LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!
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I can't see how inflation will not rise.
There has been huge increases in carriage charges, raw material costs, administration etc. Coupled with product shortages, prices will inevitably rise and already are.
I don't see any of these issues being resolved this year.0 -
I'm not sure. Definitely be spending on different things though.TheBigBean said:
Will you spend more this year than last?kingstongraham said:
Not this year. Pay freeze.rick_chasey said:If you're all expecting pay rises to account for this bounce in prices do let me know, but I think we're in a different economic environment without the strength of unions and labour etc to really push through inflation.
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focuszing723 said:
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I'm looking at the 1922-1932 period.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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What could possibly have happened in1920 that might be relatable to 2020 and therefore our prospective future? Trends innit.rick_chasey said:The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0
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They are magic
He stands in front of hospital buildings which are yet to be built0 -
Rishi Sunak wants a new mega boom for the City and we know ultra fast internet connections are crucial for this. One of the main benefits of Starlink is the latency speed.
Elon Musks private jet (which key employees use too) was tracked as landing in the UK a couple of days ago.
I doubt it's about a tunnel to Ireland.
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Musk was involved in vacuum tube trains. A giant vacuum tunnel feels much more Boris.focuszing723 said:Rishi Sunak wants a new mega boom for the City and we know ultra fast internet connections are crucial for this. One of the main benefits of Starlink is the latency speed.
Elon Musks private jet (which key employees use too) was tracked as landing in the UK a couple of days ago.
I doubt it's about a tunnel to Ireland.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
You should read the article. I eagerly read it but his idea of not pandering to travellers does not correspond to mine so I imagine you would approve.rick_chasey said:
Might have to spell it out for me.pblakeney said:I'm looking at the 1922-1932 period.
Meanwhile, in reference to the earlier discussion on Matthew Parris
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I asked in the comments on the article if he had written the headline as it is much less considered than the article. Apparently that "has been rejected as it contains content that is in breach of our community guidelines."
I can't help thinking that the article would get that response if posted in the comments, and I can understand them policing the comments harshly, because this would be a honeypot.
It is a bit strange to have a set of rules, then a group to whom these rules don't apply.0 -
I’ve not read it but the whole traveller bit is difficult terrain.surrey_commuter said:
You should read the article. I eagerly read it but his idea of not pandering to travellers does not correspond to mine so I imagine you would approve.rick_chasey said:
Might have to spell it out for me.pblakeney said:I'm looking at the 1922-1932 period.
Meanwhile, in reference to the earlier discussion on Matthew Parris
I fully support the idea of leading a different way of life to the masses.
I also believe actions speak louder than words and my first hand experience is that travellers actions are typically problematic. Although I did stumble across a local paper article praising the polite and tidy travellers at a recent encampment.
A business I used to consult at had a permanent traveller site next door and they have built one large detached house in which nobody lives. It is used for social gatherings before going back to the caravans to sleep.0 -
I can't imagine it's about a car plant with one in Berlin.pangolin said:
Musk was involved in vacuum tube trains. A giant vacuum tunnel feels much more Boris.focuszing723 said:Rishi Sunak wants a new mega boom for the City and we know ultra fast internet connections are crucial for this. One of the main benefits of Starlink is the latency speed.
Elon Musks private jet (which key employees use too) was tracked as landing in the UK a couple of days ago.
I doubt it's about a tunnel to Ireland.0 -
If people can support their “different way of life” without Govt handouts and/or criminal behaviour then I don’t think many people would disagree with you.morstar said:
I’ve not read it but the whole traveller bit is difficult terrain.surrey_commuter said:
You should read the article. I eagerly read it but his idea of not pandering to travellers does not correspond to mine so I imagine you would approve.rick_chasey said:
Might have to spell it out for me.pblakeney said:I'm looking at the 1922-1932 period.
Meanwhile, in reference to the earlier discussion on Matthew Parris
I fully support the idea of leading a different way of life to the masses.
I also believe actions speak louder than words and my first hand experience is that travellers actions are typically problematic. Although I did stumble across a local paper article praising the polite and tidy travellers at a recent encampment.
A business I used to consult at had a permanent traveller site next door and they have built one large detached house in which nobody lives. It is used for social gatherings before going back to the caravans to sleep.0 -
Why is this not a criminal offence?
“Johnson’s longest serving adviser has apologised for his conduct after approving a £187m taxpayer-backed loan to help a property developer that was paying him at the same time”.0 -
I guess things don't become criminal offences just because you want them to be. Have a word with a lawyer if you want the technical answer.rick_chasey said:
Why is this not a criminal offence?
“Johnson’s longest serving adviser has apologised for his conduct after approving a £187m taxpayer-backed loan to help a property developer that was paying him at the same time”."I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
It's a small beer conflict of interest compared to him being paid by the developer selling a property, the buyers of the property and the government facilitating the deal, all at the same time.
Was he Johnson’s special adviser on disclosure of interests?0 -
He was also deputy mayor of London under Johnson.kingstongraham said:It's a small beer conflict of interest compared to him being paid by the developer selling a property, the buyers of the property and the government facilitating the deal, all at the same time.
Was he Johnson’s special adviser on disclosure of interests?
The developer got the government loan and then paid it off using a government grant.
Officials raised concerns in the application, but gave in after being hounded by the chief exec of the government agency recommending the loan, who himself was appointed by Lister.
The scheme was supposed to be used for affordable housing.0 -
What does he say?surrey_commuter said:
You should read the article. I eagerly read it but his idea of not pandering to travellers does not correspond to mine so I imagine you would approve.rick_chasey said:
Might have to spell it out for me.pblakeney said:I'm looking at the 1922-1932 period.
Meanwhile, in reference to the earlier discussion on Matthew Parris
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Yes, please tell us what he said that was so beastly and horrid enough to upset Rick0
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Bally, you need to stop making up my reactions in your own head.
I get that it’s fun but you never engage in the debate, just point scoring with me.
You can do that if you want but it’s more effective if you respond to stuff I actually do and say, not what you would like me to do.
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Making up reactions?
Did you not say, "The times today is hating on travellers"?0 -
Sure. What makes you think I’m upset? I can criticise things without personally being upset by it.ballysmate said:Making up reactions?
Did you not say, "The times today is hating on travellers"?
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Fair enough.
I could have rephrased it better by asking, "Pray tell, what was in the article that Rick could consider to be so hating?"0 -
Or better still I could have asked you directly but I just responded to the later post.0
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Ok I think he says that there should be a squeeze on travellers pitching up wherever they want? That basically the nomadic lifestyle isn't tenable in 21st century UK and we should squeeze them out whilst helping them transition to settled status?
It's a difficult issue. The romantic idea of the traditional gypsy lifestyle surviving in the modern age is appealing. Should we not provide space for travellers to live their lifestyle.
The issue is where that lifestyle has become associated with criminality - I don't think even the staunchest defender of travellers could argue their massive over representation in the prison population is purely down to police persecution.
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Here is the Matthew Parris article in full. I could edit it but that would defeat the point.
Last month (it was reported) “the High Court . . . ruled that local authorities can no longer issue blanket bans on Gypsies and Travellers stopping on parcels of land”. The reporter called this “a landmark case which campaigners have hailed as a ‘victory for equality’”. The story appeared in The Guardian, illustrated by a sweet photograph of a gaily painted traditional horse-drawn gypsy wagon with big wooden wheels.
Most of Britain would see things differently.
A group of Travellers has taken over much of the central car park in my nearest town, Matlock. Because this is adjacent to both the railway station and Sainsbury’s townspeople observe Traveller life at close quarters, and I’ve walked through the encampment many times a week for ages now. A scattering of Portaloos and wheelie-bins have arrived, more caravans recently, dogs on chains, and a string of steel barricades: the town is facing a serious loss of amenity and people worry — reasonably or otherwise — about security.
Matlock does not want to present this face to tourists arriving by rail or bus. But it’s also fair to say these Travellers have done neither me nor anyone I know any harm. Public anger, though, is undeniable.
Our district council describes the core group (though further caravans have since arrived) as a “family [with] severe and complex welfare needs . . . joined by a related family who are in a similar position”. The council is caught between a statutory duty to provide a site for Travellers and intense local opposition to any proposed site.
So far, so familiar. But this episode has encouraged me to examine a real-life example of a national problem that troubles many of us and to do some research and hard thinking.
If you’ve time I recommend reading the House of Commons library’s 2019 report on Gypsies and Travellers — not because it will help you understand but because it won’t. Inquire, and you go down an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole in which things that had seemed simple tangle into a mind-bending complexity from which you surface, gasping that it’s all just too complicated. You give up.
Even the vocabulary stumps us. There are Gypsies and Travellers and Irish Travellers and Scottish Travellers and boat-dwellers and Roma and New Age travellers, and much overlapping. Most are designated in law as an “ethnic grouping”. Many do in fact live in houses and don’t “travel” but reserve the right to travel as part of their “identity”. About 63,000 people in Britain, mostly in England, self-define as Gypsies and Travellers, but the real figure may be much larger. Some own the land they occupy; some are on “authorised” and others on “unauthorised” sites. During the decade to 2018 numbers increased by nearly a third.
These communities “experience some of the worst outcomes of any group, across a wide range of social indicators. The Equality and Human Rights Commission . . . has concluded that the life chances of Gypsies and Travellers had declined . . . The contributory factors . . . may include deprivation, social exclusion and discrimination” and “women’s equality” problems. A grim picture is painted of high mortality, morbidity and long-term health conditions, of low child immunisation and “poor health literacy” and the obvious difficulties with schooling.
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Emerge with me from the rabbit hole, breathe deeply and let’s take things back to essentials. The idea of Travellers’ human rights is rooted in the private “enclosures” (from the 16th century onwards) of once very extensive “common land” on which living and working had been quite normal. Whole swathes of people were dispossessed and, not unnaturally, the idea grew that they deserved special rights. Modern Travellers are the legatees of this idea.
There’s no doubt that travelling people are interconnected groupings with some common sense of identity, and cultures that share distinctive features and problems; nor is there any doubt that they face rejection and prejudice from the property-rooted majority. I won’t get tangled in the weeds of accusation and counter-accusation, but restrict myself to what follows.
One of my nephews is a “bargee” — he lives on his canal boat. He explains that though travellers on water are linked by some sense of community and communion with Britain’s canal network, nomads of any kind do not feel the connection with one patch of land that most of us do, because in their minds they are always ready to move on. We “somewhere” people see their (to us) careless treatment of land as uglifying and irresponsible. But their mindset has so much less sense of tether between person and real estate. With no common language (as it were), discussion and negotiation between the tethered and the untethered becomes almost impossible.
What have we here but the deathless conflict between the nomad and the pastoralist? Between (if you knew the rage of my late grandfather, of FW Parris: High Class Family Butchers, Sydenham) the shopkeeper and the stallholder?
And here, I’m afraid, this column must change key: from the reflective to the brutal.
There is simply no place for the true nomad in modern Britain. It isn’t their fault, it isn’t our fault, it isn’t the law’s fault, but life here involves having an address, being contactable, keeping children in school, paying tax on your property, accepting responsibility for a defined patch of real estate as proprietor or tenant. The way we live in this country is as cruel to the British Traveller as, in Algeria, the mosque, the walled oasis garden and the barbed-wire desert border-post is to the noble, blue-veiled Tuareg tribesman and his camels. I prefer the company of the man on the camel but I would have to tell him that his way of life is finished.
It cannot be otherwise. So we should stop forcing local authorities to create Traveller sites, phase out the “ethnic minority” rights of people who are not a race but a doomed mindset, prioritise with the utmost generosity the offer of social housing to Traveller families; and, to those who refuse it, begin a gradual but relentless squeeze on anyone who tries without permission to park their home on public property or the property of others.
This should be done with as much humanity as is consistent with telling a group of people honestly that their lifestyle offers them and their children no future, but their country wants to help them change it. Travellers are just people, just human souls like you or me; good, bad or indifferent, like you or me; and victims of their circumstances perhaps more than you or me.
There is a place for them but no longer for their way of living. Is there a party, is there a politician in Britain, with the courage to say so?
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