Part-time writer. Political activist. Fan of Bradford City and rail travel (amongst other things). Bibliophile. Dad. List not necessarily in order of importance.
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The problem there is the use of consultancies (which are embedded into govt as well as private industry), and which I see little value in other than as backside-covering exercises for senior management who don't want to take accountability for their decisions.
It wouldn't, I agree. I'm not saying that decaying schools and hospitals shouldn't be renewed; just that they should be paid for out of normal taxation over the cycle. Yes, it is investment but it's investment designed to deliver a social rather than an economic return.
3/3 It's more than just 'not being fixed'. The main reason why water was privatised in the first place (other than the capital receipt) was so that investment and pricing decisions were taken out of the hands of politicians, who will always tend to vote to keep prices down and defer investment.
2/3 Valuation would have to be the market value at the time: there's international law on this (and even for domestic investors, setting a precedent that the govt could expropriate assets other than in acute national emergencies would be terrible for investment).
This is where I'd distinguish between public regulation and public ownership. I don't think that the latter necessarily delivers best on what is, as you say, a basic necessity (though it's more than that: clean waterways and beaches are not essential but they're very much a good thing).
I agree that genuine investment would have made a difference, both in delivery and in public perception - though I'd rather have targeted genuine investment in transport, energy and comms infrastructure rather than routine replacement capital spending for borrowing. The rest can be funded on taxes.
Taking water into public ownership would have been sugar-rush popularity. It wouldn't have made the water industry better, might well have made it worse (see the state of it pre-privatisation / Scot / NI), and would have landed the blame directly at the government's door. Plus cost a fortune.
That'd be a mistake. Leave was popular enough to win a national referendum; that doesn't mean it was popular afterwards. What people want are problems solved and the country improved; they're usually fairly flexible (within reason) on how that's achieved - *after the event* - as long as it's done.
Dogmatic vapidism.
And *why*. Make the moral case. Government (and even more so, politics) is about more than administration. I'm not sure Starmer gets that.
That was not the only choice Labour had. Needing to raise tax (or cut spending) was pretty much unarguable in the short term - and Truss had given Labour loads of evidence to make the case. *How* that was to be done was a question with much greater latitude.
Horrible "they're" in there. Sorry.
True. But you get more leeway from the public if you set out your stall as to why those measures are needed and what the ultimate benefit of them will be.
If Labour had laid out the scale of what needed doing before the election, they'd be doing it now rather than being stuck in such a policy limbo this last year. But it's looking increasingly like they didn't even understand it themselves, never mind being confident enough to put it to the public.
Labour never built up proper political capital in the first place. They're election campaign was pretty much entirely 'kick the Tories Out'. But failing to lay the groundwork for 'we'll fix the country but this won't be easy or free' meant that people weren't ready for the tougher decisions.
The US is not alone in these recent rate rises - though it is particularly exposed given its huge deficit, low tax base, large debt stock and stuttering growth. But maybe the markets are waking up to the systemic risks of so much debt. Stress-tested a recession, perhaps.
A mainstream party would have expelled a council candidate who called for the eradication of Israel as a country. The Greens elected him Deputy Leader. But given many Green members' extremist stance on trans issues - views Ali is perceived not to share - he may fall on that instead.
This story might be worth bearing in mind next time shadow justice secretary @robertjenrickmp.bsky.social talks about law and orderš From today's Northern Agenda newsletter, great scoop by @paddyedrich.bsky.social in the Liverpool Echo 1/2
There's no reason why NI has to be a tax only on work; it could easily be reframed. I agree that merging it in with income tax is an option. You'd have to rejig those benefits which are dependent on NI contributions but that could be done. Either way though, it's a massive loophole to be closed.
One thing Polanski's election as leader of the Greens does is make the Corbyn Party even more pointless.
Feels like the flag debate has been kicking around my whole life and it still boils down to: Civic institutions should fly the flag routinely. Sporting occasions and national events, sure get it out. Year round flag on your house, bit weird, trashy. Doing it to "intimidate the forrins", obvs bad
Labour could always raise taxes on non-working people? Maybe end the exemption of them paying NI? A lot of people wouldn't like it but it is a bit perverse that those who are working more tax than those who aren't *on exactly the same income*.
Yes. See also their approach to *actual applications* for solar, wind, connectivity infrastructure - or to tidal, the OxCab rail line and much more of that ilk. It's rank hypocrisy to support things in principle and then oppose every attempt to put those ideas into practice.
The Greens have always been an authoritarian far-left party, it's just that they've usually disguised it with good messaging about care for the environment - which anyone sensible will support in principle. But they don't half want to tell you what to think, do and say. And what not to.
Or maybe they haven't but they're encouraged to think they have? (Though actually, they really have).
Hadn't Daniel Radcliffe played the (young) title role in a BBC adaptation of David Copperfield? If not, it was something similar. Granted, that's no guarantee of how he'd develop over a decade or so but it did show more than just potential.
The Greens' Corbyn moment - from a party that was already happily Corbynite. Hopefully, Polanski will get a bit more coverage now and demonstrate to the public that the Greens are a radical-left party with policies that won't work and are grounded more in ideology than reality.
That's true, and a large part of why the French are looking to address it now (but also, prudence and Maastricht criteria). The US is in a much worse position as there simply isn't the debate or public understanding. Politicians and public there both genuinely believe in the Magic Money Tree.
France does not have a debt crisis. It has a political crisis. France's government deficit this year will be a bit above 5% of GDP. That's higher than is sensible and does need cutting but it's about the same as the UK and well below the US - at lower interest rates. Not a crisis.
From his side, yes, absolutely. The question then is what do the opposition do about it? In most countries, a stolen election would bring millions out on to the streets. I'm not sure it would / will in the US: too many don't understand what they stand to lose.
I was thinking about the culmination on Jan 6 specifically. Had a competent organizer been given clear orders weeks in advance, Trump would have got his way. But this time the tables would likely be turned. Trump would have the security forces on his side against a hostile mob.
Brexit failed as policy because the question 'what are you going to do with it?' was never adequately answered. We had cakeism, we had individual wish-lists but no serious campaign group or political party ever really got around to addressing the question properly. So with the ECHR.
True. Although they're still stuck a little bit in the 2020-1 quandry, between what they need to happen and what they're willing to enable to happen. They'll want to be able to rig it entirely through manipulation and intimidation but if push comes to shove, will they turn bullets on crowds?
If Reform win the next election, the Lords will become a zombie chamber, representing a political landscape that has passed. Either Reform will get to nominate 200-300 peers themselves, or it will be properly reformed or abolished, or the Lords will act supine out of threat of the above.
That's a ridiculous comparison. If you take such an extreme view, why not advocate the total ban on the sale of oil and gas? You might get a few complaints when people start dying from cold, or from essential goods and services not being delivered. But a small price to pay for the greater good, eh?
That will happen either way. Other countries will just fill the gap of our non-production.
I suspect we will. I did start by saying that it's not an either-or. I fully agree we should be investing heavily in renewables and decarbonizing ourselves. But while gas and oil is demanded globally, who should produce it? Russia? Saudi? Iran? Our self-denial is their enrichment.
Yes. That's fair.
Businesses pay 78% tax on North Sea oil and gas extraction, so the great majority of profit goes to the government - and much else goes to the pension funds that ordinary people invest in.
Billions in tax. And billions more in investment, high-paying jobs and profits into pension funds.
It's our jewelry store. We're free to sell from it. I see no reason why we should impoverish ourselves so that others - often very unpleasant regimes - can meet the demand that is still there.
Children do have minds of their own. Certainly, parental attitudes often play a big role in shaping those of their children but there are more than enough counterexamples where children either rebel or just form different opinions independently - something more likely than ever in the Internet age.
An almost sensible policy from the Tories. Shock. Though still tainted by either-or-ism. Britain should be at the forefront of decarbonization but while there is a demand for gas and oil, it's stupid to let other countries produce what we could deliver ourselves. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
That is pretty gruesome. Point taken.
As Satre said (I paraphrase) they lie not because they want to win the argument but because they want to end the argument. They seek to make debate impossible and, hence, pointless. Debate implies equality between the two sides which in turn implies equal legitimacy - something they'd never accept.
It's a good deal further right than that. Even the BNP would have been wary of being so crudely racist (publicly, anyway). It's NF-level stuff.
I don't want Putin to stop the war. I want Putin to lose the war. The notion of a ceasefire as peace is a delusion (as well as morally grossly unjust); it would merely be a pause to allow Russia to regroup, rearm and rethink.
Surely *you* might well ask that given that it's your job? While you're at it, you might also ask those who are creating this environment why they're doing it and challenge their falsehoods and distortions a bit more strongly.
Taking back control - and giving it to Trump and Vance (also it wasn't an 'online safety law' that applied to her advocacy of burning asylum-seekers to death - it was the pre-Internet Public Order Act of 1986)
The conclusion feels back to front here. These children are unlikely to be becoming persistently absent because they miss some school in the first week; more likely is that they miss some school in the first week because they're prone to becoming persistently absent. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
That wouldn't surprise me. But 'show trial' is hardly a niche academic term - although it is one that's fallen from popular awareness given the fading from memory of pre-1989 dictatorships. Even so, it'd be spectacularly ignorant for a journalist to just assume it means 'high profile trial'.
What Trump can (or can't) do is a matter of raw power and political capacity. It is only loosely related to an objective assessment of the law and constitution. Besides, as you note later, there are other paths to the same destination - and while the path matters, the destination matters even more.
I do wonder if the FT journalist knows what a show trial actually is?
The other good news is that autocracies often have trouble with succession. Whether Trump tries to stay in office himself in 2028 or run a proxy, first he has to not be dead. But waiting for him to die leaves all the means by which he's done what he's done unaddressed for someone else to use later.
Good thread on where the US is on the road to autocracy, and what people can do to oppose what Trump and co are doing.
Worth noting that the United States already has a big advantage in this respect, in that there are already only two meaningful political parties, so the framework for united opposition is already there.
They are irrelevant if one party captures the system and is content (or sufficiently intimidated) to delegate all power to its leader. Separation of powers is a myth; it was designed in a time before parties and while Trump has taken unitary government to extremes, the trend was there long before.
The first rule of succession in an autocracy is to secure the inheritance. If Trump really was dead, you'd expect to see factions fighting over their claims to legitimacy, both with each other and to the public. So he's alive. *How* alive might be a question worth asking. #WoodrowWilson
The UN cannot function if its members cannot attend its workings. Trump obviously has no time for the UN. Nonetheless, were it to leave the US - as it may have to - it would be starkly symbolic of the end of America as the centre of the global geopolitical system. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Indeed. There's another reply on the thread justifying it as 'what normal people do'. No: normal people are doing well to have one home. Granted, MPs (outside London) are different and do need two bases due to the nature of their job. But not three.
Even if the tax side is above board (questionable), it seems pretty odd to have a 'main residence' in Hove when your constituency is in Manchester and your ministerial job in London. I wouldn't be happy if it was my MP primarily living 300 miles away.
Unlike, say, threatening to invade Canada?
We know why the radical right is doing this. Britain has a long history of welcoming refugees, and - in theory at least - treating people as equal under the law. So the radical right doesn't like 'British values'. But using 'Christian', however inaccurately, actively excludes, say, muslims.
1/6 Trump sides with russia because he wants to. Europe often does because we are incompetent cowards. Now a 40km buffer inside Ukraine is being floatedāanother unreciprocated concession to russia. Should we throw in weekly foot massages for Putin too? How low will we go?
As predicted a few hours ago -
The rule of law exists to prevent the rule of the mob.
Since the US is going down the road of honouring Americans who took up arms against it, any chance Benedict Arnold could get a picture up too?
I don't think we should underplay the extent to which Twitter/X has been an active player in this, as well as a forum. But obviously not the only such driver (or even social media more generally).
Indeed. And on top of which, the Tories simply have far fewer members to begin with, which makes takeover by the activist right so much easier (Tory membership has always been pretty right-wing but it's not always been active - and those who were active tended more to the centre. Not so now).
Disadvantaging minorities seems pretty much in keeping with Reform's general policy platform to me. But elected representatives have a wider mandate than just the manifesto they ran on. That's the nature of representative democracy: councillors are not merely cyphers and proxies.
Democracy should give everyone an equal voice. Consultations don't. If the system is rigged in favour of certain groups then redesign it or reject it - and if you really can't, treat the system's output with deep scepticism.
I think my own politics have shifted in the last few years from centre-right to fractionally-centre-right but moving from Twitter to BlueSky is barely a factor in that, well behind (1) the real world right going nuts, and (2) the influence of having changed party.
One reason I dislike mandatory 'consultation' processes is that the feedback is inevitably heavily biased to those who have the time, skill, inclination and awareness to respond: usually middle-class, older and (hence) whiter. It also favours the concentrated over the dispersed.
I disagree. Representatives are elected to take decisions. Consultation might be good practice and good politics but I don't think it's an essential feature. Most council consultations are a sham anyway, in my experience: a hoop to be jumped through rather than a meaningful feedback process.
I think it'll be overturned partly because the argument that it's better to keep the status quo in place pending a full hearing seems a strong one. Whether the govt wins in the longer term is another matter (though it may well).
Predictions re the Epping asylum seekers hotel case 1. The previous decision will be overturned and the hotel can continue to be used (for now). 2. Reform and fellow-travellers will immediately bolt down the conspiracy rabbit hole and allege foul play rather than engage with the actual reasons.
FIFA and UEFA are well known for fair and transparent processes! However, some of Kazakhstan is within the traditional boundaries of Europe - it spans the Ural river - so it's not *wholly* illogical. By area (though not population), a greater proportion's European than is so of Turkey.
I doubt council officers would have let this decision be taken unless it was legally sustainable. Ultimately, this is democracy: these are the councillors the people elected taking the kind of decisions to be expected from Reform's values. Obviously, people also have the right to protest them.
That clip is deeply misleading in its first sentence. Yes, the Nazis never came close to 50%+ before taking power but the anti-Weimar parties collectively, on both extremes, did so several times. By that point, it's collapse was highly likely even if what came after was uncertain.
I'd also argue that the implicit 'political control = policy madness' is excessive. The UK had govt control to 1997 and while some decisions were clearly political (and damaging), overall policy was conducted in a reasonably responsible way. But Trump is Trump. He would engage in madness.
It is, although I don't agree with the conclusion. The US unravelling the independence of the Fed is likely to provide a(nother) good case study in why you shouldn't.
I still get the Tories' mailings despite leaving 6 years ago. Useful to know what they're pumping out. Today's - as so often - was just an attack on Labour. Fine if it's 1959 and there are only two options but it's not. Every party needs positive messages as to why people should vote *for* them.
2017 was exceptional although the post-election period of Johnson's government was also Lab/Con dominated (likewise the early part of Cameron's from 2010-12). But yes, 5+ party politics (Scot, Wales, NI) simply doesn't fit FPTP. I think it's fair to exclude Libs from right-of-centre post-1950s.
If polling had taken place through all history, rather than just post-WW2, when would have been the last time the combined Con+Lab share was under a third? Maybe the fag-end of the Balfour govt in 1904-5? Or earlier, excluding Labour entirely? Do we even have to go back to the Peelite split?
The FON combined Con+Lab share of 33 is also the lowest in any poll in history (at this time in the last parliament, it was around 80), beating the 35 in the previous FON.
The FON poll also gives Reform (34) more than Lab+Con *combined* (33). Even allowing for their pro-Reform house effects, that's still a revolutionary finding. I think this is the first time ever that any one* party has polled more than Con+Lab. * The SDP-Lib Alliance did it once, in Dec 1981.
Yes, it's FON but Labour won a landslide on the same share of the vote against a *less* split opposition (albeit with more friendly tactical voting than Reform would likely get). The Tory share of 15% is their equal lowest this parliament and only one (pretty dodgy) poll ever has put them lower.
Yes. I said that competitive autocracy is a sliding scale but you're right: even that model is far too one-dimensional. There are always some similarities because the fundamentals of power work the same anywhere. But there will also be differences and life isn't linear.
It is - but media management only gets you so far; it doesn't change the thing the media stories are about.
The level of (verbal) obsequiousness shown by members of the administration to Trump is way beyond how ministers would have treated George III in the 18th century. I suppose at least he hasn't got them bowing and walking backwards out of the Oval Office. Yet.
It was pretty much all on show before Nov 2020. If Americans voting for Trump weren't explicitly endorsing his agenda then they were at least doing so, not caring that he was the man behind Jan 6 and had only radicalised himself further in the meantime.
Which would be such a Westminster Bubble move they might well do it. Back in the real world, no-one will care about when a new session of parliament takes place. The election results, however, will have lasting consequences.
I don't think the German example is a good one. The Reichsbank wasn't government owned or dominated; its ruinous policies were primarily driven by its own executives (though not without approval, initially, from politicians). Also, it was money supply rather than interest rates that was key then.
You can't. You can control the rate the Fed pays and, to an extent, short-term rates within the system but beyond that lenders and borrowers will determine the market for debt independently. If lenders won't get a return, they won't lend. Of course, if you also control the printing presses ...
Like I say though, exporters dropping prices isn't happening yet - though of course it's still early days and the tariff policy is *far* from stable. There's no point compromising quality, which hits reputation, or selling below cost.
Very true. But that also means Europe developing: - alternative and independent structures, capacity, institutions and processes; - a mindset where it is an independent global player; - far closer political ties and policy. Who is willing to lead that process and make the arguments?
The evidence so far is that the exporters have barely changed anything - so the tariffs are being paid entirely by the American importers and consumers. But. That will have an impact on volumes sold (even if there aren't US substitutes available).
Although of course the reality is not that these media are banned from reporting on the council, it's that the councillors have banned themselves from talking to those media. The outlets are still free to cover the same stories; it's just that the stories won't include Reform's comments. Oh, well.
It would be helpful to include some numbers and examples on what this means. Obviously, not every country with populist monetary policy ends up like Argentina or Turkey - but some do. Some end up worse. 'Higher inflation' doesn't necessarily mean just a couple of points. It could be triple-digits.
Competitive authoritarianism is more a sliding scale than a binary status though. Is America in the same place as Russia? Obviously not. But equally, it's drifted far and rapidly from, say, Canada or Denmark. And direction of travel is at least as important as whether it's worse than Turkey.