the real rip off is coming from the massive multinational suppliers who bought up all the well known brands and make a packet from people's loyalty to traditional product names.
One unfortunate recent trend (and I don't want it price-fixed, but it would be a better target) is the widening of the unit price difference when buying small and large quantities. I may be misremembering, but I don't think that 20 years ago the difference in unit price between buying milk 1 pint at a time and 4 pints at a time or eggs six at a time and twelve at a time was so great.
Our of interest, what's driving this? It's probably not direct profiteering, the market is too competitive. I suspect that it's more about the handling/packaging/transaction cost. The pint of milk itself costs about 20p, but by the time it's been bottled, put on the shelf and run through the checkout, the supermarket probably only makes 5p profit on the 90p sale. Because these costs don't scale linearly, selling an extra pint in the bottle probably only increases cost by 25-30p. Thus 2 pints of milk is only about £1.20, and 4 pints about £1.70.
FWIW, I looked up the cost of a 1 pint bottle, then estimated the other numbers, before checking the other prices to see if I was talking bunkum, and was ammused to find I was pretty much spot on.
I'm not sure there is much which can be done about this other than trying to drive down transaction costs (eg card payment fees).
Getting some food from Marks in Manchester Airport last week
500ml of pink Lemonade was £1.90 A 1 litre (albeit room temperature) bottle was £0.95
So some things are priced simply because they can as they serve slightly different markets / needs.
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
I need some help: It occurred to me recently that the Loser has been, more and more, following some policies more common on the left than the right in both the UK and the US. For example, taking shares in private companies such as Intel and US Steel. For example, cozying up to Putin and North Korea's Kim (!). And so on.
Am I correct in thinking that, for example, Corbyn would -- at least in part -- sympathize with some recent Trump policies? And if I recall correctly, some leaders of the SNP have had closer ties to Russia than any decent person should have.
If I am completely wrong, please feel free to say so. If not, I would be interested in examples illustrating that argument.
Up to a point. America has always had some state control we think is odd, such as state-owned off licences (or liquor stores). Part state ownership is common in mainland Europe. Britain is generally all-or-nothing because of historic ideological divides.
People need to do jailtime for HS2. Such a colossal waste of public money is criminal. 100 hundred fucking billion pounds. Ten times what an equivalent railway elsewhere would cost
Until those responsible face actual and severe repercussions for their incompetence, it will keep on happening
When it comes to big projects we have to either:
a) Ride roughshod over objections
b) If we aren't prepared to do a, then ditch the whole thing and focus on something else.
How are decisions made when it comes to big projects? Scale of objections should be baked in from the start.
The other thing is to engineer the projects to match the politics.
It is now clear that it would have been cheaper and quicker to deep* tunnel 100% of HS2.
See the tide of battery storage. Which is not the best option, maybe. But doable *today* and close to unstoppable on small scale deployments.
I need some help: It occurred to me recently that the Loser has been, more and more, following some policies more common on the left than the right in both the UK and the US. For example, taking shares in private companies such as Intel and US Steel. For example, cozying up to Putin and North Korea's Kim (!). And so on.
Am I correct in thinking that, for example, Corbyn would -- at least in part -- sympathize with some recent Trump policies? And if I recall correctly, some leaders of the SNP have had closer ties to Russia than any decent person should have.
If I am completely wrong, please feel free to say so. If not, I would be interested in examples illustrating that argument.
Populism of left and right has always converged on commanding the economy.
Got to say that the loosening of sanctions on Russian oil /LNG is the single most disgraceful episode of this government (so far). It’s morally wrong, it yet again rewards those who have not transitioned to EVs and renewables, and it shovels money towards one of our enemies.
Putin has won, and the government has facilitated it. We can only be deeply grateful to the Ukrainians for continuing to smash their infrastructure.
The next step will be trying to leverage the Ukrainians to stop smashing Russian refineries.
As I understand it, they are destroying the Russian oil facilities faster than they can be rebuilt or other parts pushed to greater activity. So the Russians are facing reducing capacity.
If the Russians don’t want their oil facilities destroyed they can stop their war on Ukraine.
That’s something I support.
But the government has decided to green light Russian oil imports.
If the Ukrainians blow up the oil refineries, the terminals and sink the ships, then they won’t. Ingesting that oil.
So the next logical step on the road they are walking down is to pressure Ukraine to stop.
There's no evidence that they are doing that, though, is there?
No direct evidence, but I don't think it's a massive leap from what we do know. We know these things, three.
1. The Biden administration persuaded Ukraine to halt attacks on Russian oil infrastructure before the 2024 Presidential election. 2. Britain has just announced a waiver on imports of jet fuel and diesel refined from Russian crude, thereby implicitly creating a British interest in continued exports of Russian crude. 3. Following earlier attacks on oil export terminals on the Baltic and Black Seas, the focus of Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure has moved to the Moscow region.
I think it's at least worth a few questions for the British government. How much money do they expect Russia to receive as a result of the change in British policy? Is the British government putting any pressure on Ukraine in relation to its choice of targets?
I concur that there are questions for the British government around their policy and what they're doing. However, it seems to me entirely speculative to jump to any presumption that British policy is or will be to ask the Ukrainians to stop attacking things. (What the Biden administration was doing earlier seems of very limited relevance: that was Biden, running a different country, and with a policy for different reasons.)
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
I saw something recently that said the real rip off is coming from the massive multinational suppliers who bought up all the well known brands and make a packet from people's loyalty to traditional product names.
One unfortunate recent trend (and I don't want it price-fixed, but it would be a better target) is the widening of the unit price difference when buying small and large quantities. I may be misremembering, but I don't think that 20 years ago the difference in unit price between buying milk 1 pint at a time and 4 pints at a time or eggs six at a time and twelve at a time was so great.
Our of interest, what's driving this? It's probably not direct profiteering, the market is too competitive. I suspect that it's more about the handling/packaging/transaction cost. The pint of milk itself costs about 20p, but by the time it's been bottled, put on the shelf and run through the checkout, the supermarket probably only makes 5p profit on the 90p sale. Because these costs don't scale linearly, selling an extra pint in the bottle probably only increases cost by 25-30p. Thus 2 pints of milk is only about £1.20, and 4 pints about £1.70.
FWIW, I looked up the cost of a 1 pint bottle, then estimated the other numbers, before checking the other prices to see if I was talking bunkum, and was ammused to find I was pretty much spot on.
I'm not sure there is much which can be done about this other than trying to drive down transaction costs (eg card payment fees).
That’s because milk isn’t just “milk”
It’s a processed product delivered to a supermarket shelf.
I need some help: It occurred to me recently that the Loser has been, more and more, following some policies more common on the left than the right in both the UK and the US. For example, taking shares in private companies such as Intel and US Steel. For example, cozying up to Putin and North Korea's Kim (!). And so on.
Am I correct in thinking that, for example, Corbyn would -- at least in part -- sympathize with some recent Trump policies? And if I recall correctly, some leaders of the SNP have had closer ties to Russia than any decent person should have.
If I am completely wrong, please feel free to say so. If not, I would be interested in examples illustrating that argument.
I don't think any of Trump can be understood on the left/right axis. There's no governing ideology. He simply does things that amuse or gratify or empower or enrich himself. All your examples fall into those categories.
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think you will find @HYUFD is now a Kemi supporter
Trump purges another Republican critic with Massie defeat in Kentucky
U.S. President Donald Trump scored another victory in his campaign to punish disloyal Republicans on Tuesday as Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary race, underscoring the risks for lawmakers who defy Trump.
The voters of Kentucky’s 4th District decided to get rid of the guy who voted against the budget in Congress, and was more interested in personal grandstanding than representing the views of his constituents.
Or it shows GOP activists and PACs have been captured by Trump.
Sandpit is remarkably loyal to Trump and MAGA, in the face of all comers and even when their ideology is at odds with his (e.g. Ukraine). I’m not sure there’s a more completely, full-spectrum loyal poster to an individual politician or movement on PB. Not even BigG. If anything the norm is for posters conveniently to disavow allegiance, St Peter style, when the cock crows.
Not at all, I don’t even particularly like Trump. I just push back against the prevailing narritive that everything he does is bad, or that he’s only doing something because of some ulterior motive.
I’m firmly of the opinion that, were he to announce a cure for cancer, the US media and most of this forum would be trying to present it negatively.
I’ve definitely critised Trump on Ukraine, as I did with Biden before him. They have both been weak in different ways, and I don’t like Bessent’s trading of Russian oil just as I don’t like Miliband’s doing the same.
My over-riding opinion on US politics is on the other side, that the Democrats have been captured by wokery, communism, and increasingly antisemitism. They’re starting to look like the Greens in the UK, with the mayor of New York talking about opening state-run grocery stores, and the mayor of LA talking about giving free dentistry to illegal immigrant homeless meth-heads living on the streets.
Anyway, work to do!
Come on, you know PB
If you’re not participating in the daily hate on Trump you’re clearly a fan. It’s that binary
The $1.776 billion of US tax payers money to compensate the Jan 6th rioters combined with an agreement to never audit and Trump or Trump family tax return is one of the most blatent bits of corruption in modern history.
But I suppose we need to "both sides" it. After all corruption, golden statues and a Jesus complex are all fine and dandy if you bash the Libs.
One of the oddest things is how some of the PBers most interested in Hunter Biden's scandals (which had only the most tenuous links to his father) seem to take little or no interest in the blatant, direct and corrupt involvement of Trump's family in government.
Dogs and tails.
While the Trump brats are grifting on a record scale they're not the puppet master Hunter Biden was.
Nor do I remember anyone defending the Trump brats and claiming they were victims of a political witch hunt.
Sorry, what??? Hunter Biden is a puppet master??????
Trump purges another Republican critic with Massie defeat in Kentucky
U.S. President Donald Trump scored another victory in his campaign to punish disloyal Republicans on Tuesday as Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary race, underscoring the risks for lawmakers who defy Trump.
The voters of Kentucky’s 4th District decided to get rid of the guy who voted against the budget in Congress, and was more interested in personal grandstanding than representing the views of his constituents.
Or it shows GOP activists and PACs have been captured by Trump.
Sandpit is remarkably loyal to Trump and MAGA, in the face of all comers and even when their ideology is at odds with his (e.g. Ukraine). I’m not sure there’s a more completely, full-spectrum loyal poster to an individual politician or movement on PB. Not even BigG. If anything the norm is for posters conveniently to disavow allegiance, St Peter style, when the cock crows.
Not at all, I don’t even particularly like Trump. I just push back against the prevailing narritive that everything he does is bad, or that he’s only doing something because of some ulterior motive.
I’m firmly of the opinion that, were he to announce a cure for cancer, the US media and most of this forum would be trying to present it negatively.
I’ve definitely critised Trump on Ukraine, as I did with Biden before him. They have both been weak in different ways, and I don’t like Bessent’s trading of Russian oil just as I don’t like Miliband’s doing the same.
My over-riding opinion on US politics is on the other side, that the Democrats have been captured by wokery, communism, and increasingly antisemitism. They’re starting to look like the Greens in the UK, with the mayor of New York talking about opening state-run grocery stores, and the mayor of LA talking about giving free dentistry to illegal immigrant homeless meth-heads living on the streets.
Anyway, work to do!
Come on, you know PB
If you’re not participating in the daily hate on Trump you’re clearly a fan. It’s that binary
The $1.776 billion of US tax payers money to compensate the Jan 6th rioters combined with an agreement to never audit and Trump or Trump family tax return is one of the most blatent bits of corruption in modern history.
But I suppose we need to "both sides" it. After all corruption, golden statues and a Jesus complex are all fine and dandy if you bash the Libs.
One of the oddest things is how some of the PBers most interested in Hunter Biden's scandals (which had only the most tenuous links to his father) seem to take little or no interest in the blatant, direct and corrupt involvement of Trump's family in government.
Dogs and tails.
While the Trump brats are grifting on a record scale they're not the puppet master Hunter Biden was.
Nor do I remember anyone defending the Trump brats and claiming they were victims of a political witch hunt.
Sorry, what??? Hunter Biden is a puppet master??????
Hunter Biden is a grifting twat. In a long tradition of embarrassing, grifting twat relatives of statesmen.
The Trump family grift is on an epic scale. Reminds me of the South Korean president who was found to have take $500 million in bribes. Back when $500 million was crazy big money.
The interesting thing from a psychological perspective is they do it because they can.
They have grifted $billions. And yet a few weeks ago they still found time and attention to do an $11m grift.
They genuinely are operating on the basis that more is more
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
Trump purges another Republican critic with Massie defeat in Kentucky
U.S. President Donald Trump scored another victory in his campaign to punish disloyal Republicans on Tuesday as Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary race, underscoring the risks for lawmakers who defy Trump.
The voters of Kentucky’s 4th District decided to get rid of the guy who voted against the budget in Congress, and was more interested in personal grandstanding than representing the views of his constituents.
Or it shows GOP activists and PACs have been captured by Trump.
Sandpit is remarkably loyal to Trump and MAGA, in the face of all comers and even when their ideology is at odds with his (e.g. Ukraine). I’m not sure there’s a more completely, full-spectrum loyal poster to an individual politician or movement on PB. Not even BigG. If anything the norm is for posters conveniently to disavow allegiance, St Peter style, when the cock crows.
Not at all, I don’t even particularly like Trump. I just push back against the prevailing narritive that everything he does is bad, or that he’s only doing something because of some ulterior motive.
I’m firmly of the opinion that, were he to announce a cure for cancer, the US media and most of this forum would be trying to present it negatively.
I’ve definitely critised Trump on Ukraine, as I did with Biden before him. They have both been weak in different ways, and I don’t like Bessent’s trading of Russian oil just as I don’t like Miliband’s doing the same.
My over-riding opinion on US politics is on the other side, that the Democrats have been captured by wokery, communism, and increasingly antisemitism. They’re starting to look like the Greens in the UK, with the mayor of New York talking about opening state-run grocery stores, and the mayor of LA talking about giving free dentistry to illegal immigrant homeless meth-heads living on the streets.
Anyway, work to do!
Come on, you know PB
If you’re not participating in the daily hate on Trump you’re clearly a fan. It’s that binary
The $1.776 billion of US tax payers money to compensate the Jan 6th rioters combined with an agreement to never audit and Trump or Trump family tax return is one of the most blatent bits of corruption in modern history.
But I suppose we need to "both sides" it. After all corruption, golden statues and a Jesus complex are all fine and dandy if you bash the Libs.
One of the oddest things is how some of the PBers most interested in Hunter Biden's scandals (which had only the most tenuous links to his father) seem to take little or no interest in the blatant, direct and corrupt involvement of Trump's family in government.
Dogs and tails.
While the Trump brats are grifting on a record scale they're not the puppet master Hunter Biden was.
Nor do I remember anyone defending the Trump brats and claiming they were victims of a political witch hunt.
Sorry, what??? Hunter Biden is a puppet master??????
Trump purges another Republican critic with Massie defeat in Kentucky
U.S. President Donald Trump scored another victory in his campaign to punish disloyal Republicans on Tuesday as Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary race, underscoring the risks for lawmakers who defy Trump.
The voters of Kentucky’s 4th District decided to get rid of the guy who voted against the budget in Congress, and was more interested in personal grandstanding than representing the views of his constituents.
Or it shows GOP activists and PACs have been captured by Trump.
Sandpit is remarkably loyal to Trump and MAGA, in the face of all comers and even when their ideology is at odds with his (e.g. Ukraine). I’m not sure there’s a more completely, full-spectrum loyal poster to an individual politician or movement on PB. Not even BigG. If anything the norm is for posters conveniently to disavow allegiance, St Peter style, when the cock crows.
Not at all, I don’t even particularly like Trump. I just push back against the prevailing narritive that everything he does is bad, or that he’s only doing something because of some ulterior motive.
I’m firmly of the opinion that, were he to announce a cure for cancer, the US media and most of this forum would be trying to present it negatively.
I’ve definitely critised Trump on Ukraine, as I did with Biden before him. They have both been weak in different ways, and I don’t like Bessent’s trading of Russian oil just as I don’t like Miliband’s doing the same.
My over-riding opinion on US politics is on the other side, that the Democrats have been captured by wokery, communism, and increasingly antisemitism. They’re starting to look like the Greens in the UK, with the mayor of New York talking about opening state-run grocery stores, and the mayor of LA talking about giving free dentistry to illegal immigrant homeless meth-heads living on the streets.
Anyway, work to do!
Come on, you know PB
If you’re not participating in the daily hate on Trump you’re clearly a fan. It’s that binary
The $1.776 billion of US tax payers money to compensate the Jan 6th rioters combined with an agreement to never audit and Trump or Trump family tax return is one of the most blatent bits of corruption in modern history.
But I suppose we need to "both sides" it. After all corruption, golden statues and a Jesus complex are all fine and dandy if you bash the Libs.
One of the oddest things is how some of the PBers most interested in Hunter Biden's scandals (which had only the most tenuous links to his father) seem to take little or no interest in the blatant, direct and corrupt involvement of Trump's family in government.
Dogs and tails.
While the Trump brats are grifting on a record scale they're not the puppet master Hunter Biden was.
Nor do I remember anyone defending the Trump brats and claiming they were victims of a political witch hunt.
Sorry, what??? Hunter Biden is a puppet master??????
Hunter Biden is a grifting twat. In a long tradition of embarrassing, grifting twat relatives of statesmen.
The Trump family grift is on an epic scale. Reminds me of the South Korean president who was found to have take $500 million in bribes. Back when $500 million was crazy big money.
The interesting thing from a psychological perspective is they do it because they can.
They have grifted $billions. And yet a few weeks ago they still found time and attention to do an $11m grift.
They genuinely are operating on the basis that more is more
Trump is skilled at enriching himself and his family, at public expense, good at self-preservation, and his superpower is his complete shamelessness.
The Trumpists who have fallen out with him (F8cker Carlson, MTG, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens etc.) generally lack his cynicism, and actually believed in the bullshit.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
That is now
3 years is a longtime in politics
Who would have thought a labour PM with a landslide win would be out of office with a year to spare on that timescale ?
People need to do jailtime for HS2. Such a colossal waste of public money is criminal. 100 hundred fucking billion pounds. Ten times what an equivalent railway elsewhere would cost
Until those responsible face actual and severe repercussions for their incompetence, it will keep on happening
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
I saw something recently that said the real rip off is coming from the massive multinational suppliers who bought up all the well known brands and make a packet from people's loyalty to traditional product names.
One unfortunate recent trend (and I don't want it price-fixed, but it would be a better target) is the widening of the unit price difference when buying small and large quantities. I may be misremembering, but I don't think that 20 years ago the difference in unit price between buying milk 1 pint at a time and 4 pints at a time or eggs six at a time and twelve at a time was so great.
Our of interest, what's driving this? It's probably not direct profiteering, the market is too competitive. I suspect that it's more about the handling/packaging/transaction cost. The pint of milk itself costs about 20p, but by the time it's been bottled, put on the shelf and run through the checkout, the supermarket probably only makes 5p profit on the 90p sale. Because these costs don't scale linearly, selling an extra pint in the bottle probably only increases cost by 25-30p. Thus 2 pints of milk is only about £1.20, and 4 pints about £1.70.
FWIW, I looked up the cost of a 1 pint bottle, then estimated the other numbers, before checking the other prices to see if I was talking bunkum, and was ammused to find I was pretty much spot on.
I'm not sure there is much which can be done about this other than trying to drive down transaction costs (eg card payment fees).
Getting some food from Marks in Manchester Airport last week
500ml of pink Lemonade was £1.90 A 1 litre (albeit room temperature) bottle was £0.95
So some things are priced simply because they can as they serve slightly different markets / needs.
Modern capitalism is very, very good at setting different prices in different contexts/to different customers so as to maximise profit, in a way that repeatedly feels unfair as the price varies with the purchaser's circumstances, not the costs to make the product.
I think some people naively think that the price of something is the cost to make it + a bit of profit. Whereas actually the price of something is the amount a company can get people to pay, which may be way more than the cost to make it, or may be very close to the cost to make it (and sometimes is even less).
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
It’s sad that the American disease of wilful climate denialism in the face of all evidence has made it into British politics, where thankfully creationism, lax gun laws and extreme anti-abortion politics have not managed.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
I agree. That would be the end of the Tories as a mainstream party. FWIW (which is not much) I am expecting the Tory and Reform numbers to be close to the reverse of that. But we shall see. Nothing lasts forever, not even the Conservative and Unionist party.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
On UNS the Labour figure is about right but Reform would only gain about 100 to 150 of their Labour and Tory target seats if MiC is right and Burnham led Labour.
The EC figures you quote also massively underestimate anti Reform tactical voting in Tory held seats. In the local elections the Tories mainly held councils like Bexley, Fareham and Broxbourne with anti Reform tactical votes.
If the Conservatives did get taken over by Reform after Burnham led Labour beat Reform all Farage would have done is ensure more Labour and Labour and LD governments. At least a third of Tory voters would switch to the LDs rather than back Reform
What's the story in this particular Balamory today?
In Chateau Cole we are amazed that it has taken so long for such programmes as 'Married at First Sight' to fall apart; we feel that a useful piece of investigation would be to ask all the couples set up on the programme over the years how long they've managed to stay together!
I need some help: It occurred to me recently that the Loser has been, more and more, following some policies more common on the left than the right in both the UK and the US. For example, taking shares in private companies such as Intel and US Steel. For example, cozying up to Putin and North Korea's Kim (!). And so on.
Am I correct in thinking that, for example, Corbyn would -- at least in part -- sympathize with some recent Trump policies? And if I recall correctly, some leaders of the SNP have had closer ties to Russia than any decent person should have.
If I am completely wrong, please feel free to say so. If not, I would be interested in examples illustrating that argument.
I don't think any of Trump can be understood on the left/right axis. There's no governing ideology. He simply does things that amuse or gratify or empower or enrich himself. All your examples fall into those categories.
US state command of and collaboration with US capital is the big new trend. The Xi-ification of American industry.
I’ve been at an event in Cambridge the last 2 days which has looked at various aspects of the future, and one topic that came up a few times, including from George Osborne who was our dinner speaker (now employee of OpenAI) at Peterhouse - where incidentally I recall someone on here was recently taking about having dinner looking at Leon’s posts - and today from an audience member from South Africa: that of the US increasingly using its military and policy muscle to push the interests of the largest tech companies.
There’s always been some of this, but in some cases we’re talking the US state becoming essentially the coercive arm of private businesses. It’s the British East India Company again. Or the Belt and Road initiative. The idea of the small state is no longer a meaningful part of right wing Republican thought, except in the narrow confines of welfare and healthcare.
People need to do jailtime for HS2. Such a colossal waste of public money is criminal. 100 hundred fucking billion pounds. Ten times what an equivalent railway elsewhere would cost
Until those responsible face actual and severe repercussions for their incompetence, it will keep on happening
When it comes to big projects we have to either:
a) Ride roughshod over objections
b) If we aren't prepared to do a, then ditch the whole thing and focus on something else.
How are decisions made when it comes to big projects? Scale of likely objections should be baked in from the start.
If that means focusing more on less glamorous parts of the country so be it.
A project like this should not be able to be appealed against and just override any planning.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
EC currently suggest Labour would currently win 78 seats, with Reform+Tory in a position to have +325 seats between them. A result in which Labour on 281 could govern with LD support would be a very good result from the point of view of a sane moderate voter who would quite like a semblance of competent government.
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
I saw something recently that said the real rip off is coming from the massive multinational suppliers who bought up all the well known brands and make a packet from people's loyalty to traditional product names.
One unfortunate recent trend (and I don't want it price-fixed, but it would be a better target) is the widening of the unit price difference when buying small and large quantities. I may be misremembering, but I don't think that 20 years ago the difference in unit price between buying milk 1 pint at a time and 4 pints at a time or eggs six at a time and twelve at a time was so great.
Our of interest, what's driving this? It's probably not direct profiteering, the market is too competitive. I suspect that it's more about the handling/packaging/transaction cost. The pint of milk itself costs about 20p, but by the time it's been bottled, put on the shelf and run through the checkout, the supermarket probably only makes 5p profit on the 90p sale. Because these costs don't scale linearly, selling an extra pint in the bottle probably only increases cost by 25-30p. Thus 2 pints of milk is only about £1.20, and 4 pints about £1.70.
FWIW, I looked up the cost of a 1 pint bottle, then estimated the other numbers, before checking the other prices to see if I was talking bunkum, and was ammused to find I was pretty much spot on.
I'm not sure there is much which can be done about this other than trying to drive down transaction costs (eg card payment fees).
That’s because milk isn’t just “milk”
It’s a processed product delivered to a supermarket shelf.
The same with other food.
There's also often the problem of multiple layers of markup all the way up the chain - if the chain is 4 firms long, and everyone adds 50% markup, a product costing 20p produce is sold from firm 1 to firm 2 for 30p, from firm 2 to firm 3 for 45p, from firm 3 to 4 for 67.5p and by firm 4 to the end user for £1.05.
I buy grass fed free range beef from a friends hill farm in North Wales. Any cut I like that's in their stock freezer, £15/kg. That's substantially more than they'd get selling into the supermarket supply chain, and substantially less than I'd pay for almost any cut in the supermarket. The reason we both win is because we've cut out all the middle men.
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
She loud and ballsy. Great for a 30 second clip
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
People need to do jailtime for HS2. Such a colossal waste of public money is criminal. 100 hundred fucking billion pounds. Ten times what an equivalent railway elsewhere would cost
Until those responsible face actual and severe repercussions for their incompetence, it will keep on happening
When it comes to big projects we have to either:
a) Ride roughshod over objections
b) If we aren't prepared to do a, then ditch the whole thing and focus on something else.
How are decisions made when it comes to big projects? Scale of likely objections should be baked in from the start.
If that means focusing more on less glamorous parts of the country so be it.
A project like this should not be able to be appealed against and just override any planning.
I don’t see why we cannot do that.
The railways acts of the 19th century were primary legislation. The politicking happened to pass the bill.
After that the courts took the view that they were the exact expression of parliamentary will - the only challenges were whether the acts were being broken or not.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
EC currently suggest Labour would currently win 78 seats, with Reform+Tory in a position to have +325 seats between them. A result in which Labour on 281 could govern with LD support would be a very good result from the point of view of a sane moderate voter who would quite like a semblance of competent government.
"A semblance of competent government". What a lovely fantasy.
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
She loud and ballsy. Great for a 30 second clip
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....to
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
https://x.com/reformparty_uk/status/2056717880134152269 ... is the Reform candidate in Makerfield's video. Pretty good, but not as good as Burnham's I think. It's all about him being local and says nothing about any Reform policies.
So he gets 2% off LDs, 4% off Greens and 2% off Reform, increasing Labour share by 8% to 30%. The 2% off Reform is surprising and augurs well for Burnham in the by election.
It would still be a result that would leave Burnham's authority shot to pieces, like May's, with Labour losing c.130 seats.
And, almost an extinction event for the Conservatives.
No it would be a crushing defeat for Farage, having led the polls for so long only to be defeated by Labour still. The Conservatives would do well enough with a solid third place to return as main party of the right once Farage resigned.
Burnham would be Boris to Starmer’s May and Farage’s Corbyn
71 Conservatives, to 210 Reform, and 281 Labour, according to Electoral Calculus. The Conservatives would be a long way behind Reform in Parliament, local government, and the Scottish Parliament, and Senedd. I do not see a comeback from that,.
On UNS the Labour figure is about right but Reform would only gain about 100 to 150 of their Labour and Tory target seats if MiC is right and Burnham led Labour.
The EC figures you quote also massively underestimate anti Reform tactical voting in Tory held seats. In the local elections the Tories mainly held councils like Bexley, Fareham and Broxbourne with anti Reform tactical votes.
If the Conservatives did get taken over by Reform after Burnham led Labour beat Reform all Farage would have done is ensure more Labour and Labour and LD governments. At least a third of Tory voters would switch to the LDs rather than back Reform
Tactical voting did nothing to protect the Conservatives in East Anglia, the West Midlands, Sussex, Newcastle under Lyme, from Reform. In fact, they lost hundreds of seats nationwide to the party. I would not place any reliance upon it.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
The World Cup is shaping up to be a right mess for the fans if they expect it to be like normal countries where you can stay in the cheapest accommodation or even a tent and then walk to the stadium.
I think they are also underestimating the (let's be generous) "lack of appeal" afforded by a trip to ICE-land for fans from very many countries around the world, including some of the most football-friendly ones in South America and Africa.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
If Labour poll 35-40 under Burnham could he go for a snap election?
They all remember Brown's mistake - even if their memories aren't always accurate
It's not easy. Brown missed an open goal by not going. May missed an open goal by going.
As someone who feels new PMs should go (to get their own mandate), It was not at all apparant that May was wrong to go. Corbyn was a poor opponent and policitian, but May went into matters with a huge sense of entitlement and hubris. And Corbyn proved something he was very good at. Campaigning. Couldn't run a bath, but put him in a campaign and he can work well, especially when his opponent effectively tried to make it a coronation.
May also had the problem of a restless Parliament anyway; she only had Cameron's wafer thin majority to work with; she thought turning that into an 80 seat majority would be easy and ran with it. Let's be honest, if she hadn't, 2017 to 2019 would've happened much the same way anyway.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
The Seattle area has its own financial problems with light rail:
Sound Transit held an all-day retreat last week to figure out how to close a $34.5 billion gap. They say they’re working on bringing costs down. And maybe they’ll shave something off. But here’s where this is almost certainly heading: back to voters, hat in hand, with a scaled-back plan and a bill that works out to roughly $10,000 per person in the taxing district. And if history is any guide, voters will say yes.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
+1 - the realistic date for an election if you are doing well is May/ October 2028 or July 2029 if doing badly
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
She loud and ballsy. Great for a 30 second clip
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
Seems Kemi is really winding you up so she is doing something right then
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
He could - if he has a good win and ends up high on his own supply. I don't think the public would take to it that well.
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
She loud and ballsy. Great for a 30 second clip
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
Seems Kemi is really winding you up so she is doing something right then
MAGA mentality. “Oh it’s annoying all the right people”.
What happened to politics that’s more than just trolling?
Let's just say she was taking a penalty towards the Tilton with a goaly on his ass and managed to put it over the top of the Gil Merrick
Kemi needs to understand
Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail
Starmer actually missed an own goal she gave him when attacking him over Russia
He should have listed
Tory Donations Tennis Matches Oligarchs given Peerages
You OK, hun?
You don't seem to be adapting well to a changing world...
Kemi +8 on Starmer and +15 on Farage as best PM is hard to take for some
Kemi's problem is that while her rating has risen, the party's has not. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated Burnham bounce extends to his party beyond the leader.
If MiC is right it will, Burnham gets Labour to 30%
I still think you are right about Cleverly and the PB fanbois are wrong about Badenoch's personal relative popularity v votes.
Still, not my fight, not my worry.
I think if Kemi increases the Tory vote slightly against Burnham Labour while the Reform vote declines as MiC project she will survive. Her low tax, small state agenda contrasts with Burnham’s big state, tax the rich agenda and as she still outpolls Farage with Labour and LD and Green voters Tory MPs would still get anti Reform tactical votes
She loud and ballsy. Great for a 30 second clip
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
Seems Kemi is really winding you up so she is doing something right then
MAGA mentality. “Oh it’s annoying all the right people”.
What happened to politics that’s more than just trolling?
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
It might be worth the gamble to get 5 years on his own manifesto versus 2.5 years without a direct mandate.
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
There have been several investigations over the decades about supermarket pricing, including one I worked on, and they've all found that, in general, the sector is ferociously competitive and operates on pretty tight margins.
If Reeves really wanted to cut prices, she would of course look at the huge problems that government in general, and her interventions in particular, have caused, starting with a ridiculously high minimum wage and huge increases in payroll taxes.
But, as always, if she understood anything about business or economics, she wouldn't be a socialist.
She's surprisingly popular with the bond markets for a socialist.
No, they hate her. Together with QT, that's why the UK has much higher bond yields than comparable developed countries- she doesn't have the first idea how to let the economy grow over the medium to long term.
Although perhaps some of her possible successors are seen as just as incompetent, but even more catastrophically socialist.
I see Southampton have appealed, citing disproportionate punishment.
Not the worst argument, though that they might be denied the chance to compete for £200m feels not entirely relevant to me. One because the timing is a coincidence, and had their cheating been caught earlier they might not have had the chance to compete for that prize as a points deduction would have hit them. And that their cheating didn't appear to help them at all is besides the point.
So Burnham successfully rebuilds the 2024 coalition.
A slightly different coalition possibly. It depends on whether, along with the leftier vibe and more relatable persona, the policies deviate much from what Starmer was doing.
Caveat for general use in posts of this nature - IF he wins Makerfield and becomes PM.
I see Southampton have appealed, citing disproportionate punishment.
Not the worst argument, though that they might be denied the chance to compete for £200m feels not entirely relevant to me. One because the timing is a coincidence, and had their cheating been caught earlier they might not have had the chance to compete for that prize as a points deduction would have hit them. And that their cheating didn't appear to help them at all is besides the point.
I find it very suspicious that the only 2 other matches they admit to spying for were for games that they lost..
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
With that glaring 2019 exception.
Edit: Although I suppose that was necessary to break a parliamentary impasse.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
It might be worth the gamble to get 5 years on his own manifesto versus 2.5 years without a direct mandate.
If you are reasonably popular voters don't care about mandate. It isn't worth risking the massive majority on some effort to get some moral acceptance of personal mandate.
Mandate means little, it doesn't stop people saying you don't have one and the Lords is rarely going to face major issues.
The Problem with using the EC UK calculator, all be it as just an example, is that it builds in a fixed percentage for the SNP and PC so only gives them 22 seats between them assuming that everywhere responds on a UK basis.
EC’s current prediction for Scotland is SNP 46. A Labour recovery might dent that but a dozen more than here between them SNP & PC and we are in minority territory.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
It might be worth the gamble to get 5 years on his own manifesto versus 2.5 years without a direct mandate.
If you are reasonably popular voters don't care about mandate. It isn't worth risking the massive majority on some effort to get some moral acceptance of personal mandate.
Mandate means little, it doesn't stop people saying you don't have one and the Lords is rarely going to face major issues.
If you want to do things that will take time to pay off, then having the extra couple of years before you need to call an election is worth it.
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
There have been several investigations over the decades about supermarket pricing, including one I worked on, and they've all found that, in general, the sector is ferociously competitive and operates on pretty tight margins.
If Reeves really wanted to cut prices, she would of course look at the huge problems that government in general, and her interventions in particular, have caused, starting with a ridiculously high minimum wage and huge increases in payroll taxes.
But, as always, if she understood anything about business or economics, she wouldn't be a socialist.
She's surprisingly popular with the bond markets for a socialist.
No, they hate her. Together with QT, that's why the UK has much higher bond yields than comparable developed countries- she doesn't have the first idea how to let the economy grow over the medium to long term.
Although perhaps some of her possible successors are seen as just as incompetent, but even more catastrophically socialist.
5.03% return on a 10 year gilt. What's not to like?
Removing Russian sanctions, trying to get supermarkets to fix prices. Does all seem a bit desperate. If there was criticism to be made of the supermarkets I've always assumed it was of the destroying competition kind not 'profiteering'.
There have been several investigations over the decades about supermarket pricing, including one I worked on, and they've all found that, in general, the sector is ferociously competitive and operates on pretty tight margins.
If Reeves really wanted to cut prices, she would of course look at the huge problems that government in general, and her interventions in particular, have caused, starting with a ridiculously high minimum wage and huge increases in payroll taxes.
But, as always, if she understood anything about business or economics, she wouldn't be a socialist.
She's surprisingly popular with the bond markets for a socialist.
No, they hate her. Together with QT, that's why the UK has much higher bond yields than comparable developed countries- she doesn't have the first idea how to let the economy grow over the medium to long term.
Although perhaps some of her possible successors are seen as just as incompetent, but even more catastrophically socialist.
All is relative. They hate the thought of 'not her' even more.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
He could - if he has a good win and ends up high on his own supply. I don't think the public would take to it that well.
Say Burnham takes over this summer. What problem does he solve by going for an early election? If he does nothing ha has a huge majority and the best part of three years until he is forced to go to the electorate. So why do it? The only thing he would gain is a sense of legitimacy and who gives a stuff about that? Starmers claims he has a mandate because of the huge majority but it was won on about 35 percent of the vote. Doesn't matter - it's votes in parliament that count.
So I simply cannot see him going before 2028 (if leading in the polls) or 2029 if behind.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
I see Southampton have appealed, citing disproportionate punishment.
Not the worst argument, though that they might be denied the chance to compete for £200m feels not entirely relevant to me. One because the timing is a coincidence, and had their cheating been caught earlier they might not have had the chance to compete for that prize as a points deduction would have hit them. And that their cheating didn't appear to help them at all is besides the point.
They should have argued in mitigation that they were just really shit at espionage.
If Labour poll 35-40 under Burnham could he go for a snap election?
They all remember Brown's mistake - even if their memories aren't always accurate
It's not easy. Brown missed an open goal by not going. May missed an open goal by going.
The open goal that Brown missed was the opportunity to lose narrowly just before the 2008 crash and thus shift responsibility for what followed entirely onto Cameron and Osborne. Leaving a Labour Party still led by Brown and with its fiscal reputation still entirely intact in an excellent position to win a 2013 general election.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
I see Southampton have appealed, citing disproportionate punishment.
Not the worst argument, though that they might be denied the chance to compete for £200m feels not entirely relevant to me. One because the timing is a coincidence, and had their cheating been caught earlier they might not have had the chance to compete for that prize as a points deduction would have hit them. And that their cheating didn't appear to help them at all is besides the point.
They should have argued in mitigation that they were just really shit at espionage.
It's the same as Swindon's punishment in 1990, albeit less money now and Town had actually secured promotion.
On the latest Labour mad idea, Lilico points out that supermarkets have frequently been investigated for keeping prices too low - thereby hammering suppliers and farmers.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
It might be worth the gamble to get 5 years on his own manifesto versus 2.5 years without a direct mandate.
This isn't a presidency. We can't keep having GEs every five minutes.
The Problem with using the EC UK calculator, all be it as just an example, is that it builds in a fixed percentage for the SNP and PC so only gives them 22 seats between them assuming that everywhere responds on a UK basis.
EC’s current prediction for Scotland is SNP 46. A Labour recovery might dent that but a dozen more than here between them SNP & PC and we are in minority territory.
Peter.
Scotland is a really difficult call... but I think 46 is probably pushing it for the SNP at the next General Election. If you assume they get the same percentage of the constituency seats they got in Holyrood, they end up on 44. And I suspect they'd do slightly less well at the General. I would reckon 40-42 is probably more likely.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
I don't think the facts matter because it's a vibe policy. That being Things Aint What They Used To Be. The party name - 'Restore' - sets the tone.
They can also bank on their target voters not understanding whatever the topic is. That's particularly true of the energy landscape, where tbf I'd say most voters, not just their targets, aren't very clued up. You can chalk me down in that company in fact. But I know enough to recognise total bollocks.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
He could - if he has a good win and ends up high on his own supply. I don't think the public would take to it that well.
Say Burnham takes over this summer. What problem does he solve by going for an early election? If he does nothing ha has a huge majority and the best part of three years until he is forced to go to the electorate. So why do it? The only thing he would gain is a sense of legitimacy and who gives a stuff about that? Starmers claims he has a mandate because of the huge majority but it was won on about 35 percent of the vote. Doesn't matter - it's votes in parliament that count.
So I simply cannot see him going before 2028 (if leading in the polls) or 2029 if behind.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
Hence why Burnham does not want Starmer to set out an exit timetable at this point. If he does, the voters will clock that they don't have to vote Burnham to get Starmer out because he's going anyway. So you'd be left with just the positive votes for AB or Labour plus anti-Reform tacticals. Might still be enough but far better to also capture the anti-Starmers.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
I don't think the facts matter because it's a vibe policy. That being Things Aint What They Used To Be. The party name - 'Restore' - sets the tone.
They can also bank on their target voters not understanding whatever the topic is. That's particularly true of the energy landscape, where tbf I'd say most voters, not just their targets, aren't very clued up. You can chalk me down in that company in fact. But I know enough to recognise total bollocks.
The strategy set out in this paper seeks to establish the conditions for cheap, reliable, and abundant energy at home. A future Restore Britain government would pursue the full development of our offshore oil and gas reserves, the rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the exploitation of onshore shale where viable, and if able to compete some limited role for renewables within a balanced grid. Our overriding objective is to deliver dispatchable power at prices affordable to British households and competitive for British industry.
Let's quote further from the document...
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
That is a seriously deluded policy.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
I don't think the facts matter because it's a vibe policy. That being Things Aint What They Used To Be. The party name - 'Restore' - sets the tone.
They can also bank on their target voters not understanding whatever the topic is. That's particularly true of the energy landscape, where tbf I'd say most voters, not just their targets, aren't very clued up. You can chalk me down in that company in fact. But I know enough to recognise total bollocks.
Best case scenario if any of the anti-renewables lot get into power is that the policy ends up like Livingstone's pledge to bring back bus conductors. As I recall there were a couple, briefly, I even saw one in the wild, but they didn't last long as Livingstone bowed to reality.
But my worry is that they're serious and they'll end up doing things to get in the way of renewables like Trump is doing in the US.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
He could - if he has a good win and ends up high on his own supply. I don't think the public would take to it that well.
Say Burnham takes over this summer. What problem does he solve by going for an early election? If he does nothing ha has a huge majority and the best part of three years until he is forced to go to the electorate. So why do it? The only thing he would gain is a sense of legitimacy and who gives a stuff about that? Starmers claims he has a mandate because of the huge majority but it was won on about 35 percent of the vote. Doesn't matter - it's votes in parliament that count.
So I simply cannot see him going before 2028 (if leading in the polls) or 2029 if behind.
The sceptics case for going early is that Burnham in fact is going to face the identical difficulties as everyone else in governing. Though he will be better than Starmer at narrative, generalised spiritual uplift, punchy points and evoking a wartime spirit of all in it together as we soak the rich, he can't alter the laws of economic gravity, he can't alter the unbalanced migration that has already happened, he can't magically stop the boats, and he can't get Labour MPs to cease thinking magically about welfare and spending, and I don't think he can stop borrowing money we can't afford to pay interest we can't afford on debt we can't afford.
So he may as well get 5 years now, as Micawber like, something may turn up, if he can beat Reform before the bailiffs turn up in Downing Street.
If he dissolves parliament before the 1st September then there is very little scope for him to have to make any difficult decisions. He's still likely to book a lot of losses on those numbers though.
No way he’d throw away a large majority like that.
I was taught this in Politics at school, always bet against a Party that calls an unnecessary GE, it annoys the electorate.
What about an unneccesary by-election?
So you don't think the voters of Makerfield will welcome the unique opportunity given to them to get rid of a serving UK PM who is catastrophically unpopular. I think they'll relish the opportunity.
I tend to agree - that has to be Labour's hope.
I am still not convinced Burnham's résumé has what it takes to win this constituency. Reform have a fantastic candidate in Rob the Plumber ( great CV) and all of Nige and Tice's financial question marks seem to have passed them by with little concern from Johnny voter.
Everybody wants shot of Starmer. With the possible exception of Starmer.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
I think this is right.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
Not "as much as". Electing Reform in Makerfield would not give Starmer a bloody nose. It would be a vote to keep the status quo for the next 3 years. In these unique circumstances, Burnham is the insurgent, Reform is not.
Comments
500ml of pink Lemonade was £1.90
A 1 litre (albeit room temperature) bottle was £0.95
So some things are priced simply because they can as they serve slightly different markets / needs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-27668303
As ever, Wikipedia is on the case. You might like this line: Yet research has shown that the more that the government owns of an enterprise, the more extreme the level of tax avoidance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_Germany
It is now clear that it would have been cheaper and quicker to deep* tunnel 100% of HS2.
See the tide of battery storage. Which is not the best option, maybe. But doable *today* and close to unstoppable on small scale deployments.
*Cut and cover out in the sticks, maybe.
Jenny Gilruth is deputy First Minister. And they say John Swinney has no sense of humour.
It’s a processed product delivered to a supermarket shelf.
The same with other food.
They have grifted $billions. And yet a few weeks ago they still found time and attention to do an $11m grift.
They genuinely are operating on the basis that more is more
We will also need to embark upon a mass removal of our binding Net Zero commitments, the vast majority of which are smothering our economy to no worthwhile end. This means canning the expensive but locked-in contracts that we already have with subsidised renewables companies.
They are very anti-Net Zero and would do the Trumpian thing of killing renewables just because they're too woke. They claim not to be climate change deniers, but come out with stuff like...
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been in a general trend of decline since the Eocene period some 51 million years ago, so alarmist notions that fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide as such pose an existential threat to life on earth are scientifically baseless.
And say...
It has given arbitrary privilege to the most expensive and intermittent energy sources, such as onshore wind and solar, while degrading the most cost-efficient and effective, such as oil, gas, and nuclear.
And...
Renewables at present are so expensive, we could in principle lose them all tomorrow without any real effect on the grid besides making it cheaper and stabler.
The Trumpists who have fallen out with him (F8cker Carlson, MTG, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens etc.) generally lack his cynicism, and actually believed in the bullshit.
3 years is a longtime in politics
Who would have thought a labour PM with a landslide win would be out of office with a year to spare on that timescale ?
I think some people naively think that the price of something is the cost to make it + a bit of profit. Whereas actually the price of something is the amount a company can get people to pay, which may be way more than the cost to make it, or may be very close to the cost to make it (and sometimes is even less).
The EC figures you quote also massively underestimate anti Reform tactical voting in Tory held seats. In the local elections the Tories mainly held councils like Bexley, Fareham and Broxbourne with anti Reform tactical votes.
If the Conservatives did get taken over by Reform after Burnham led Labour beat Reform all Farage would have done is ensure more Labour and Labour and LD governments. At least a third of Tory voters would switch to the LDs rather than back Reform
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/reform-uk
What's the story in this particular Balamory today?
In Chateau Cole we are amazed that it has taken so long for such programmes as 'Married at First Sight' to fall apart; we feel that a useful piece of investigation would be to ask all the couples set up on the programme over the years how long they've managed to stay together!
I’ve been at an event in Cambridge the last 2 days which has looked at various aspects of the future, and one topic that came up a few times, including from George Osborne who was our dinner speaker (now employee of OpenAI) at Peterhouse - where incidentally I recall someone on here was recently taking about having dinner looking at Leon’s posts - and today from an audience member from South Africa: that of the US increasingly using its military and policy muscle to push the interests of the largest tech companies.
There’s always been some of this, but in some cases we’re talking the US state becoming essentially the coercive arm of private businesses. It’s the British East India Company again. Or the Belt and Road initiative. The idea of the small state is no longer a meaningful part of right wing Republican thought, except in the narrow confines of welfare and healthcare.
Just file a $Nil return, and if anyone asks a question just say, "You're not allowed to ask questions."
Obviously if you want a tax rebate [1] then file that.
[1] You might not be able to get a tax rebate if you don't pay taxes, but I assume that won't stop Trump or his family.
I don’t see why we cannot do that.
I just don’t understand where she gets her ideas from. Apart from the Daily Mail.
I buy grass fed free range beef from a friends hill farm in North Wales. Any cut I like that's in their stock freezer, £15/kg. That's substantially more than they'd get selling into the supermarket supply chain, and substantially less than I'd pay for almost any cut in the supermarket. The reason we both win is because we've cut out all the middle men.
Great for the right wing sheep.
The fact that most of what she says is bare faced lies and the rest doesn't stand up to scrutiny with in an hours means even though she barely gets scrutinised at the moment as she's irrevant that she be destroyed under the white heat of a GE campaign.
The added fact that she's never wrong , can't apologise for anything, lacks empathy and is utterly arrogant adds to the litany of lack of long term credibility.
She'd never pass the, could you go down he pub with this person and talk about sport, music, life etc test.
FFS she'd not even be able to discuss what sandwich you'd ordered....
Ref her famous put down of the great British sandwich.
After that the courts took the view that they were the exact expression of parliamentary will - the only challenges were whether the acts were being broken or not.
🚨 NEW: A poll shows Labour could win a general election tomorrow if Andy Burnham was the leader
🔴 LAB: 30% (+8)
➡️ RFM: 27% (-2)
🔵 CON: 20% (+1)
🟠 LIB: 11% (-2)
🟢 GRN: 7% (-4)
🟡 SNP: 3% (=)
Via
@Moreincommon_
, 2,599 people
May also had the problem of a restless Parliament anyway; she only had Cameron's wafer thin majority to work with; she thought turning that into an 80 seat majority would be easy and ran with it. Let's be honest, if she hadn't, 2017 to 2019 would've happened much the same way anyway.
But, you know how it is, 35 billion here, 35 billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
Deciding whether to be Corbynite, Trotskyite, Starmerite or Blairite each morning really takes it out of a man.
What happened to politics that’s more than just trolling?
Although perhaps some of her possible successors are seen as just as incompetent, but even more catastrophically socialist.
Not the worst argument, though that they might be denied the chance to compete for £200m feels not entirely relevant to me. One because the timing is a coincidence, and had their cheating been caught earlier they might not have had the chance to compete for that prize as a points deduction would have hit them. And that their cheating didn't appear to help them at all is besides the point.
Caveat for general use in posts of this nature - IF he wins Makerfield and becomes PM.
Edit: Although I suppose that was necessary to break a parliamentary impasse.
Mandate means little, it doesn't stop people saying you don't have one and the Lords is rarely going to face major issues.
EC’s current prediction for Scotland is SNP 46. A Labour recovery might dent that but a dozen more than here between them SNP & PC and we are in minority territory.
Peter.
Gérard Lhéritier lured investors by selling shares in literary treasures. When suspicions grew, he was exposed as the architect of a massive fraud"
https://www.ft.com/content/56afc583-5e66-4eb9-96f3-60a5e38f9c9c
So I simply cannot see him going before 2028 (if leading in the polls) or 2029 if behind.
(1) Nuclear makes wind and solar look cheap. Now, it's possible that SMRs will change that in future. But right now, new nuclear is (a) expensive and (b) unreliable. There are offshore wind farms with better uptime than some nuclear plants.
(2) Have Advance not looked out the window? If you are all in on hydrocarbons, how do you think your economy does when -say- Russia invades Ukraine or Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz?
(3) If you wanted to put renewables on the same terms as everyone else, and have them just sell into the grid at market rates, then you know what? we'd still have quite a lot of renewables. Their assertation that actually getting rid of renewable generation would reduce prices is utterly deluded. (A more rational policy would be to say you are getting rid of the fixed price contracts for renewable power generation that pay renewables for energy when none is needed. )
I'm all for us doing a Norway. That is, taking advantage of our hydrocarbon reserves. And I'm happy to allow people to have a go at tight gas in the UK.
But at the same time, energy efficiency and renewable power generation are not things to be feared. In the future, all power generation will be solar, even in the UK, because it is going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
https://capx.co/only-a-fool-or-a-politician-would-cap-food-prices
They can also bank on their target voters not understanding whatever the topic is. That's particularly true of the energy landscape, where tbf I'd say most voters, not just their targets, aren't very clued up. You can chalk me down in that company in fact. But I know enough to recognise total bollocks.
Burnham get elected is their best shot of making that happen.
Most byelection voters want to give Starmer a bloody nose. Electing Burnham does that as much as electing Reform, and -best of all- gets rid of him now rather than in a couple of years time.
Sure enough.
But my worry is that they're serious and they'll end up doing things to get in the way of renewables like Trump is doing in the US.
That must motivate some people
So he may as well get 5 years now, as Micawber like, something may turn up, if he can beat Reform before the bailiffs turn up in Downing Street.