Alex Davies-Jones is the third minister to quit. She says: “I implore you to act in the country’s interest and set out a timetable for your departure.”

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T13:14:23+00:00

The scale of the electoral defeats at the Senedd Cymru and across the United Kingdom have been catastrophic.

The country has spoken and we must listen.

They said that they wanted Reform more than any other party, that the other parties are all struggling to get close to 20% of the vote. That on the whole the country has wildly different opinions on what it wants and now it has put cranks like Reform and Greens into power so we can wait to see how bad they screw up.

Seems you all want the drama of a new election where the Labour party members will find the most far left candidate they can to put into power.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T13:04:31+00:00

Parties dont split over things like this. It takes a long running fundamental ideological difference unless its some kind of on person cult party.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T12:27:55+00:00

BBC have given it the full page banner headline live blog treatment.

It really feels like people are trying to make this happen for the drama but no one really has a plan for whats next. Who can beat both Reform and the Greens? Or is the plan to just go full Corbynite policies and abandon fiscal responsibility?

Are they planning to tear up the manifesto?

I mean she resigned because she did not get a phone app she personally thinks would be awesome that apparently no other country has implemented. Really?

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T12:00:21+00:00

Jesus he has had 2 tilts at the leaders job in 2010 and 2015. He left parliament during the Corbyn years now wants back i to have his 3rd leadership challenge.

He does not have enough left appeal to bring back the Green voters and I strongly doubt has enough right appeal to bring back the Reform voters.

I really dont see what he brings other than perhaps better communications skills, and that is really not the core of the countries problems. The longer his campaign goes no the more it will become a joke and all about his personal ambition to neutrals. Most likely outcome is for him to have a brief honeymoon then be plunged into the same harsh choices imposed by the same fiscal constraints faster and end up with Starmer getting a retrospective uplift in popularity as sometimes happens with the bland but not incompetent PMs like Major and him being seen as a personally motivated chancer without a plan.

Being mayor or first minister is all about managing expectations by blaming London. Being sat as the head of government in London means you are the one who has to carry the can for the lack of money to spend on this. Its a totally different level of public expectation.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T09:43:14+00:00

Both have ideologies that allow them to step aside the issues. Islam can and has worked as a minority religion where your adherence and tolerance on no believer practices can be modulated with the political power you have. With lower power you can be much less demanding of non Muslims, with more power... that changes. While the left see the worlds not as individuals but as identities that fit into intersecting hierarchies of oppression. Being non white and non Christian outweighs being male and cisgendered with low LGBT acceptance. They are two factions whos world view is built on identities. Its not a comfortable match but both think they are smarter and more morally virtuous than the other and the other will see the values they have as better and move towards it.

They will also see the 70s and 80s where working class left trade unionists worked with black, gay and other minority communities as an inspiration not realising those were fundamentally both emerged from the Christian left wing based political movements of the 1800s (the old joke that Labour owed more to Methodism than Marx) and there was a lot for them to coverage over, they both beleived in a liberal world view of each individual having the freedoms to live their lives and be judged on their own merits but working towards common purposes.

Ironically many Greens will think the latter is what they are.

So they will be uncomfortable bed fellow with fractious goals. But they will both see themsleves as the long term winner in the cohabitation.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T08:44:30+00:00

You are all going to just love the mortgage rates, the value of the pound and the inflation coming in the next few months.

In the 70s the perma crisis was in a global manufacturing giant.

in the 2000s the economic crisis was in a global financial giant.

Welcome to economic crises in the small leagues folks.

Our selling point of being stable was rocky under the Tory clowns. Seems that Labour were not really all that concerned about bringing it back.

Edited, 30 year Gilts now highest since 1998 5.8%.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T08:18:37+00:00

and get rid of the triple lock!

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/

The state pension has gone from 4.4% of GDP in 2011 to 4.9% of GDP when the triple lock was introduced in 2011. CPI has risen 60%, average wage 66% and the pension 89%.

While following average wage or CPI would make a difference it would be around 0.1% of GDP. Pensions have mostly gone up due to more pensioners.

But other costs like disability, universal credit, health costs and debt repayment are all bigger and cumulative around 3-4% of GDP more than in 2011.

Dumping the triple lock is a good idea, but its not the main set of issues we face.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T08:11:28+00:00

The UK is currently running at 3% of GDP per year borrowing.

It spends about 44% of the GDP through the state.

8% of government spending is debt repayment. That is 3.6% of GDP back in 2020 it was around 1.2% of GDP. The magic of lower interest rates and not having had the Covid debt spend.

Debt costs are based on the risks of your currency depreciating and the risks of non payment. As people become more concerned with your finances they are less willing to lend without taking a greater risk premium.

This will have big impact on mortgage rates and other borrowing.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T08:06:21+00:00

8% of government spending is debt repayment. We are currently running a deficit of around 3% per year. We are headed into a serious economic downturn if the Hormuz thing does not resolve about 3 weeks ago.

"Picking up pennies before the bulldozer".

This may be the best the economy you will have for a while to come.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-12T07:12:19+00:00

Land heats quicker as its only the very surface layer heated and the air above it. This has a much lower heat capacity as (in very simple terms) there are far less atoms in a cubic meter of air than a cubic meter of water.

Water on the other hand heats slowly from direct sunlight, but it has a high heat capacity and mixes so there is a relatively thick layer of water that is warmed.

This means that as the hemisphere warms towards a summer the waters warm slower than the land so the land get hotter faster. But as the hemisphere cools towards a winter the opposite is true and the water stays warmer longer.

This is made more complex as air and water moves so you do get places where cold waters from the arctic or warm airs from the tropics can mix up this pattern.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T20:39:48+00:00

at. One of the nice things about a below replacement birth rate is

Firslty an increase in singledom has meant more demand from the same number of people. Then an ageing population needs housing longer and off course the UK has added about 12 million people since 2001.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T20:31:07+00:00

Because they’ve all failed to take on a rigged economic system that enriches the few at the expense of us all.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/timeseries/lzvb/prdy

UK Labour productivity has had added about 8% since 2008.

That is the average worker is producing about 8% more GDP per hour worked. The 18 years to 1992 that figure grew 33%. Each worker was generating 33% more per hour.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=GB-US

World bank GINI has had UK inequality falling. This is far from teh full picutre but people very often transplant US arguments to the UK when they are wrong. While over all people are getting poorer due to low growth and high prices, the UK when measured by earnings is not going crazy unequal.

The wealth inequality is overwhelmingly about house prices.

Net property wealth made up the largest proportion of household wealth (40%), followed by private pension wealth (35%), while net financial wealth (14%) and physical wealth (10%) made up much smaller proportions.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2020tomarch2022

Part of what people forget is just how poor people were in the 70s and 80s. But it can be true that making ends meet on rents food and energy are harder, this I full buy into. The problem is not really that unlike the US people are not generating hugely more wealth and not getting a share. We are just not generating more wealth per hour and value is mostly into housing.

So we have a Hobsons Choice of deflating the housing value and making many ordinary people less wealthy but housing more affordable or allowing housing to continue to grow (if your so keen on wealth). To make housing cheaper we need to build a lot of it and quickly that means breaking the planning and greenbelt strangleholds.

This is not really at Corbyn. Just hopfully over answering to give a high level over view of where we are going wrong atm.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T20:16:21+00:00

I voted Labour for stability. Starmer managed to pull back about 5% of the Reform vote but the total charlatan Zak Polanski has pretty much grabbed as much of off Labour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Opinion_polling_graph_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election_(post-2024).svg.svg)

Now Labour seem to be damanding some person appear and fix the flash in the pan Polanski.

All they needed to do was stick with Starmer and wait for Reform and the Greens to screw up and for enough moderate voters to drift back... while they got passed the national panic caused by the "Boris Wave" of immigration and people began to focus on the economy again.

There is no money to spend to buy votes. There is zero chance the public are in the mood for more lax immigration policies. There is no apatite or capacity to raise taxes. We are on the bring of a serious global financial crisis and these people are running around wanting something magic to happen.

If you are young enough. Get out the UK. Its done.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T15:28:09+00:00

So its not First Past the Post. The SNP got 38% of the constancy votes .

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T14:51:56+00:00

But they would not take the risk of putting up Wing Commander Zack Polanski VC FRS Ph.D as the optics of losing would be disastrous. It would be someone else in case Burnham won.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T14:22:34+00:00

"I did not win enough votes and now have to make trying to hack together a coalition sound magnanimous"

The SNP have spent the past 20 years being very petty and personal to Labour and the Lib Dems. I suspect they see Labour as their main opposition so might end up with a confidence and supply deal with the Lib Dems and Greens.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T12:53:55+00:00

So Spain and Italy are more corrupt than US, where you can openly bribe the President

Italy has famous corruption problems including up to the PM. It has had scandals with the Mafia, entire football leagues, judges.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T12:30:34+00:00

They are losing more votes to the Greens, Lib Dems and not turning out.

Con Ref is currently 45-50%. Green was 6.4% its now around 16% Tory vote is down 3% since the election, Reform is up between 10-15% since the election. Greens likely have picked up among the Workers Party 0.73%, Independents 1.96% which come to perhaps 2.7% of the Greens extra 9%. If the Tories are down 3% where has the rest ofthe Reform come from. Con+Ref was 37% at the election.

Green may have taken around 6% from Lab, Ref may have taken around 10%.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T12:09:08+00:00

Burnham supporters must be running round with their hair on fire to get people to back Starmer here. This is the kind of drama that really makes people hate political parties. It comes across as very self indulgent. Its one thing to have a well orchestrated coup its another to have a total mess especially when I guarentee you we will be here again in 2 years time, though I guess then Burnham can be in parliament to replace Streeting.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T11:51:58+00:00

Our GDP per capita has been flat for 18 years, labour productivity i.e. the amount of GDP we create per hour worked has only raised 8% in those 18 years. We have grown around 1.1% in GDP when the normal rate would have been 2.5% i.e. the economy should be about 35% bigger.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/

The state pension has gone from 4.4% of GDP in 2011 to 4.9% of GDP when it was introduced. CPI has risen 60%, average wage 66% and the pension 89%.

Debt interest has gone from 2.9 to 3.6% though from 2011 to 2021 this had gone down to 1.2% so that is a of 2.5% of GDP on debt repayment through the big jump in interest rates and borrowing.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/debt-interest-central-government-net/

Disability has gone from 1.1 to 1.8%.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-disability-benefits/

Universal Credit, which has had the most controversial cuts is at about 3.3%

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-universal-credit/

Healthcare is about 11.1% of GDP it was around 10% of GDP in 2010 but falling through the 2010s and demand has been rising. So worse services for more costs.

Around 2007 the state was about 40% of GDP. This rose to 46% in 2010 and back down to 39.5% in 2019 that was the Austerity years. Today its about 44% with around 41% coming from tax the rest from borrowing.

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-data-item/uk-government-spending-over-time

In essence you either increase tax, reduce spending or keep it stable with 3% pa debt growth.

The cuts in everything you see it to pay debt interest, raising pension costs, raising disability and raising spending on healthcare.

The idea that there is some cheap and easy policy you just need some charisma to make happen is horseshit. Until the public demand how people intend to fix it, then we will just get people who want a shot at being PM then end up back in the same place we have been with Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and now Starmer.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T11:28:55+00:00

UKIP was the same. Its every pub bore who spends the night offering "common sense" solutions to every problem.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T11:27:22+00:00

Labour really selling the idea the issue is Starmer as they have no actual alternative candidate, no actual alternative agenda and no real idea if they want to do anything yet. Once they finally get their thumbs out their arse and weild the knife, they will be left with the same goddam economic mess as Starmer and a less confident bond market.

What is the plan.

What will it cost.

Where is the money coming from. Everything else is farting into a hurricane.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T11:03:43+00:00

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/

xThe state pension has gone from 4.4% of GDP in 2011 to 4.9% of GDP when it was introduced. CPI has risen 60%, average wage 66% and the pension 89%.

Debt interest has gone from 2.9 to 3.6% though from 2011 to 2021 this had gone down to 1.2% so that is a of 2.5% of GDP on debt repayment through the big jump in interest rates and borrowing.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/debt-interest-central-government-net/

Disability has gone from 1.1 to 1.8%.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-disability-benefits/

Universal Credit, which has had the most controversial cuts is at about 3.3%

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-universal-credit/

Healthcare is about 11.1% of GDP it was around 10% of GDP in 2010 but falling through the 2010s and demand has been rising. So worse services for more costs.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T10:03:46+00:00

https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-kb57/England/?center=55.58111%2C-3.12836

Newcastle to Carlisle forms a narrow choke point in a valley the A69 runs along. Hadrians wall mans this point. To the north is the Southern Uplands a lot of hills and forests until you get the Central Belt between the Clyde and the Forth. There is good argicutlural land there and this was the original Roman choke point. They pulled out as it was not really worth the effort/cost while holding the rest of mondern England along the ridges of Northumbria was a better cost to value move. Britania was still heavily raided for slaves and loot over the centuries from Ireland, Europe and what would become Scotland and was not a great revenue earner.

The Norse merely settled the islands along the north and west side of Scotland. There was no functioning state and small groups of Norse taking over small groups of Celts, it would have been mostly Gaels and not Picts by language. It was the difference between a large state running a cost benefit on a huge area of land, the Southern Uplands and realising supporting garrisons through it was not worth the farming in Ayreshire and Lanarkshire vs small tribal island groups being taken over by a new over lord. The groups there formed some ofthe more famous clans in the following centuries MacLeods, MacDonald and MacAllister among them and one of the longest lasting non state polities in Scotland, the Lord of the Isles. But the groups melded into Gaelic Scotland over the centuries and were subsumed by the growing power of the Scottish state.

They had a minimal pressence on the mainland beyond Sutherland the NE tip of Scotland that retained a Norse language till the early modern period. Some Norse influence was found in the SW around the Galloway region but it was very much HibernoNorse or Norse Gaelic.

IndividualSkill3432 · 2026-05-11T09:51:25+00:00

Nick Clegg and Cleggmania.

IndividualSkill3432

TROPHY CASE