Have you finally found a use for Microsoft Copilot?
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@RedWhippet is upset he didn’t get a mention.
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Quelle surprise.
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I think most people are, but social media pushes us all to the extremes.
I’ve been called a communist on here, but I’d probably describe myself as centre left. Economically, I’d favour a mixed economy, with essential services and natural monopolies under state control, and everything else left to the market.
Probably where I’m hardest ‘left’, is where it comes to social issues like immigration, race and LGBT stuff. That’s just because I see a lot of cruelty and bullying masquerading as ‘basic common sense’. It’s ironic to me that it’s become a common right wing indicator to be socially regressive on things like trans-rights when I would have thought that the libertarian viewpoint would be to stay out of people’s lives and let people crack on.
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Good science. 
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Yes social media and how it adapts to our views is a big factor
I´m probably the same economically. I´d favour a similar approach. I guess we could debate which industries should be under gov control but I imagine we´d agree on trains, electricity, healthcare, water, in their current states.
See on the trans issue, again I am a mixed bag. In my view people can do what they want ultimately, as long as it doesn´t harm or enfringe on other people. But I don´t think you can then demand other people agree with you. I don´t really believe it´s possible to change sex (and my approach would push acceptance of what you are) but if people want to live that way, that´s their right.
I´m sure you disagree with my perspective but I would hope you at least see that it is considered and has at least some basic respect for people to live in the way they want. I try to do the same with more left wing views even though they drive me crazy on immigration and that way you get a better discussion and more calm peaceful outcomes.
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Starmer was probably the worst UK PM ever. Coupled with Reeves disaster.
Now. Hope for Burnham. Give it 6 months. Even worse. Another example of cult of personality over delivery. Outdated left wing dogma in a modern world.
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You spelt Boris wrong.
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I can think of 3 that are worse.
Reeves was pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. Not sure anyone could do any better without some radical policy magic that brought in a ton of cash without infuriating the population.
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It’s all subjective I suppose, depending on what you judge them on.
As for Reeves and the no money argument, maybe she should have just borrowed a bit more. I mean, when the national debt is a few quid short of 3000 billion what difference does it make?
At what stage did we reach a position where there was no more money? It’s laughable.
There’s a threshold point if bond yields hit 5% the cost of borrowing goes stupid.
Over this government we’ve drifted perilously close to that point a few times.
It’s largely a result of stuff like energy prices etc. Truss didn’t help either, or how the previous government handled the finances.
It’s why I posted above that you have to say Burnham’s got balls taking it on now. There are more big financial pressures to come and the UK is not really in a great place to shield itself from it.
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Does anyone think the old left wing, save the working class is dead? The economy does not match that anymore. In the same vein maybe right wing free enterprise is also dead. Things have moved on.
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Quite possibly.
With such predatory mega corporations, free enterprise is stuck. You can´t compete really as a small or medium business against their power, economies of scale and aggressive competition and the moment you get bigger, they buy you up.
Look at Meta. What do they own now? Whatsapp, Facebook, Snapchat AND Instragram? The entire social media market more or less.
We are dominated in europe by American tech firms and our companies have no chance.
And with such power, the working class have little chance.
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I think we’re entering the sharp end of corporatocracy
The working class is dead.
I’m not that savy on economic ‘stuff’ however someone clever might be able to enlighten us.
The thing is what we have isn’t very healthy and is going to extremes I don’t think the world can take.
I don’t think we are thinking very clearly. We seem to be very confused.
Anyone ever seen the film Cube?
ultimately it´s about the idea that the system works with the left and right hand disconnected, and people may not even know what horrors they´re bringing on others. They just do their part.
I feel like the corporate word is that now. Pursuit of more more more, higher profits, share price, AI! etc etc. Without realising it´s bringing our doom.
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The crazy thing is that the survival of these very large corporations is wholly dependent on consumers. They are literally eating the very thing that sustains them.b
I often think that. AI too. If you take all the jobs and squeeze everyone, who is buying anything?
But then we´ve seen these dystopian films where the normal people are essentially slaves with basic substistance. Labour for minimum survival.
The challenge every Chancellor since Brexit has faced is that something shifted in the gilt market. Gilt yields appear to have become much more upward-sensitive to policy, without corresponding responsiveness on the downside. For relatively small increases in the debt position, the UK started paying significantly more for all debt it needed to take from the market. Continuing down that path is really just digging a deeper hole.
Yields were artificially low during the covid period, but even 2019 they were below 1%. They started into a climb in 2021 and have never really looked back. Then Truss came in and cranked them from 2% to 3.5% in a matter of weeks. They have never reset, and that increase in debt service costs has locked in an upward pressure. Yields are back to where they were in the 2007-08 financial crisis.
Writ large, that was what did in Starmer. Fiscally, unless he was willing to do something radical to increase revenue, he was really locked into a moderately conservative policy set that needed to focus on a few years of pushing that yield down. Once it starts to move downward, the virtuous cycle makes life easy for government - they can direct some of the resulting dividend to paying down debt more aggressively (which increases the future savings) and some of it to increasing spending. But right now, the longer UK yields are lurking around 5%, the higher the percentage of government debt that is financed at those levels become. Just standing still is going to require cuts in spending and/or increases in revenue, the inertia is taking debt service higher with every auction.
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