They are indulging the anti-immigration fantasies in the pursuit of popularity. They back down from raising main taxes or cutting the winter fuel allowance. This government has no mind of its own, it is blown wherever it thinks the popular opinion is. And it is a disaster for them and us

It’s an inversion of the Douglas Adams quote - “It’s [IMO] against the natural order of things and therefore it must have been invented after I was 35”

It does kind of demonstrate how much death the car industry has tricked us into accepting. If 1500 people died in a nuclear accident we’d quite rightly ban it

I think nuclear power is fine, but “we want the nuclear industry to have the same safety record as roads,” is not the way

A few years ago I discovered that you can just plan a holiday for the first week in December and that makes November more bearable as you have something nice to look forward to. It makes much more sense than holidaying in July

The idea that you can let society go to shit and then when a pandemic respiratory virus turns up there’s a lever you can pull to make it stop is just dumb. You have to make society robust, happy and healthy to get through the pandemic better. It’s pure cope to think otherwise

As the discourse moves ever further to the (far) right, I think a response of ”nationality is fake and borders should be open,” is a valid corrective. The first part is simply true and the second part is at least more achievable than whatever it is the government is trying to do

I do think of Essex as being basically the Texas of England

The next budget may well be very different, but the most likely reason is that the AI bubble bursts, there’s a horrible global recession and interest rates fall across the board, freeing HMG to borrow a bit more. Conversely, the future in which she has to raise tax next year is the happy path

This could really reach a tipping point if Burnham became leader as his past record of anti-London rhetoric provides an open goal to any party wanting to take London seats

Denmark also had a policy to move jobs and resources out of Copenhagen (the previous gov started it, but current one continued). Labour might also want to care about that as they economically favour the regions over London. IMO London’s voters are economically biddable, but no party wants to bid

The point about London and 70k is even more acute now. 70k is now just above the mean for London, so a “tax the rich,” policy is really a “just make London pay,” policy. Popular in the provinces no doubt, but eventually very damaging

The present UK government has got itself into an incredible mess precisely because it has indulged the view that whatever is popular is necessarily the right decision. It leads to bad outcomes

People vote for their representatives, the entire point I’m making is to delegate the decision making to them. I am against PR when it encourages the voters’ ego to believe they are the correct source of decision making legitimacy

If you accept that it is ok to defy a popular vote because of other considerations then you accept that the vote is not decision making. OTOH if you don’t accept that then it is immoral, since morality does not take precedence over the vote

Think in terms of systems and laws, not people and personal ethics. The law does compel people. If your view is that voting creates the law then voting does compel people.

I think this is close, but not quite right. The existence of climate change (and other extra-national problems like pandemics and global market failures) reduces the legitimacy of the nation state because it is not competent to solve it. The RW resolution of that is to say the problem doesn't exist

Those numbers really show the problem. People were complaining yesterday that a consultant on 100k felt underpaid, but you can see from this they really are. That the mean salary in London puts you in the top 10% in most of the UK is a big problem - London pays an ever increasing share of income tax

And, at their earnings peak (and probably past their child-rearing age), the consultant still cannot afford to buy a house in London. 100k is a top 4% salary, but far more than 4% of people will earn it during their best years