Democrats are boned In North Dakota for the Senate. Huge (for the size of the state) number of Native Americans have just been disenfranchised due to a voter id law.
That has to be one of the most insulting things done for a long while. And, unless I am much mistaken, due to a recent ruling by the SCOTUS.
You are mistaken. It was a decision by the appeals court which the Suireme Court refused to revisit
Asking voters to provide a residential address is not unreasonable. If native Americans don’t have “traditional residential addresses” they can come up with a way to create that.
Not if you traditionally have a large portion of your population of a specific demographic who do not have a "traditional" (who's tradition?) residential address.
It's a naked, tagrgetted, attempt at disenfranchisement.
Proof of address is not an unreasonable ask. Have the activists come up with an alternative proposal?
I see there’s headline news about young people drinking less alcohol again.
Has anyone done a mass correlation study to see how drinking less, smoking less, having less sex and pregnancy and fewer “fights” *but also* greater eating disorders, online bullying, suicides, loneliness, rawer social skills, and mental health issues, obesity is all linked to them simply interacting with one another far less physically than they used to?
It was impossible to socialise, build friendships or relationships other than in person when I was a teenager. And alcohol was what nulled your nerves to make that move. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
I have no idea how it works now, but I suspect a lot of networked streaming and groupchat from bedrooms, and far fewer meet ups at house parties and skateparks?
You forgot to add that they take far more drugs
I am not sure that is correct, though may be in some localities.
Drug and alcohol abuse seem to be moving to an older age range here in Leicester. The spice zombies are mostly in their thirties and forties.
Is there any data to suggest drugs are reducing. Seems to be lots of noise re opposite and if you look at prisons it is endemic. Interesting to know if all the noise is just that rather than everybody and their dog using drugs of one sort or another.
if you look at 'classic' drugs, then there is evidence of a very significant fall in use. The question is whether 'new' drugs are making up the rest (some of it, certainly)
Riddle me this: Are we really turning into a nation of abstainers? Or are people just getting more savvy about lying to the health authorities about their alcohol consumption?
Fewer pubs, no lunchtime drinking, more alcohol-free ethnic minorities.
Country going to the dogs
Morning Malc!
Morning GIN, hope you are on doubles and keeping the side up
Riddle me this: Are we really turning into a nation of abstainers? Or are people just getting more savvy about lying to the health authorities about their alcohol consumption?
One data point. My family and friends are without doubt drinking much less. Feel like drinking is going down a similar road to smoking.
So it’s just my family and friends keeping the drinking statistics up then......
I am helping you big time
Good man. Boo to puritanism!
My 15 going on 16 granddaughter shuns everything to do with smoking, drinking, and drugs and her peer group are all the same, and indeed it seems their on line activity supports their view.
I’m willing to bet that the cries of rage from rich London Labour voters when a Labour government taxes their expensive houses and other assets will be heard all over the country. Poor things!
Is "very affluent people who vote for Labour thinking their taxes won't go up" really a significant demographic?
Probably not by numbers. But noisy and well connected in the media (think of the hoo-ha when child benefit was taken from higher rate taxpayers) and concentrated in a number of constituencies. They may well say they are happy to pay more taxes but may well think that they can find ways around them. If in fact they are affected and hard I’m not at all convinced that they will be quite as keen as before on the reality for them personally of a high taxing Labour government.
Purelyage enterprise and savings and reduce taxes. Their actions belie their words. A McDonnell chancellorship may force them to put their money where their mouths are - and I am not at all certain that all of them will be sanguine about what this will mean for them.
No tuition fees is a massive incentive.
For the young, yes. Less so for the middle aged and those who have student debt but who won’t get that debt wiped out. that’s assuming that promise will be made again.
What the last election showed was not that people were prepared to pay higher taxes but that people voted for the party which promised them a free education and that they could keep their inheritances. It was the Tories who were being honest (to an extent) about social care and the other parties offering free goodies to all. Look at the wailing over increased NI contributions.
Am I cynical in thinking that such people won’t like the reality of any government that tells them the truth - if you want public goods you are going to have to pay no matter how unfair you might think it is and, yes, that means using granny’s house to pay for granny’s care etc - no matter what they say at dinner parties about being fine about paying more tax in the abstract?
Maybe.
Quite a few parental votes in free tuition.
Undoubtedly. But my financial interest in free tuition ends the day my youngest leaves university which is well before the next election. At that point waiving the existing debt becomes very interesting. But no party is offering that.
It’s a factor in my vote for 10 years, if not beyond. Saddling the next generation with personal debt feels wrong. The fact much of it will not repaid just means it creates anxiety for no benefit.
Riddle me this: Are we really turning into a nation of abstainers? Or are people just getting more savvy about lying to the health authorities about their alcohol consumption?
Fewer pubs, no lunchtime drinking, more alcohol-free ethnic minorities.
Country going to the dogs
Morning Malc!
Morning GIN, hope you are on doubles and keeping the side up
The problems of pensions nationalisation are very substantial. The potential rewards in the short term are colossal. If I were John McDonnell, I would be working on almost nothing else right now.
I will leave the technicalities to others. But the political problem he will have is that it can easily be presented as “Labour to seize your savings.” That may be harder to deal with.
He's not going to be so stupid as to announce it in advance.
What about the Salisbury convention? Or would you expect a Corbyn led government just to abolish the Lords?
The House of Lords can delay but it cannot block. I expect there is nothing that the Corbynites would like more than a succession of stand-up fights with the House of Lords.
I’m not sure you’d need parliamentary approval for this. I’d imagine that there is a way to do it by executive order
Northamptonshire has not gone bust. It’s no longer allowed to engage in new spend. It’s not hard to trace a history of poor management at the council. Many county councils are as rotten as those long held labour mets.
Speaking as a county councillor... my own local authority is not far away from the same.
One thing that needs to go is the two tier district/council system, which is why I'm very much in favour of the blue's proposal to change Nottinghamshire to a unitary authority. I pointed out a fairly simple and obvious saving would be that you'd only need one website for everything, which was mocked here as a tiny saving. Wither 'look after the pennies, and the pounds take care of themselves'.
A Nottinghamshire reorganisation is long overdue, and should include a long-needed expansion of the city's boundaries, as the leader of the City Council Jon Collins has requested.
The official City of Nottingham is arguably the most batshit bonkers local authority boundary in the country, it is ludicrously tightly drawn, with Forest's ground not even officially in the City, despite being only a mile or so from the city centre. The city boundary should be extended out to the Derbyshire border in the west, south through West Bridgford and north through Gedling and Hucknall. Should have been done years ago.
Greater Nottingham is a pretty big urban area – actually extends into Derbyshire with places like Ilkeston and Long Eaton part and parcel of it, nearer to Nottingham than they are to Derby. But annexing parts of Derbyshire might be a bridge too far for the bureaucrats!
I'd actually support going one step further than this and having one unitary authority covering both the city and the county. Although I doubt Conservative run Nottinghamshire would want this as it'd pretty much guarantee Labour control given Labour's dominance in Nottingham city.
You're right about the city boundaries though, how Clifton can be in Nottingham City and West Bridgford not is very odd. It also distorts Nottingham's stats by making the city appear more dangerous, poorer etc as most of Nottingham's more prosperous suburbs are outside the city boundary.
Riddle me this: Are we really turning into a nation of abstainers? Or are people just getting more savvy about lying to the health authorities about their alcohol consumption?
Fewer pubs, no lunchtime drinking, more alcohol-free ethnic minorities.
Country going to the dogs
Morning Malc!
Morning GIN, hope you are on doubles and keeping the side up
I'm doing my best...
Good (Wo)Man, just to be politically correct in case you are a lady PS: you just finished the laundry and hoovering
Northamptonshire has not gone bust. It’s no longer allowed to engage in new spend. It’s not hard to trace a history of poor management at the council. Many county councils are as rotten as those long held labour mets.
Speaking as a county councillor... my own local authority is not far away from the same.
One thing that needs to go is the two tier district/council system, which is why I'm very much in favour of the blue's proposal to change Nottinghamshire to a unitary authority. I pointed out a fairly simple and obvious saving would be that you'd only need one website for everything, which was mocked here as a tiny saving. Wither 'look after the pennies, and the pounds take care of themselves'.
A Nottinghamshire reorganisation is long overdue, and should include a long-needed expansion of the city's boundaries, as the leader of the City Council Jon Collins has requested.
The official City of Nottingham is arguably the most batshit bonkers local authority boundary in the country, it is ludicrously tightly drawn, with Forest's ground not even officially in the City, despite being only a mile or so from the city centre. The city boundary should be extended out to the Derbyshire border in the west, south through West Bridgford and north through Gedling and Hucknall. Should have been done years ago.
Greater Nottingham is a pretty big urban area – actually extends into Derbyshire with places like Ilkeston and Long Eaton part and parcel of it, nearer to Nottingham than they are to Derby. But annexing parts of Derbyshire might be a bridge too far for the bureaucrats!
I'd actually support going one step further than this and having one unitary authority covering both the city and the county. Although I doubt Conservative run Nottinghamshire would want this as it'd pretty much guarantee Labour control given Labour's dominance in Nottingham city.
You're right about the city boundaries though, how Clifton can be in Nottingham City and West Bridgford not is very odd. It also distorts Nottingham's stats by making the city appear more dangerous, poorer etc as most of Nottingham's more prosperous suburbs are outside the city boundary.
An alternative option would be to have a Greater Nottingham mayoralty that covered Rushcliffe, Gedling, Broxtowe and Erewash (in Derbyshire) as well as the official city council area. The model seems to be working well in Manchester.
Riddle me this: Are we really turning into a nation of abstainers? Or are people just getting more savvy about lying to the health authorities about their alcohol consumption?
One data point. My family and friends are without doubt drinking much less. Feel like drinking is going down a similar road to smoking.
So it’s just my family and friends keeping the drinking statistics up then......
I am helping you big time
Good man. Boo to puritanism!
Puritan ideology would have been a great deal more attractive had it involved less concern with the behaviour of others as opposed to oneself.
My favourite Shakespeare line - ‘dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ?’
1) "London" covers a multitude of sins and economic experience. Lumping in Newham with Bromley or Tower Hamlets with Hillingdon isn't very helpful. There is a lot of wealth in London and a lot of relative poverty often in very close proximity. Treating it for any purposes as a single entity is inherently foolish.
2) My brother is an alcoholic. It's an addiction of the middle aged and older whereas for younger people it's drugs and gambling pervades all social and demographic groups. I would argue addiction is the greatest challenge for society now. The positive consequences of reducing addiction to drink, drugs and gambling are immense.
3) The biggest critique of May's speech has come from the fiscal hawks who consider her pledge to "end austerity" to be criminally unwise. The deficit is down and that needs to be recognised but debt remains and paying £30-£40 billion every year on debt interest is a waste of money which could be used elsewhere (including defence). The problem was "austerity" was ring-fenced to exclude the NHS and Education which left local authorities vulnerable in the face of rising social care costs. Even now May seems more interested in playing Labour's game of pledging big money to the NHS while leaving local councils to face bankruptcy.
London certainly doesn't lose out in terms of public spending, which is about £1,000 a year per head higher in the Capital than it is in the UK as a whole. And, there is a very great deal of poverty in London, as well. Left wing Londoners are most unlikely to object to increased taxation and spending, because they will benefit from it, and/or believe in higher taxes.
London's high tax take comes from the Square Mile, and owners of high value properties, not from the average Londoner.
You're right about the city boundaries though, how Clifton can be in Nottingham City and West Bridgford not is very odd. It also distorts Nottingham's stats by making the city appear more dangerous, poorer etc as most of Nottingham's more prosperous suburbs are outside the city boundary.
Q) Are nottinghams "prosperous surburbs" precisely so because they are out of reach of the city council? and would bringing them into the city control cause people to move further afield?
The thing is, though: something has to give. I agree with Alastair, but what is the realistic solution? Public services are a vital part of most people’s lives. From bin collections through schools to the NHSline decisions will be made for them that harm them more.
The fundamental issue is poorly designed government spending. Often well intended but they are just crap programmes with unintended consequences
* I was told the other night that tech companies are notoriously tight fisted and have no understanding of social responsibility. One company, who shall remain nameless but let’s call them Giggle for simplicity, sat in front of Cameron and said “they couldn’t afford” to donate £250,000 to a programme to protect children from online grooming by paediphiles.
It does need a completely new approach. That probably requires at least a degree of consensus because meaningful change can’t happen in one Parliamentary cycle and positive results will be slow to appear. But with the centre of gravity in both main parties moving to the respective extremes and our voting system,God knows where that consensus comes from.
Changing corporate structures and the way in which shares are held could well achieve plenty. Businesses that look at the long-term - rather than focusing on delivering dividends that get top management their big paydays - would be a huge and beneficial development. Again, though, it’s hard to see it happening.
Our family business operates a 5 year budget cycle, a 10 year strategic plan, 25 year objectives and a 100 year vision.
But we are... quirky
On average public companies are valued on the stock market at 18 times current year profit after tax and 50 times current year dividends.
This is not a short term valuation but depends on company strategies decades ahead. Who would pay 50 times the current year dividend for a share in a company that was not planning more than a year ahead?
However, tech companies may be over valued. Although they can have very fast growth rates and little or no profits (like Amazon), tech companies are not necessarily going to exist decades into the future and open to their tech being replaced by a new tech (Nokia?).
A frankly terrifying piece here in all honesty by Meeks. McDonnell, coming to a savings pot near you soon.
Will be a LOT of people cashing it all in and putting it under their floor boards the morning after Jezza gets in.
£50 notes will be scrapped, the rest replaced with new design.
A textbook way of fighting corruption and the black economy is to scrap or replace high value notes. Hoarded cash then has to be paid into a bank and exchanged for new notes, exposing those who have unrecorded stashes of cash.
This is what India did in 2016 although its effectiveness is being questioned - see
I see there’s headline news about young people drinking less alcohol again.
Has anyone done a mass correlation study to see how drinking less, smoking less, having less sex and pregnancy and fewer “fights” *but also* greater eating disorders, online bullying, suicides, loneliness, rawer social skills, and mental health issues, obesity is all linked to them simply interacting with one another far less physically than they used to?
It was impossible to socialise, build friendships or relationships other than in person when I was a teenager. And alcohol was what nulled your nerves to make that move. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
I have no idea how it works now, but I suspect a lot of networked streaming and groupchat from bedrooms, and far fewer meet ups at house parties and skateparks?
You forgot to add that they take far more drugs
I am not sure that is correct, though may be in some localities.
Drug and alcohol abuse seem to be moving to an older age range here in Leicester. The spice zombies are mostly in their thirties and forties.
Is there any data to suggest drugs are reducing. Seems to be lots of noise re opposite and if you look at prisons it is endemic. Interesting to know if all the noise is just that rather than everybody and their dog using drugs of one sort or another.
There does seem to be a long term trend, like with alcohol, that the under 25s are using less and the older generation using more. 20% of youngsters using illegal drugs in the last year compared to 25% a decade ago.
You're right about the city boundaries though, how Clifton can be in Nottingham City and West Bridgford not is very odd. It also distorts Nottingham's stats by making the city appear more dangerous, poorer etc as most of Nottingham's more prosperous suburbs are outside the city boundary.
Q) Are nottinghams "prosperous surburbs" precisely so because they are out of reach of the city council? and would bringing them into the city control cause people to move further afield?
Well The Park is within the city boundary, so not really, no. Other cities like Leeds manage perfectly well with the prosperous suburbs within the city council area. What is so unique about Nottingham that its own suburbs are outside its jurisdiction?
Comments
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/09/nikki-haleys-graceful-exit-puts-course-biggest-prize-2024/
Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729249/drug-misuse-2018-hosb1418.pdf
The one drug to buck the trend (and give a rise overall) is cocaine
You're right about the city boundaries though, how Clifton can be in Nottingham City and West Bridgford not is very odd. It also distorts Nottingham's stats by making the city appear more dangerous, poorer etc as most of Nottingham's more prosperous suburbs are outside the city boundary.
PS: you just finished the laundry and hoovering
Th Puritan ideology would have been a great deal more attractive had it involved less concern with the behaviour of others as opposed to oneself.
My favourite Shakespeare line - ‘dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ?’
A few disjointed thoughts on the debate:
1) "London" covers a multitude of sins and economic experience. Lumping in Newham with Bromley or Tower Hamlets with Hillingdon isn't very helpful. There is a lot of wealth in London and a lot of relative poverty often in very close proximity. Treating it for any purposes as a single entity is inherently foolish.
2) My brother is an alcoholic. It's an addiction of the middle aged and older whereas for younger people it's drugs and gambling pervades all social and demographic groups. I would argue addiction is the greatest challenge for society now. The positive consequences of reducing addiction to drink, drugs and gambling are immense.
3) The biggest critique of May's speech has come from the fiscal hawks who consider her pledge to "end austerity" to be criminally unwise. The deficit is down and that needs to be recognised but debt remains and paying £30-£40 billion every year on debt interest is a waste of money which could be used elsewhere (including defence). The problem was "austerity" was ring-fenced to exclude the NHS and Education which left local authorities vulnerable in the face of rising social care costs. Even now May seems more interested in playing Labour's game of pledging big money to the NHS while leaving local councils to face bankruptcy.
NEW THREAD
London's high tax take comes from the Square Mile, and owners of high value properties, not from the average Londoner.
This is not a short term valuation but depends on company strategies decades ahead. Who would pay 50 times the current year dividend for a share in a company that was not planning more than a year ahead?
However, tech companies may be over valued. Although they can have very fast growth rates and little or no profits (like Amazon), tech companies are not necessarily going to exist decades into the future and open to their tech being replaced by a new tech (Nokia?).
A textbook way of fighting corruption and the black economy is to scrap or replace high value notes. Hoarded cash then has to be paid into a bank and exchanged for new notes, exposing those who have unrecorded stashes of cash.
This is what India did in 2016 although its effectiveness is being questioned - see
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-politics/indian-opposition-raps-modi-over-failed-ban-on-high-value-notes-idUKKCN1LF1TM
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-07-latest-drug-figures-habits.html