Friday 24th May 2024

[RogerOThornhill]

1st up? Now this is a rare event.

Good morning.

[refitman]

Per Sky's review last night

[refitman]

Pretty sure he's gonna walk it. Labour will be on a hiding to nothing, standing against him

[frog222]

1st up? Now this is a rare event.

Good morning.

I went back to bed, not wanting to monopolise and thinking refit would be along soon !

That was an excellent QT Report !

[frog222]

Per Sky's review last night

This bit was a killer, well one of them --

in response Bridget said we had to keep the UK attractive to business, guess which reply went down better in a city where Amazon workers are on strike?

[gilsey]

Thanks to sky for the QT review, and refit for the clip of that poor chap speaking for many of us.


sky wrote

I have some sympathy for Labour's position, without 'seeing the books' they've absolutely no idea what's possible

I have no sympathy for them at all. They're pinning it all on economic growth, there are only 2 ways that could happen and they've ruled them both out. If they want the private sector to generate growth then it's rejoin the single market at least, if that's ruled out then it's what we used to call pump-priming with public expenditure. A rod for their own backs.

The most frustrating part of the programme to me was the ridiculous 'discussion' about water, Bruce demanding to know where the billions of investment money was going to come from and not one of the politicians prepared to break the consensus by telling the truth. You borrow it, just as a company would if it wanted to build a new factory or a supermarket, and the customers are on the hook for the interest and a return on the money, not the f****** capital you useless neoliberal t***s.

Pardon my french.

[gilsey]

[frog222]

Wiki tells me the EA has a huge range of tasks and the news tells me it is failing on very many of them --



Confession of failure by the boss man --

Duffy said: “I see these letters and these FOI requests and I’ve got great volumes of them, and I see local officers going through quite a contorted processes to not to answer when they know, often, the answer but it’s embarrassing.

“They do it because they are frightened. They are worried about revealing the true state of what’s going on, they’re worried about reaction from NGOs and others, and possibly from the government, about the facts of the situation. And they’re often working at a local level but in a very nationally charged political environment, which is very difficult for them.”

Duffy suggested nature charities were asking questions in a manner that made it harder for Environment Agency staff to respond: “I think the first step there is to understand how hard that is for many of my staff, when they’re faced with often very expert NGOs who are asking very good questions – the right questions ultimately – but [it’s about] how they lower that tone a bit, and manage it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... n-requests

Truss's 'efficiency savings' --
Liz Truss ‘has sewage on her hands’ over Environment Agency cuts

Exclusive: Truss oversaw cut in funds to tackle water pollution, since when raw sewage discharge has risen

Environment Agency insiders said that after Truss’s cuts, staff were moved away from environmental monitoring towards flood protection, and the number of samples taken from rivers went down dramatically.

Vaughan Lewis, a senior consultant for the agency, told the Guardian: “They plummeted to the point it was impossible for the Environment Agency to know what’s going on. They had no control or monitoring capability that was meaningful. They ceded the control of monitoring to water companies, which ended up being able to mark their own homework. They take their own samples and assess whether they are being compliant.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -pollution

Tories were business-friendly towards industrial agricultural and Water Company pollution, will Starmerism be any different?

[refitman]

Pretty sure he's gonna walk it. Labour will be on a hiding to nothing, standing against him

Well, at least the Labour leadership's decision has got the Zionist endorsment.

[frog222]

CRUEL CRACE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... -to-voters

[gilsey]

Wiki tells me the EA has a huge range of tasks and the news tells me it is failing on very many of them --

Underfunded since 2010 that's all, like everything else.

Won't improve under Labour unless they spend some money on it. see above.

[frog222]

Pretty sure he's gonna walk it. Labour will be on a hiding to nothing, standing against him

Well, at least the Labour leadership's decision has got the Zionist endorsment.

The worldwide Zionist Movement is getting uglier and uglier--

On the night of 30 April, a large group from the pro-Israel camp, many of them wearing Halloween masks, violently attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment. They brought “knives, bats, wooden planks, pepper spray and bear mace”, according to one witness, and proceeded to beat the anti-genocide protesters, pushing many into the ground using barricades. The police, whom UCLA had summoned to campus to help maintain order, stood by and allowed the attack to continue for hours. They seem to have assessed, correctly, what they were there to protect, and who they weren’t.

At the hearing on Thursday, the Republicans went to extensive lengths to criticize universities that have engaged in negotiations with their student protest encampments, calling these talks “capitulation” to “pro-terror” and “pro-Hamas” forces.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ian-rights

[frog222]

Fat finger pre EDIT

Have a smug fu**er !

[refitman]

Why am I not shocked in the slightest?

[frog222]

Wiki tells me the EA has a huge range of tasks and the news tells me it is failing on very many of them --

Underfunded since 2010 that's all, like everything else.

Won't improve under Labour unless they spend some money on it. see above.

Yep, was thinking much the same ...

It is tax smoothing that justifies allowing debt or reserves to rise substantially during periods of unusually high spending. However note that the higher government spending that justifies a high deficit is temporary. If it was permanent, tax smoothing would not apply, and taxes would need to rise in line with government spending, with no increase in the deficit. Even if the expenditure has long lasting benefits, such as better education for example, that doesn’t imply it should be funded by borrowing or money creation if that higher spending is permanent. (This abstracts from Keynesian arguments, which we consider below.)

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2024/0 ... eases.html

Tory destruction of public services from the EA (above) to reducing the numbers and quality of the HMRC staff has by attrition reduced the budgets available, so to get back to where we were needs new ongoing regular revenue,

IE taxing the £££££££££'s where they are -- Amazon and the Duke of Westminster, et al !

[gilsey]

IE taxing the £££££££££'s where they are -- Amazon and the Duke of Westminster, et al !

That's something else Labour have ruled out. They're determined to box themselves in.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

sky wrote

I have some sympathy for Labour's position, without 'seeing the books' they've absolutely no idea what's possible

I have no sympathy for them at all. They're pinning it all on economic growth, there are only 2 ways that could happen and they've ruled them both out. If they want the private sector to generate growth then it's rejoin the single market at least, if that's ruled out then it's what we used to call pump-priming with public expenditure. A rod for their own backs.

I'm going to blame the cheap Chilean Merlot for making me overly generous because I can't disagree with any of that.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Except that if and when Labour are in power, they will find ways of doing things. I know that people are incredibly cynical at the moment, but as Chris Dillow has repeatedly pointed out (to little avail, it seem) their incentives in government will be markedly different to what they are in opposition.

[refitman]

The treatment of Abbott has been pretty terrible and, if this is true, makes it look even worse. The leadership/NEC are properly terrible.

[refitman]

Pob and Spock are legging it

[Sky'sGoneOut]

This is beginning to piss me off. So many of the cowards are cutting and running we're going to be denied a lot of the joy we deserve on election night.

I don't want to see some disappointed nobodies looking sad, I want to see Gove having a coke fuelled tantrum and Redwood in tears.

[gilsey]

Hear hear.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

This passed me by yesterday and is something to celebrate, the government's Orwellian plan to spy on the bank accounts of millions of people has been scuppered due to Sunak calling the election and the Lords refusing to fast track it.



Of course we'll have to see if Labour try and revive it, I wouldn't put it past them.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I would be......surprised. If only because we are likely to get a sizeable intake of MPs who understand social media (for good or ill) much better.