Links - 30th December 2024 (1 - Harris-Walz)

Where Harris’ campaign went wrong - "It was supposed to be everything short of a free ad – a panel of women not containing their excitement to welcome Kamala Harris, ready to introduce her to their committed daytime audience of exactly the type of women the vice president’s campaign always hoped were going to be critical to her base. It was a moment that encapsulated one of the biggest challenges facing her campaign – which, in the end, proved insurmountable. “What, if anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” co-host of ABC’s “The View” Sunny Hostin asked Harris, looking to give her a set for her to spike over the net. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she said. Even Harris realized she had a problem, trying to adjust a moment later by saying she would put a Republican in her Cabinet. Aides didn’t wait until Harris was off the set to start trying to clean it up... perhaps the bigger problem with Biden, top Democrats fumed in the aftermath of that fateful debate in June and then again as they watched the results turn red on Tuesday, is that he should have never been anywhere near the 2024 race. If he had stepped aside after the midterms, as some aides urged him to, the Democratic Party process could have played out in a primary campaign. Candidates’ kinks could have been worked out – or not. Almost certainly whoever emerged as the nominee would have gone into the final weeks without so many Americans complaining they didn’t know enough, as they said about Harris. Biden could have taken on a role as steward and elder statesman, rather than a guy the Harris campaign never knew quite what do with... many top Democratic operatives across the campaign and in the states told CNN different versions of the same thought: If this didn’t work – with the massive campaign they’d put together, with millions of doors knocked by volunteers who flooded into battleground states, with GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney and former President Bill Clinton united under the same tent stumping hard for her, with celebrities from Bad Bunny and Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing their cultural weight behind her – what will?... tensions manifested from almost the start of this short campaign, in the internal wrangling over who Harris should pick as her running mate... In the end, Harris made a decision that simultaneously reflected her newfound confidence and her long-standing insecurity, solid with trusting her own instincts, fine with going against her family and against the Obama orbit, but also with no interest in having anyone who would possibly outshine her. Then, as top aides kept Harris away from interviews and unscripted moments for weeks longer than many on the campaign thought made sense, Walz was necessarily kept in a box too, so that he didn’t come off more accessible than she was."
Looks like too many Democrats believed their own propaganda about Biden being fit, so they removed him too late
Ultimately, you can't psy-op enough people into voting for a bad candidate. The message might still not have hit home

Where is Kamala Harris? - "Something is missing from America’s political landscape right now – no, not just the traditional losing candidate’s concession speech, but the losing candidate herself. Kamala Harris – now officially a “former” presidential candidate – is nowhere to be found.  Of course it’s early and Harris will presumably materialise sometime in the coming hours or days. But as has been the case throughout her brief and fraught presidential campaign, she is proving herself a master of political and cultural elusiveness.  This, in the end, has turned out to be Harris’ Achilles’ heel. Whereas Donald Trump – all spectacular assassination attempts and endless over-sharing – has left little unrevealed or unsaid during his career, Harris refused to truly allow America in. Plagued by her penchant for verbal gaffes and goofy laughs, she relied on celebrity endorsements and carefully-crafted media ops to tell her story – rather than telling it herself... Harris always positioned herself as the ultimate “anti-Trump” – all grace compared to his gruff. In the days following President Biden’s win back in 2020, Trump hid and hectored and refused to honour the traditions of presidential transitions. Which is why the most “anti-Trump” thing Harris can do right now is be the elegant loser Trump never managed to become."

Democrats spark outrage with desperate fundraising ploy after blowing millions on celebrity performances - "The pleas for donations sparked outrage on social media, as memories of the massive $1 billion Kamala Harris campaign spending spree were still fresh, including millions of dollars spent to host celebrity filled town halls for the vice president. Two-thirds of DNC staffers were laid off as part of the downsizing on Wednesday, with only one day's notice and no severance, according to the union. 'These cuts go far beyond typical campaign turnover and impact employees who were previously told their positions would be retained after the election,' the statement from the union protesting the layoffs read. The DNC union fund portrayed laid off workers as victims of the party, urging individuals to send donations to soften the blow... These cuts go far beyond typical campaign turnover and impact employees who were previously told their positions would be retained after the election,' the statement from the union protesting the layoffs read. The DNC union fund portrayed laid off workers as victims of the party, urging individuals to send donations to soften the blow. Others referred to Harris' long Hawaiian vacation, while her staffers were laid off. 'Wow. Great job, Kamala. We all hope you’re enjoying your Hawaiian getaway,' X user Brian wrote. Others blamed the union for the employee problems. 'I feel sorry for the people laid off but this is hilarious. A union of the DNC is reduced to having a GoFundMe page for the people they laid off??? wrote user @OldBabyBoomer1. Some believed that wealthy Democratic supporting celebrities should help pay the staffers' bills... The White House punted questions about the laid off staffers to the Democratic National Committee, defending President Joe Biden's brand as the 'most pro-union president ever.'"
Of course, there is no widespread left wing outrage

Kamala Harris' Campaign Money 'Maybe Legally' Stolen—Democrat Megadonor - "A Democratic megadonor has suggested that the huge amount of money donors poured into Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign may have been "legally" stolen through mismanagement. Attorney John Morgan criticized the Harris campaign's spending during an appearance on NewsNation's CUOMO on Monday, suggesting "a lot of people got rich" through careless spending, running ads in states like Florida—which Trump won handily... "She had all this money coming in. She had all these consultants, and if you don't run the ads, you don't get paid for the buy. They were running ads in Florida, where I live, nonstop. And I'm like, why? I mean, are they running in Alabama and Idaho, too? And I'll tell you why. If you don't run the ads, the buyer doesn't get paid."... The Harris campaign has denied the campaign had outstanding debts. Patrick Stauffer, the campaign's chief financial officer, said on November 16 that there "will be no debt" for the campaign nor the party on their next financial disclosures, due in December. However, the vice president has continued pushing donors for money even after her loss to President-elect Donald Trump. Morgan suggested that "ego" and consultants seeking commissions on placed ads had driven spending. "I was at a dinner at the White House on Friday night, talking to a lot of people and I'm telling you man, there's a lot whispering, there's a lot of names about who got paid this, who got paid that," he said. "A lot of people got rich on the back of donors trying to stop Trump. And I think this disqualifies her forever—forever. If you can't run a campaign, you can't run America." Morgan, who questioned Harris' candidacy before the election, praised her campaign given the brevity of the 107-day bid, but added that he believes the campaign's spending will haunt Harris if she tries to continue her career in politics. "She's having a call with donors this week, and they tell me about her political future. I don't think she has a political future," he said. It's "going to follow Harris for the rest of her career. She cannot be trusted with the money... and the donors are going to be, like, 'Where is this money going?' " Morgan also said that those who donated to Harris' campaign did so to defeat Trump more than to support Harris. "It wasn't pouring in for Harris, it was pouring in against Trump," he said."
Damn sexist and racist!

Kamala Harris campaign paid Oprah Winfrey company far more than initially claimed – report - "According to two people aware of the matter, the paper reported, “the $1m actually undercounts the full cost of the event which ran closer to $2.5m”."

The Limits of 'Black Girl Magic'—Why Marketing Kamala as a Celebrity Failed - "This election saw the Democratic Party deeply invest in the concept of "Black Girl Magic," the idea that even in the face of systemic adversity, Black women in America are capable of reaching and exceeding the expectations society imposes upon them when it comes to motherhood, education, entrepreneurship and a multitude of other areas. It's an idea that is very influential in celebrity culture and represented exclusively by Black women celebrities... The economy is still the top issue for voters, and the Harris campaign seemed to be hyper-focused on chasing the cool factor by getting the candidate onto top podcasts, creating ads targeting audiences who watch reality dating shows, and recruiting social media influencers as official and unofficial surrogates. As a result, the campaign got bogged down in trivial, social media-led discussions about "chucks and pearls," the proper way to cook collard greens, and what rappers were in Harris' playlist—at the expense of everything else. Kamala was sold as a celebrity, not a politician, and celebrities aren't taken seriously. Struggling people want solid policy, not viral moments."

Harris team complains media asked VP 'dumb' questions:' 'A disservice to voters' - "Kamala Harris campaign officials Stephanie Cutter and Jen O'Malley Dillon suggested the media’s "dumb" questions were partially to blame for negative coverage of the vice president... Dillon and Cutter’s comments were mocked across social media as "excuses" for failing to win the election... Caveat Podcast co-host Ben Yelin wrote, "Listened to the @PodSaveAmerica bros interview the Kamala campaign team and it was....somewhere between disappointing and enraging. I would not hire these guys if I was running the next D campaign."... "One of the many complaints here is that the public was led to believe that Kamala Harris wasn't going to do interviews. Gee, maybe the fact that for nearly two months she didn't do a single solo interview had something to do with that?" National Review editor Philip Klein asked. Substack writer Jim Treacher wrote, "Just because everybody could see it happening doesn't mean it was happening.""
Clearly, Harris cannot be dumb, and if the media shilling for her wasn't enough to gaslight the country into electing her, it is because the media were biased against her

Meme - Obama: "I need a VP dumber than me."
Biden: "I need a VP dumber than me."
Harris: "I need a VP dumber than me."
Walz:

Doctors question if Kamala Harris was tipsy in bizarre new video message - "Kamala Harris was hit by a torrent of memes after releasing a bizarre video message in which she slurred her words and appeared bleary-eyed... Dr Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist who has worked with alcoholics, told DailyMail.com after viewing the video that she couldn't rule out that Harris was under the influence.  She pointed to the VP's her half-closed eyes, slightly slurred speech and over-emphasized hand movements, saying they were all signs she may have had something to drink.  Dr Stuart Fishcer, an emergency medicine doctor in New York City, added that her head movements also suggested she had consumed alcohol.  The experts said other factors such as embarrassment over losing, or exhaustion could also be at play, although they pointed out that it was now 22 days since the election. They also raised the possibility that her body language could have been the result of side effects from an undisclosed medication the VP is taking. They used sleeping pills as an example.   Separately, body language experts told DailyMail.com her bizarre demeanor was an attempt to come across likeable and express honest human emotion... Dr Fischer said: 'She's not royally drunk, but that's definitely the right word [tipsy]." 'She has slightly slurred speech and there was also this head movement, a kind of bobbing movement like you are calmed down by an intoxicant but you still have to give a serious speech.  'I don't think this is exhaustion or anything else, no, this is not merely days later, this is days and days after the election.'  Dr Fischer pointed out that Harris took long pauses during which she closed her eyes.  He said this struck him as unusual because a standard blink should only last between 100 to 150 milliseconds.  When intoxicated, people tend to blink less because alcohol acts as a depressant, slowing down nervous system activity, including the natural reflex to blink.  The doctors also highlighted the moment Harris held her hands to her chest for six seconds and then leaned back in her chair. Both doctors said these slow and delayed movements, as well as the more relaxed positioning of her hands, were signs that she may have been drinking.   At another point, she also appears to slur her speech when she says: 'I just have to remind you... (two second pause)... don't you ever let anybody take your power from you.'  And again, when she says: 'And you have the same purpose... (one second pause)... that you did... (three second pause)... and you have the same... (two second pause)... ability... (one second pause)... to engage and inspire.'  Dr Lieberman said: 'There are many videos online that are photoshopped to make her look worse (more drunk), but even the way she looks in the non-photoshopped videos shows evidence of being drunk.  'When you are drunk, you are less inhibited, and that is what we are seeing here.'... Kamala has previously faced unverified accusations that she has a drinking problem, including from Trump 2024 political director James Blair... Saturday Night Live also suggested Harris had a drinking problem in October, after an actress playing the Vice President was shown holding and refilling a large glass of red wine"

Meme - Nate Silver @NateSilver538: "Lol she specifically lost the most ground among the traditional D base, e.g. in blue states/cities and among working class voters of color. Basically, the only people she gained with is with Extremely Online Stancilites who mistake their weird views for the base vote."
Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social: "the base was more energized about Kamala Harris than any presidential candidate in your lifetime, including Obama"
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social: "That Pod Save America post-mortem with Harris campaign staff made it clear the Democrats have learned nothing and will continue chasing the votes of Republicans who will never vote for them rather than energizing their base and turning out the Dems who stayed home."

Kamala Harris was convinced to abandon her progressive ideas. So Democrats didn’t vote for her - "many are questioning whether the party is truly going to learn anything of value from the second defeat of the Democratic standard-bearer to Trump and MAGA Republicanism. Centrist Democrats in particular are taking it from all sides, humiliated with a seven-swing-state sweep after successfully talking Harris into abandoning the progressive-ish agenda she championed in her 2020 bid for the White House. Those centrists spent the past few months stating plainly that she would not be a meaningful departure from the presidency of Joe Biden, with whom Harris could not identify a single issue on which she disagreed... The lack of a clearer backlash stemming from the overturning of Roe vs Wade stunned even some analysts. “It was surprising to me that Harris lost the white women’s vote by like six points,” Coleman said in his interview. “It wasn’t even close.”"
Ironic, when the polls show the opposite. They truly didn't learn anything - pushing the left wing agenda is paramount

Meme - Harris picking up phone: "HELLO?"
Ronald McDonald: "WE'RE HIRING"

Bad Hombre on X - "Joe Biden has reportedly asked Kamala Harris to take a step back from her role as Vice President and cut back on public appearances during his lame duck period as he tries to put a positive spin on his legacy by ensuring a smooth transition to President-Elect Trump. Biden believes Kamala’s historic defeat and bitterness over her loss are potentially damaging to his legacy.  No one wants to be around Kamala, not even her boss.  The joy is gone."

Kristen Mag on X - "It’s the assumptions that get me.  I ran into an acquaintance at the gym this week - a Kamala voter - we hadn’t chatted since the election. He rattled off something dramatic about climate change and then quipped with a smirk ‘so you ready to leave the country too?’  He assumed I wanted Kamala to win, because in his mind ALL of us ‘good’ people did, right?  Well he’s wrong. Way wrong.  Imagine having such limited empathy that you assume everyone else in your circle voted just like you. Even when over half the votes in the country went to Trump?!  This is why so many of Kamala’s voters were completely shocked by his win. Their blind bubble of superiority is astonishingly deceptive."

Matt Grossmann on X - "Harris ran a centrist campaign but was still perceived as more liberal than Biden (& ideologically further from voters)"
AG on X - "That's because no one took it seriously when she randomly flipped on all her far-left positions from 2020 via random campaign leaks to reporters without actually explaining any of the shifts.
Kamala Harris' problem back in 2019 was that people viewed her as inauthentic. She seemed like she would say anything for power. Simply changing all her unpopular positions in 2024 without actually justifying the shift only confirmed that perception of her."

In Don't Look Up (2021), Meryl Streep plays the president of the US. This acts as a reminder to the viewer that this movie is a work of fiction, given that the US would apparently prefer letting a convicted felon be president before a letting a woman in office. : r/shittymoviedetails - "What are your opinions on Ted Cruz for president? Graduated from Princeton and Harvard. He has served in the government for 12 years.  Oh? There's more to wanting to vote for someone than education and serving in government?"

Melissa Chen | Facebook - "MSNBC’s Joy Reid echos the insane talking point on The View:  “Lets just say she ran a flawless campaign. Queen Latifah endorsed her and she never does that…Taylor Swift endorsed her. Let’s not lose sight of that”  FLAWLESS If your starting position is that your candidate, who lost by 86 electoral votes and 5 pts nationally, ran a “flawless” race, I find it unlikely that you will learn anything from your loss. Also if you think all these Hollywood celeb endorsements move the needle at all, it just shows how dumb and unmoored to reality you are."

Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 on X - "Whoopi: “I don’t know what else she could have done.”
Sunny Hostin: “She ran a flawless campaign.”
Fact Check: No!"

Trump and Harris Campaigns Met to Talk Tactics. It Wasn’t Pretty. - The New York Times - "LaCivita’s interruption got at a central tension in the aftermath of the election, one that has grated on Democrats outside the room and became a target of mockery from the Trump staff members inside it. For a campaign that lost, the Biden-Harris team has been reluctant to admit to specific mistakes — and that pattern continued today. They admitted they had lost, but their diagnosis was more about the mood of the country than tactical errors on their part... We have found it striking how, in recent weeks, Democrats who four years ago defeated Trump have begun to talk about his most recent victory as if it were inevitable, whether because of voter unhappiness with Biden or the country’s direction. By this thinking, nothing went wrong. Instead, everything went according to some cosmic plan."
Clearly, it's the voters' fault, and they need to be "protected" from "misinformation" and the Wrong candidates need to be prevented from running for office, in order to Save Democracy

Meme - Derrick Evans @DerrickEvans4...: "Not only did they fake the photo... They had to put her on a white girl *photoshopped Kamala at McDonald's photo*"

Kamala Harris’s Hundred-Day Campaign | The New Yorker - "Mike Murphy, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, tweeted, “Dems would be well advised to slow down and think this through.” The Atlantic ran an essay by Graeme Wood titled “Democrats Are Making a Huge Mistake.” The Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon told colleagues, “To be totally honest here, my worry is that it seems like Trump is likely to win.” But Harris’s allies in Washington believed that she was being underestimated... David Axelrod, who was the chief strategist for both of Obama’s Presidential campaigns, told me, “There was an argument that she would be strengthened by a competition, but she showed a mastery of the internal politics, which is one test of a potential candidate. People respond to competence, and that was a very competent operation.” He compared it to a rapid military strike. “She didn’t get handed this nomination,” he said. “She took it.”... “Harris doesn’t emphasize it, but her appearance alone carries the message”... The awkward tendencies that her opponents had mocked turned out to be a significant part of her appeal. “She seems like a politician I could sit down and have a laugh with,” one fan known for impersonating her on TikTok declared. Things that had seemed like political handicaps became evidence of authenticity: her fondness for dull statistics and Venn diagrams, her disregard for what she called “lovely speeches,” her disdain for introspective questions about her “moment.” At fifty-nine, Harris is only four years younger than Barack Obama, but she has arrived at a time when voters, especially young ones, are less patient with the sheen of politics, with figures who seem just out of reach. Instead, they want a performance of approachability—what the sociologist Julia Sonnevend, in her recent book, “Charm,” calls “personal magnetism that rests on proximity.”... Gopalan had an unshakable sense of self-worth. “We are Brahmins, that is the top caste,” she told SF Weekly in 2003. “My family, named Gopalan, goes back more than 1,000 years.” Meenakshi Ahamed, the author of a forthcoming book on Indian Americans, notes that many prominent figures—Indra Nooyi, the former C.E.O. of PepsiCo; Vivek Ramaswamy, the conservative gadfly—have Brahman heritage. It “inoculated them from the negativity,” she told me. “They held their heads high. If kids encountered discrimination, parents would tell them, ‘Just get ahead.’”... Harris won support from law-enforcement groups for her commitment to locking up violent offenders... she struggled to specify her positions on polarizing issues—health care, immigration, defense, the environment. She tried using her old slogan, “No false choices,” but it came off as vague and calculating. As Democrats called to reduce prison populations and to address racial disparities in criminal justice, she described herself as a “progressive prosecutor,” but her record didn’t really match the mood. “You got the sense that she ran because she could, but that her advisers told her, ‘Just take a left turn everywhere and you’ll get to where you want to be,’ ” David Axelrod said. “She did not sound connected to the words she was speaking, and that is deadly in a race for President.” Bakari Sellers, a co-chair of the 2020 campaign, told me that the mistake was trying to shape the candidate to suit the discourse. “We bubble-wrapped her and didn’t give the world a chance to see who she is,” he said. “It was a campaign that listened to social media, really. I think the misdiagnosis was ‘Twitter is real life.’ ”... Prospective running mates are expected not to lobby too avidly, but Harris “worked her phone incessantly, speed-dialing officials and donors close to Biden,” according to the book “Lucky,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, on the 2020 campaign. She had notable advantages: three statewide election victories, experience managing a department of justice with forty million people under its remit. Also, the congressman James Clyburn, of South Carolina—who had given Biden the endorsement that rescued his campaign—had taken to saying that picking a Black woman would be a “plus.” (Activists were blunter: they circulated a video in which Black women, recalling that Biden had promoted harsh anti-crime bills, told him, “You owe us.”) Privately, Biden had a pollster test the top names. Harris came out best. A prominent Democrat told me, “Biden chose her for specific political reasons at the moment. He was a nearly eighty-year-old white moderate who was trying to win over a party in the post-Floyd frenzy.” Biden had sometimes felt slighted during his own years as Vice-President, and in the White House he took pains to involve Harris. “Even when he might’ve been frustrated from time to time with a direction she wanted to go, he was always very attuned to making it understood in the building that he viewed her as a partner,” the former official said. Biden gave her a portfolio much like the one that he’d had, which included working to expand voting rights and to address the root causes of immigration from Central America... she sometimes sounded defensive or evasive. In June, 2021, the NBC anchor Lester Holt asked why she hadn’t visited the border. Harris threw up her hands and said, “At some point, you know, I—we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border.” Holt noted that she had not, and she replied, “And I haven’t been to Europe!” The performance was widely criticized, and her relationship with the press has never fully recovered. During the campaign, she often swats away even obvious questions as petty or confusing. Franklin Foer writes in the 2023 book “The Last Politician,” on the first years of Biden’s Administration, that Harris “didn’t want to work on women’s issues or anything to do with race. She wanted her office to be majority female—and to have a Black woman as chief of staff.” The office, stocked with a number of aides who were new to her, acquired a reputation for dysfunction. In the first eighteen months, Harris parted ways with her chief of staff, her communications director, her domestic-policy adviser, and her national-security adviser... Former staffers recalled that, while she could be a warm, familial presence, she could also be withering... many people were still unclear about where Harris stood on some of the central issues... A former Obama Administration official, now in finance, told me that his firm spends tens of thousands of dollars a month on lobbyists and consultants, and yet with “all these fancy-pants people, former members of Congress, nobody can tell me conclusively what she believes about anything.” As the Harris campaign got under way, she renounced progressive goals that she had endorsed in 2019... When I asked Janet Yellen, Biden’s Treasury Secretary, about Trump’s effort to portray Harris as a radical, she said, “There’s nothing fringe or out there or Marxist about her view of the economy.”... her plan for a federal ban on price gouging was rejected by economists as unworkable... eight weeks before the election, a poll found that nearly half of voters considered her “too liberal.”"
So competent she blew $1 billion and was still in debt afterwards
When you admit you just ran on identity politics
I like how being privileged as a Brahmin and ignoring "discrimination" are both framed as good things.
Odd how the modern pro-crime left forgot about her tough on crime stance
Interestingly, even this PR piece could only name one real achievement of hers, about settlements related to the financial crisis (of course, to the left, just attaining a position is an achievement and qualification for a "minority", even if you don't actually do anything meaningful in it)
Weird. We're told that the Vice President has no power, so Harris is not responsible for any of Biden's screwups (but of course she can take credit for the good stuff)

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Kamala Harris shocks herself after thinking she said something smart while dropping her famous "context in which you exist" line.  I must say, this was impressive.  "And as we approach and I ask you to remember the context in which you exist."  "Yeah, I did that," Harris said, clearly impressed with herself.  The profound comments were made during a post-election speech to students in Maryland."

Links - 29th December 2024 (2 [including Expertise)

i/o on X - "Our movies now reflect America's arrested development and spiritual emptiness: They're filled with comic book heroes and consumer fantasies and meaningless frenetic special effects, unconnected to the most interesting aspects of the human condition."

Eric Daugherty on X - "#NEW FINAL national poll - Muslim voters 🟢 Stein: 42.3% 🔵 Harris: 41% 🔴 Trump: 9.8% 🟡 Not voting. 5.4% CAIR | 10/30-31 | N=1,449RV"
i/o on X - "It's a poll by CAIR, so I doubt it's entirely credible, but even if it's only directionally correct it shows just how much of a single-issue group Muslims in the US become when there's an insult or threat to their co-religionists anywhere in the world. Which is very revealing."

Hunter📈🌈📊 on X - "The decline of American life expectancy that started in 2015 and accelerated due to COVID is over. While America's life expectancy is still lower than most other developed countries, it's at the highest point in our history."
Matthew Yglesias on X - "A classic of negativity bias is that the complete reversal of the bad trend receives only a tiny fraction of the attention that was paid to the bad trend while it was happening"
Thread by @GaryWinslett on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "A small but great example of this is how there’s was this huge freak out out the bee population declining but then next to no one heard about the new population recovery. The reason this example is on my mind is I was at a housing policy meeting recently and there was this environmentalist citing bees as why we can’t allow new neighborhoods and so I showed her charts about the bee pop recovering. You’d think she’d have loved that news but… She was actually mad about it. And I think it was because I was implicitly arguing against her worldview. That’s where I think there’s a bigger lesson. Negativity bias breeds NIMBYism. If every change is bad, why allow change? If modernity sucks, why lean into the future? If you want to encourage a culture of progress, you have to point out over and over again that we have it great today compared to the past (and there are hundreds, if not thousands of examples of that). And people in 2070 will have it even better than we do."
Jake 🇺🇸 on X - "Doomers hate to hear good news about their favorite end-of-the-world scenarios. Just this summer someone was telling me how the bees are almost all gone. Turns out we're actually in the middle of a bee boom. 🧵"
This explains climate change hysteria too

Meme - iamyesyouareno @iamyesyouareno: "They always find the sweetest and most innocent pictures to use. Disinformation tactics. He was a career criminal."
"Intruder, 21, is mauled to DEATH by two pit bulls while trying to break into Georgia home: Homeowner finds his body on the porch the next morning"
Snappie @Snappiememes: "They wuz good boys, they din do nuffin. *2 soyjaks pointing but with 2 pitbulls pointing at criminal*"
Intruder, 21, is MAULED to death by DOGS after trying to break into Georgia home - "Abraha, who grew up in Worthington, Minnesota, had several active warrants in Fulton County at the time of his death"

arctotherium on X - "It's common knowledge that Asian science is full of fraud. Less common knowledge is that Asian scientists in the US also commit a lot of fraud vs their white peers. For instance, as of 2022 19/29 researchers sanctioned by the ORI are of Asian origin."

Meme - Praying Mantis 1 mounting Praying Mantis 2: "How can I be sure you won't eat me after this?"
Praying Mantis 2: "Don't worry, only females do that."
Praying Mantis 1: "..."

Meme - "Yay me! I passed my driving test even though I never used my turn signal and ran over a curb... He took me down a super bumpy road but I did fine! *busty Mercedes Blanche*"

Meme - "If "my eyes are up here, was a person *Sanna Meira*"

What is Pittsburgh-style pizza? (and where can you find it?) - "Pittsburgh boasts the second highest pizzeria-per-capita rate in the country with 9.9 pizzerias per 10,000 residents, according to a national study. New York City – known as the country’s pizza capital – didn’t even make the top ten. The oversized crust of New York-style pizza has touched every corner of the world, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a Pittsburgh-style pizzeria in your neck of the woods. Or, for that matter, anyone who’s heard of such a thing. Even some of yinz in Pittsburgh aren’t sure if Steel City truly has a pizza style to call its own. “I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of a Pittsburgh-style pizza,” said Slice GM Jeff Sigal... some would point to the cold-cheese pizza popularized by Beto’s as the city’s true calling card. Beto’s has been a Pittsburgh mainstay since the 1950s, but those oven-fresh rectangles topped with mountains of fridge-fresh provolone remain exclusive to them. Meanwhile, many of Pittsburgh’s other hotspots are churning out pizzas with thick crusts designed to support ludicrous amounts of cheese. The bread isn’t just there to stick to your ribs during a brutal winter – a lesser crust would collapse under the weight of all that melty goodness and erode under the rivers of its glorious grease."

The city where children will Halloween trick-or-treat for the first time since 1938 - "For the first time since 1938, the children of a US city will join the rest of the country and trick-or-treat on Halloween. Going door-to-door for candy on All Hallows’ Eve has long been commonplace throughout the country. But not Iowa’s capital of Des Moines, where the city took a different approach more than seven decades ago. Instead, Des Moines children don their costumes on Beggars’ Night, typically the day before Halloween. And besides screaming, “Trick-or-Treat,” children are expected to tell a joke before receiving a treat. The original plan was put in place in hopes of tamping down on so-called hooliganism. The city started its unusual custom at the suggestion of a former city parks director as a way to reduce vandalism and promote more wholesome fun for the city’s kids. Initially, children were encouraged to sing a song, recite poetry and offer some other kind of entertainment, but over time a joke became the most common and preferred offering. Beggar’s Night also has limited hours, typically running from 6pm to 8pm. This year, Beggars' Night was set for Wednesday, but because of expected heavy rain and thunderstorms, officials were forced to delay trick-or-treating until Thursday, which to the rest of the country is the normal Halloween."

Vitamin supplements show no health benefits, study reveals - "overall, multivitamins were found to increase mortality by 4 percent."
Great conclusion. Post-hoc, ergo propter hoc

Lupita Nyong’o says she cried herself to sleep after losing Kenyan accent in bid for Hollywood roles
Time for her to quit Hollywood and for foreigners to be banned from Hollywood to protect them from structural violence, racism and xenophobia

Picky eating is a 'largely genetic trait', study finds - "Scientists from University College London (UCL) studied food preferences in more than 2,400 pairs of identical and non-identical twins. Their findings indicate that genetics account for 60 per cent of how fussy a child is at 16 months. And the role of genetics actually increases as children get older, accounting for 74 per cent of fussiness between ages three and 13 years."
Clearly, the parents are always to blame for raising their kids wrongly

Bathroom bacteriophages: Unlocking potential in medical research - "The team of scientists collected samples from 92 showerheads and 36 toothbrushes in the bathrooms of people living in the United States. Through DNA sequencing, researchers discovered more than 600 types of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — on these surfaces. Interestingly, the vast majority were found on toothbrushes. Almost every tested toothbrush served as a habitat for different viruses. Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically target bacteria but are harmless to humans. They employ two mechanisms: they can take control of bacteria to replicate and subsequently kill the host, or integrate into the bacteria's genome, altering their behaviour. Scientists believe studying bacteriophages could lead to new ways of combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria... while microbes are widespread, they rarely cause diseases. Overusing disinfectants may encourage resistance development in bacteria and other pathogens, complicating treatment with antibiotics, which poses an increasing challenge to medicine."

Meme - Niall Stanage: "Cardi B is like a case study in how people confuse social-class codes with intelligence. If you listen to what Cardi says, it's very obvious she's highly intelligent. But a lot of people, to their discredit, don't hear it because of a bias against the argot she uses."
Cardi B @iamcardib: "I wonder how pee taste like ?"

Meme - Defiant L's @DefiantLs: "Has Harry met Hillary Clinton? Stacey Abrams?"
Harry Sisson: "Notice how Democrats are accepting the results of the election and not crying fraud and cheating? Democrats won't storm the Capitol on January 6th. Just pay attention to that difference today."
"TRUMP CHEATED. 291k posts. Trending in Political figures"

Rolf Degen on X - "Almost everywhere in Europe, conservative individuals have more children and grandchildren on average than liberals, and the proportion of conservatives increases from generation to generation. https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19485565.2024.2419075#abstract The aim of this paper is to examine whether changing fertility patterns along the political spectrum can have an impact on overall political attitudes in subsequent generations, using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (a total of 66,188 participants from 15 European countries) and the European Gender and Generation Survey (a total of 121,248 participants from 12 countries. We found that in most of the countries analyzed, right-wing (conservative) individuals have, on average, more children and grandchildren than left-wing (liberal) individuals. We also found that the proportion of right-wing individuals increases from generation to generation. Our data further suggest that the “reproductive advantage” of right-wing individuals has emerged relatively recently, as seems to be the case in the US. Placing importance on personal freedom and individual autonomy, an attitude which is more common among left-wing individuals, eventually leads to disenchantment with institutions, including marriage and family. Since political attitudes are presumably evolved traits that are socially and genetically transmitted from one generation to the next, these findings may suggest that demographic differences can lead to shifts in prevailing political attitudes. Overall, our findings suggest that demographic differentiation can lead to a shift in prevailing political attitudes. Our results suggest that many, though not all, of the societies we studied are becoming more conservative, at least in part due to a higher fertility rate among right-wing than left-wing individuals. This probability is further increased by assortative mating, which means that spouses have an above-average probability of having similar attitudes."
Demography leads to more conservative European societies

‘The first thing I did was poke it’: Canada beach blobs mystery solved by chemists - "For more than a month, residents of Canada’s easternmost province have tried to understand the source of hundreds of the pale, gooey masses which resemble the dough used to make toutons, a Newfoundland fried delicacy. Some of the blobs were as large as dinner plates...  the material was most likely a butyl rubber PVA composite, used in the oil and gas industry to clean out the pipes that feed oil into tankers."

I'm Writing in Gary Johnson on X - "The only significant difference between right wing and left wing disinformation and lies is that the latter gets no pushback and embraced by powerful institutions. All of American society is fucked if our institutions don't change."
I'm Writing in Gary Johnson on X - "In my real life, I encounter far more Democrats than Republicans, and it's not just how ignorant and uninformed they are that is infuriating. It's how much more self-righteous and confident they are in both their ignorant bigotries and indisputably factually incorrect beliefs."

Meme - saila @sailaunderscore: "I’m actually completely convinced that the reason videogames (and particularly grindy, open-world ones) are so addicting is because they provide a sense of progression and agency that is missing for so many people."
grief seed oil disrespecter @softminus: "Engineer in state of nature never plays Factorio, but in captivity he does, wat does this mean?"
"Engineer in state of nature never plays Factorio, but in captivity he does, wat does this mean? In state of nature he's too busy, to put plainly. He is concerned with mastering space: solving problems of technology, mastering what tools he can, mastering mathematics and craft in the jockeying for power and status. Deprived of this drive to development and self-increase he devolves to pointless masturbation, in captivity, where he senses he is in owned space and therefore the futility of all his efforts and all his actions."

wanye on X - "I’ll admit to something that I think is pretty common and explains a lot of dumb political discourse. When everybody first started talking about John Fetterman‘s sartorial deficits, I was definitely on the side that was annoyed by it. But then he started saying stuff I really agree with about Israel and suddenly I just didn’t mind that much that he dresses like a slob. I still believe everything I said then. They weren’t lies. He should dress appropriately for the Senate. It’s kind of embarrassing that he doesn’t. But it lost all emotional salience. I noticed that I just didn’t care that much.  There is a concept in professional sports fandom of the player you love when he’s on your team that you know you’d hate if he weren’t.   I think it’s a pretty ordinary kind of double standard and explains why some kinds of debates are intractable in a kind of stupid way that’s not really that important."

Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 on X - "Government funding of NGO's and nonprofits should be entirely illegal. 🫣"
Colin Wright on X - "It's likely one of the biggest sources of government waste. They're incentivized to make any problem they're tasked with fixing stay broken."

Why Some People Are Always Running Late - " In 2001, Jeff Conte, a psychology professor at San Diego State University ran a study in which he separated participants into Type A people (ambitious, competitive) and Type B (creative, reflective, explorative). He asked them to judge, without clocks, how long it took for one minute to elapse. Type A people felt a minute had gone by when roughly 58 seconds had passed. Type B participants felt a minute had gone by after 77 seconds.   Late people often have a “bizarre compulsion to defeat themselves,” wrote self-proclaimed late person and TED speaker Tim Urban in 2015. He gave these poor souls a name: CLIPs, Chronically Late Insane People."

Meme - "Mom: turn off the computer, let it rest
Fridge that has been working since the breakup of Yugoslavia:"

Thread by @liegentapp on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "We're still reeling from the implications of our library's latest addition. Let's dig in.  As the world's staunchest defender of democracy nears Election Day, Amy Chua's "World on Fire" is the perfect contemplation on why Western democracy is more a unicorn than the standard. 20+ years after publishing, as intellectuals everywhere still tout the democratic salve, it's clear not enough people were listening. The Yale professor who popularized the "Tiger mom" archetype gifts us a lesser-known and arguably meatier concept: "market-dominant minorities"
Across the developing world, ethnic minorities control most wealth while majorities live in poverty. These ethnic minorities disproportionately profit from free markets, only to face persecution on the heels of democracy. How did we get here? In short: Western ethnocentrism. Developing countries were urged (when not coerced) to first adopt free markets. When this naturally led to market-dominant minorities and civil unrest, democracy was hastily implemented. Indeed, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.Pressure mounts and eventually explodes, usually into 3 kinds of backlash: the majority uses their votes for revenge, the minority allies with dictators for protection, or violence erupts. Democracy + market concentration = dangerous cocktail.
Chua offers a litany of case studies. From the Chinese in Indonesia and Burma, to the Lebanese in Sierra Leone and Tutsi in Rwanda, to Jewsish oligarchs in Russia — themes persist: market dominance, asset seizure, violence, and economic depression. Like in Rwanda, elite minorities aren't necessarily foreign. Relatedly, the significant admixture from European colonialism in Latin America manifests as a "pigmentocracy" today, where lighter-skinned elites rule. Ethnic divisions more closely follow class than heritage. There is an exception, although its methods questionable. Thailand opted to forcibly assimilate its elite Chinese minority through banning schools & businesses. But, it's pertinent to note that shared heritage likely helped, and stability is not guaranteed.
It's fascinating to evaluate the theory's predictive power. At publication, Zimbabwe had seized white-owned farms. After agricultural collapse, hyperinflation, and food shortages, the once-breadbasket of Africa is now inviting back those same farmers with 99-year leases. The Israel-Palestine escalation also resonates. Chua explains how Israel is a regional market-dominant minority, and the Middle East is a prime example of the democratic fallacy — monarchies often prove more moderate than their anti-Israel fundamentalist populations. Not mentioned by Chua but remarkably applicable is another market-dominant minority created by policy — but not free markets. In Islamic societies, the Jizya tax pushed poorer Christians to convert, inadvertently selecting for a wealthy Christian elite.
The West is by no means exempt. In Post-Civil War USA, the South saw whites restrict voting of the black majority. In impoverished Weimar Germany, a disproportionately successful Jewish 1% was used by Nazi ideology to ultimately enact the horrors of the Holocaust. America is now the world's market-dominant minority, with 4% of the population and an astronomical share of wealth & power. When McDonalds is in 114 countries but half the world lives on $2/day, that gap breeds anger. 9/11 wasn't just about poverty - it was about humiliation.
Democracy in the West didn't develop overnight. It took centuries of evolution and growing pains along the way. The solution isn't obvious. While distribution plays a role, voluntary wealth sharing may be the most direct method of countering resentment. But what about the zero-sum fallacy? Zimbabwe exemplifies how elite gain doesn't necessitate majority loss. But as with Latin America, these matters are perspective. And based on Thailand, homogeneity lessens these embittered perceptions. Perception becomes reality.
The iPhone didn't exist in 2002. Today's social media creates a global consciousness unimaginable back then. We've even survived a global pandemic. How do perceptions of inequality change when one corner of the world is constantly connected to the other? Increasing immigration is also shifting Western demographics, particularly in Europe. Chua's thesis seems unequipped for this scenario. Can Western democracy survive an indigenous market-dominant minority, as is the trajectory in parts of Europe? It is a unicorn after all.
"World on Fire" is a rare work for its indirect probe into virtually every area of policy relevant today. Chua's ability to approach sensitive topics with honesty and objectivity is unmatched, and makes you wonder what we could achieve if more people followed suit."
Left wingers only love minorities who are unsuccessful because they fetishise and celebrate weakness and failure, and hate strength and success

Meme - Frank DeScushin @FrankDeScushin: "A new survey of American high schoolers shows they value the money college can make you more than the education it gives you. This aligns with Joe Sobran’s quote from decades ago."
"The purpose of a college education is to give you the correct view of minorities, and the means to live as far away from them as possible." - Joseph Sobran

Thread by @wanyeburkett on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "What’s going on with me politically is that my views are overall fairly liberal, but if you sorted them into two piles labeled, “foundational, defining propositions“ and, “other stuff that’s nice to have“ the things the Republican Party wants to attack are in the latter category and the things the Democrats want to attack are in the former.
Examples of the first category: free enterprise, free speech, private property.
Examples of the latter category: abortion access, Medicaid, food stamps.
The United States is still the United States if it has free enterprise, free speech, private property, but no right to abortion, no Medicaid, and no food stamps. I think that describes a world that’s worse than the one we live in now, but it’s recognizable.  The United States is no longer the United States if we have sufficiently chipped away at free enterprise, free speech, and private property, but the social programs are robust."

Alexander on X - "The servant-cycle of employment in Europe is often overlooked when people remember the roles of men and women from the late Middle Ages to the late 1890s.  A large class of men and women existed who left home at a young age and worked as servants. This article says aged 16 to 24, but even 14 wasn’t an uncommon age to leave and people might remain servants into their 30s.  The lifestyle of artisans and apprentices was similar to this. They might leave home young and not finish their apprenticeships until their 30s.  This also changed the dynamics of mate selection and marriage. For one, if contributed to the European pattern of fairly late marriages (Europeans mostly did not marry as teens, nor have top-down arranged marriages like you might see in India). It also reduced parental supervision further. This is also likely part of why we see high assortative mating across the eras.  Who were servants likely to meet or intersect with? Other servants. And artisans, other artisans.  Anyway, this was another common pattern of life. People sometimes nostalgically think of rural farm and cottage life. It looks sort of like a kind of independent homesteader fantasy: married early, raising the kids on your cute little farm.  Actually you may have been sleeping in the barn of another family miles away and raising their kids."

Ecclesiasticus44 on X - "Jesse Singal is such a good case study of Gell-Mann amnesia. “Every topic I take a deep dive on I find liberals to be hysterical self-deluded liars, but I’m sure they’re shooting straight on everything else.”"

Paul Novosad on X - "A new India-China fact (to me): The Chinese state prioritized primary education over secondary/tertiary, while the Indian state did the opposite. Chinese primary enrollment rate passed India in 1950, secondary 1975, and tertiary only in 2000!
India still produces more Master degrees (but China more doctorates)...
Striking differences in what kind of bachelors degree people are getting from the Chinese and Indian education systems. India: Humanities, Law and Business dominate, Science and Engineering are only recent. China: Engineering, Engineering, and Engineering"

Japan tosses plan to woo Tokyo women into rural marriages for cash - "A widely ridiculed Japanese government idea to lure Tokyo women into marrying men in rural areas by offering cash payouts and train tickets to matchmaking events has been scrapped, officials said Friday.  Bureaucrats had envisioned payments of up to 600,000 yen ($4,140) for women who got married and settled outside of Tokyo as part of efforts to reduce a yawning countryside gender gap, local media reported... More than 40 percent of Japanese municipalities are at "risk of disappearing" due to the expected drop in the number of women in their 20s and 30s, a study by a private-sector expert panel suggested in April."

Fukuoka: The Japanese city that dominates street food - "Fukuoka, Japan’s sixth largest city by population, has more open-air food stalls than the rest of the country combined.  These stalls are called yatais, and they’re an indelible part of what makes Fukuoka’s food scene so special...  “Yatai is the best place to make friends,” says Nick Szasz, a Canadian-born longtime resident of Japan who runs the English-language website Fukuoka Now. “Especially in the winter.”  Most carts can only fit between 6-10 people, who are encouraged to squeeze in together on shared benches or closely crammed stools. During the cold season, many yatais keep customers warm by enclosing their benches in thick curtains, making the experience even more cozy.   While the Japanese sometimes have a reputation for polite formality, Szasz explains that it’s considered good manners to chitchat with strangers while crammed in together at a yatai. Some carts even have the option to buy drinks for other diners – or the chef! – as a menu item.  Had Fukuoka gone in another direction, yatai might have become a thing of the past. The loose, unaffiliated system of carts was unregulated and varied wildly in safety and quality.  Enter Sōichirō Takashima, who has been the mayor of Fukuoka since 2010. When elected, he was just 36, the youngest mayor in Fukuoka’s history and one of the youngest in all of Japan.  Japan has the “grayest” population in the world, with at least one in 10 residents over the age of 80.  But Fukuoka, the largest city on the island of Kyushu, is bucking that trend. Takashima’s administration has wooed recent college graduates and young entrepreneurs from around the country with small-business loans, affordable rent and co-working spaces.  One of the big initiatives pushed by the mayor – who was reelected to a fourth term in 2022 – was an overhaul of the yatais.  Though the city has always been dotted with these food carts, Takashima’s administration set up a committee to regulate them and make sure they’d remain a vital part of the city.   The committee established some baseline rules for yatais, such as a maximum of 120 carts (there are currently 96 registered), a requirement that prices be displayed in an obvious place, and a ban on raw foods – so, if you want to try Fukuoka’s famously fresh sashimi, you’ll need to head to a brick-and-mortar restaurant.  But rather than restrict the yatai community, the industry cleanup has led to a new, younger generation of yatai operators who are trying out new styles and flavors to keep locals coming back. At Telas & Mico, Kensuke Kubota – who trained at London’s Zuma before moving back to Japan – serves Italian-style bruschetta topped with mentaiko, a spicy cod roe that is Fukuoka’s most ubiquitous condiment...   Some have even stopped selling food entirely, becoming bars that cater to yatai-hoppers looking for a final stop on the way home.  Fukuoka’s local tourism authority has made an English-language website with yatai maps and tips.   The website notes that yatais, despite all the new rules, can still be unpredictable – an owner may decide not to bother opening one night if there’s bad weather, or if a chef is ill.  But the element of surprise is one of the things that makes street food so much fun, and that goes double in Fukuoka."

Explaining UK Migration

It's only oligarchy for the electorate's preferences to not get enacted when they coincide with the left wing agenda.

 

Mike Jones on X

This thread unravels one of the enduring mysteries of UK migration policy: why politicians consistently break their promises on immigration – despite knowing it’s politically toxic and perilous to their survival.

Buckle up 🧵  

THE GREAT DECEPTION
“Control”. It’s the word of the moment – a touchstone for almost every political debate in Britain today. We often hear about how we've “lost control” of cities like London, how control has shifted to lefty lawyers and shady bureaucrats, or how we've ceded control to international courts and NGOs.

This is why the Brexit campaign’s slogan, “Take back control,” hit home so hard. It wasn’t just catchy – it was cathartic. It appealed directly to people who felt disempowered, out of the loop, and ignored by those in charge. As Paul Goldsmith noted in How to Lose a Referendum, Vote Leave’s slogans weren’t conjured by spin doctors – they echoed what people themselves were saying.

And it worked. Boris Johnson declared, “[the] only way to take back control of immigration is to Vote Leave”, while Priti Patel vowed to end the “chaos” with a slick new system that would slash numbers and cherry-pick only “the best and the brightest”. It was a bold pitch – simple, direct, and perfectly tailored to sell the dream of a Britain back in control of its destiny.

Fast forward to today, and those promises feel like ancient history. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show net migration hitting 728,000 for 2024 – more than triple what it was pre-Brexit. And if that’s not bad enough, 2023’s intake soared to a record-breaking 906,000. The immigration crisis is deeper, more entrenched, and more damaging than anyone anticipated.

This isn’t just a logistical headache for policymakers scrambling to build housing or keep public services afloat. It goes far beyond that. The stakes are existential. At its core, this crisis threatens the very fabric of Britain as a cohesive, prosperous, high-trust society. That’s what’s on the line here – and it’s hard to overstate just how high the stakes are.

Indeed, to call these figures “shocking” doesn’t do them justice. When the numbers landed on Thursday morning, I found myself, for once, utterly speechless. But the truth is, anger wasn’t my first reaction. What I felt, instead, was resignation. It’s not just that these numbers are terrible – it’s that they signal something far worse: damage that’s near impossible to reverse.

The most we can hope for now is to stop making things worse. Damage limitation is the name of the game. As the old saying goes: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

THE CHORUS AND CASSANDRA
Unfortunately, our political leaders haven’t grasped this. In fact, they seem to live by the opposite principle: when in a hole, keep digging.

Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the Tories an “open borders” party and accused them of conducting an “experiment” like a mad scientist in an anarchist’s laboratory. He then went further, claiming this wasn’t an “accident” but a deliberate strategy born of political calculation:

“What we didn’t hear [from the Tories]… is an explanation. Because a failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck, it isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball. No - this a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed deliberately to liberalise immigration.”

For many, Starmer’s critique felt like a watershed moment. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attempted to deflect by admitting her party had failed to “deliver,” but this only told half the story. Deliver, they did – but what they delivered was mass immigration, precisely as planned. Badenoch herself championed an uncapped immigration policy and openly worked alongside powerful lobbying groups, something she even boasted about in Parliament. Yet, this rather inconvenient fact has been swept under the rug. As I explained to @LeeAlanHall of @BritishThgtLdrs:

“Politicians haven’t lost control of immigration; politicians have surrendered control of immigration to various interest groups. And, of course, politicians have issued visas for humanitarian and foreign policy reasons. Now, these are intentional, deliberate choices.”

On this, Starmer and I agree. But while he’s nailed the diagnosis, his cure is all wrong. Labour’s refusal to cap visas, dismissing them as “arbitrary,” misses the point. Caps aren’t about mathematical perfection – they’re about drawing a line in the sand, about saying, ‘this far and no further.’ They act as a safeguard against the endless pressure from lobbyists and so-called ‘stakeholders’ who promise a moon on a stick if only we keep the borders wide open.

Even worse, Starmer is making the system even leakier. He’s bringing illegal immigrants into the asylum process, fast-tracking their claims without any plan for removals. Sure, Labour might manage a few token deportations to safe countries like Romania and Vietnam, but what about those from ‘unsafe’ hotspots like Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq? The law means they’ll stay – and they know it.

Starmer recently told the public that Britain’s political system isn’t just creaking; it’s rotten to the core and needs radical change. And he’s right about that. The trouble is, Starmer isn’t the revolutionary he pretends to be. He’s not tearing down the old framework – he’s doubling down on it.

THE PARADOX OF IMMIGRATION
So how did we get here? As Dan Hodges of the Mail on Sunday aptly put it on X:

“I genuinely don’t understand - given the salience of immigration - how the last Government let net migration spiral to one million. What were the Tories thinking? It was political suicide.”

Hodges has hit the nail on the head. This isn’t just a policy failure – it’s a betrayal of trust and a colossal act of political self-sabotage. MPs love to talk tough on immigration, setting bold targets and making grand promises. But once in office, they backslide, dither, and cave to pressure. Instead of firewalling the system, they’ve made it weaker, more chaotic, and less accountable.

And here we are, facing the fallout. The question is, will Britain’s leaders finally put the spades down – or will they keep digging?

To understand why politicians keep failing to deliver on their promises, we must also understand the nuts and bolts of the Westminster system. Journalists and think-tankers alike are often so immersed in the rituals of SW1 that they miss the forest for the trees. They mistake proximity to power for insight. Much like cattle grazing blissfully unaware of their ultimate fate, many political observers fail to see the bigger picture.

Traditional democratic theory assumes that politicians are ruthless vote-seekers, ever-attuned to public opinion. Yet in practice, immigration policy shows how flawed this idea is. Politicians certainly track polling, but public opinion isn’t their only driver. Ministers are also guided by personal ideologies and perverse incentives shaped within the Westminster echo chamber.

Take immigration since 2016. Net migration has skyrocketed for two main reasons:

· Elite ideology: Many MPs have absorbed the worldview of London’s cultural and economic elite, embracing ideas like Global Britain that conflict with the public’s more restrictionist stance. These MPs also cling to economically flawed ideas about labour markets and the supposed link between population growth and economic prosperity.

· Perverse incentives: Politicians focus on short-term media optics and building relationships with journalists, business leaders, and other ‘stakeholders’ rather than fulfilling manifesto commitments. Policy substance gets lost in a frenzy of virtue-signalling and status-chasing. The result? Performative tough talk, paired with open-border policies behind the scenes.

Despite what most people think, we do have ‘control’ over immigration policy, especially since leaving the EU. The problem isn't a lack of 'control' itself but rather the ideologies and incentives that animate the Westminster bubble. Ministers don't always heed public calls for reduced immigration, even when those calls are vital for electoral success. This disconnect may seem chaotic, but it reflects the irrational and short-term nature of political decision-making, which can sometimes defy logic.

So, the question of why we ‘lost’ control might not be quite right. We actually have a lot of control – maybe more than we've had in a long time. This leads to a bit of a paradox, or what I call ‘the paradox of immigration’. Even though governments have the power to cut immigration to the tens of thousands (and doing so is often vital for winning elections and forming governments), many remain hesitant or even outright hostile to taking decisive action.

Let’s dig deeper.

IDEOLOGY, PART I: GLOBAL BRITAIN

(a) Humanitarianism
MPs are far more enthralled by foreign affairs than most voters – an interest rooted in class traditions and imperial nostalgia. Many former Cabinet members, from Boris Johnson to Rishi Sunak, are global nomads with lives far removed from the average Briton. For them, immigration policy isn’t just about managing domestic concerns – it’s about projecting soft power on the international stage.

Boris Johnson exemplifies this mindset. As Prime Minister, he championed the Global Britain vision, even endorsing an amnesty for illegal immigrants during his time as London mayor. His rhetoric about being a “one-man melting pot” revealed an identity-politics-lite approach that resonated more with elite circles than with everyday voters.

This mindset translated into policies like humanitarian visas for Hong Kongers and Ukrainians – worthy causes, no doubt, but rolled out with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. Notably, there were no caps or sunset clauses to manage these schemes responsibly. In their rush to appear compassionate, politicians ignored the real-world pressures these policies created, from rising rents to overcrowded schools. It’s particularly baffling that these visas were handed out without any simultaneous reform to the planning system.

Now, don’t get me wrong – giving these visas was a compassionate move, and I’d bet good money that many of these migrants, especially the Hong Kongers, will prove to be standout contributors to Britain’s economy. But what’s striking is how slapdash and knee-jerk the whole process was. It screamed of politicians prioritising their own foreign policy glory – puffing up Britain’s image abroad, flexing our ‘soft power’ muscles – over the hard realities of managing immigration on the home front.

The Tories’ refusal to tackle the Human Rights Act (HRA) head-on is another damning example of their globalist mindset at work. Since its introduction in 1998, the HRA embedded the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law, making deporting illegal immigrants, particularly those with families or from ‘unsafe’ countries, nearly impossible. Rather than tackle these legal barriers head-on, successive Tory governments dithered. Under Johnson, they pushed the Rwanda plan without dismantling the HRA, knowing it would hit legal roadblocks. Predictably, the courts struck it down, leaving the problem unresolved.

Under Sunak, the Tories attempted to sidestep the issue by negotiating a fresh treaty with Rwanda and pushing through the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which partially disapplied sections of the HRA. However, it fell short of comprehensive reform, leaving significant loopholes. Whether it could have succeeded remains a moot point – the bill languished in the Lords, and Sunak called an election before it could be implemented, perhaps aware it was unlikely to deliver results.

So why didn’t the Tories just scrap the HRA? Because the One Nation faction of the party, obsessed with Britain’s international image, prevented it. They argued that abolishing the HRA would damage Britain’s global standing and tarnish the legacy of early ECHR advocates like Winston Churchill and David Maxwell Fyfe. But these arguments were absurd. The ECHR has changed drastically since Churchill’s day, and it’s doubtful either he or Fyfe would still support it. The modern Tory party, far more concerned with their image on the global stage than addressing the crisis at home, let the immigration problem fester while missing opportunities to fix the root cause.

(b) Commonwealth of Nations
I appreciate that what I’m saying here is controversial. Any mention of the word ‘ideology’ tends to send shivers down the spines of the usual SW1 crowd. For them, it’s a dirty word, suggesting an abstract, dogmatic worldview that’s disconnected from the nitty-gritty of everyday life. They prefer to focus on the pragmatic, the strategic, the art of political manoeuvring, etc.

But look closer at Boris Johnson’s vocal support for the Henry Jackson Society’s Global Britain agenda, Priti Patel’s spirited defence of humanitarian visas, and the Tories’ refusal to tackle the Human Rights Act. These actions tell a different story.

In fact, I would argue that the Tory party’s interpretation of Brexit was fundamentally different from how most British voters saw it. For the public, Brexit was about British nationalism: a clear mandate for a restrictive immigration policy and putting British interests first. But for the political elite, it became a victory for the UK's relationship with the Commonwealth, and a signal to deepen ties with countries like India, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

This policy found its clearest expression in the aggressive recruitment of international students from Commonwealth nations like India, alongside a refusal to place caps or stricter controls on family visas – a well-known engine for chain migration from non-EU countries. Reviewing the archives of the Foreign Affairs Committee reveals how immigration policy was deliberately tied to this agenda.

For instance, during a session titled Global Britain and India, former Home Secretary Priti Patel posed a revealing question to Mark Field MP:

“You have mentioned Prime Minister Modi a couple of times. He is the architect of the term “living bridge”, and effectively usage of the Indian diaspora community around the world, not only in the UK, but more broadly, has helped to strengthen ties with key countries. Do you think our own Prime Minister understands the significance of the living bridge and why, domestically, diaspora communities matter when it comes to bilateral relationships?”

Patel’s framing is striking. By quoting Modi’s vision of migrants as “living bridges,” she makes it clear how immigration is linked to the UK’s foreign policy goals under the banner of Global Britain. Once in power, Patel brought this vision to life with vigour. Loosening visa rules and expanding opportunities for migration from Commonwealth nations became cornerstones of her tenure. And the consequences? Well, the numbers tell their own story.

IDEOLOGY, PART II: LABOUR SHORTAGES
The second ideological pillar that propped up the Tories’ mass immigration policy is the myth that migrants are essential to filling labour shortages. The argument goes that without an influx of foreign workers, the economy will grind to a halt because there are jobs Brits simply won’t do. I remember debating Guto Harri, Boris Johnson’s former director of communications, on the BBC, and he pushed this argument hard. I have also heard it echoed by former Cabinet ministers, especially when addressing the Confederation of British Industry.

This belief, while widely repeated, is utterly flawed. Genuine shortages in market economies are rare and typically confined to elite jobs requiring niche skills or company-specific experience. But these positions don’t demand mass immigration; targeted recruitment strategies suffice.

The reality is much simpler – and more inconvenient for those in Westminster who push this narrative. Importing 500,000 migrants to fill 500,000 vacancies doesn’t solve the problem; it merely creates an equal number of new shortages. Why? Because migrants, like everyone else, are consumers as well as workers – they need housing, food, healthcare, and other goods and services, all of which must be provided by others. This is exactly what occurred during the New Labour years, and history is repeating itself now.

Today, we’ve got around 850,000 ‘vacancies’ sitting in Britain’s economy, despite us letting in every Tom, Dick, and Harry for decades. So, the idea that more immigrants magically means fewer job shortages is simply a myth. It’s rooted in what economists call the ‘lump of labour fallacy’ – the mistaken belief that there's a fixed amount of work to do. In reality, the demand for work is potentially infinite: it’s like trying to fill a bottomless well with buckets of water – the more you throw in, the more you need to keep throwing. It never ends.

Why, then, does this economic myth persist among Tory elites? One explanation is the quiet belief that British workers are too lazy or entitled to do unpleasant jobs. But this view is wrongheaded. Many British workers avoid such roles because wages, kept artificially low by immigration, don’t justify the grind. In a healthy economy, companies will respond by offering higher pay, better perks, or opportunities for training and career progression. In other words, they must make unattractive jobs worth doing.

But when immigration serves as a shortcut for employers, it stifles the competitive forces that would otherwise benefit the British workforce. Why? Because workers from poorer countries often settle for lower pay and are less likely to unionise or shop around for new employment. Worse still, the glut of cheap labour stunts businesses’ willingness to innovate or adopt productivity-boosting tech, keeping the economy stuck in low gear and leaving everyone worse off in the long run.

Then there’s the cozy relationship Tory elites enjoy with pro-immigration lobbyists, who camp out in Westminster and sing the same tune. This constant schmoozing skews their judgment, blurring the line between what’s good for Britain and what’s just good for big business. The old adage, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” clearly doesn’t apply when one side gets all the perks while the public pays the price. Still, many Tory MPs, entrenched in the Westminster bubble, seem blind to these realities. Which begs the question: are there structural flaws in the Westminster model that not only allow these harmful ideologies to flourish but actively fuel them? The answer is a resounding Yes.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES, PART I: JANUS-FACED POLITICS
“The cobbler’s children have no shoes” is an old saying that dates back to at least the 16th century – yet it feels tailor-made for the modern Tory Party. The proverb speaks to a bitter irony: the cobbler, so consumed by making shoes for others, leaves his own children barefoot. It’s a vivid image of neglect, and nowhere is this paradox more alive than in SW1. The Conservatives, obsessively catering to external interests, have abandoned their own voters.

And then there’s Janus, the two-headed Roman deity who peers simultaneously into the past and the future. He is the unwitting mascot of modern politics, where saying one thing to voters while doing the opposite has become a grotesque art form. Party grandees sneer at their grassroots base, spouting robust rhetoric at election time while governing like aloof mandarins beholden to an ivory tower consensus.

This rot has been decades in the making, thanks in part to our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system. FPTP forces ambitious types into the big parties, even if they’re ideologically miles apart from their members. As a result, plenty of Tories in Westminster have little time for small-c conservative values – they joined because it was the fastest route to power. Over time, this has warped the party’s DNA, leaving it increasingly out of touch with its voters, especially on international law and the Human Rights Act.

FPTP has also stymied competition, making it very difficult for restrictionist parties like Reform UK to achieve a critical mass of MPs. This is because FPTP encourages tactical voting: people often choose the lesser evil to ‘keep the other lot out’, rather than voting for a party that aligns with their values. The result? A two-party system where both sides increasingly look like each other, leaving voters with little real choice. This breeds a kind of cartel politics, where the big parties quietly agree not to go to war over the issues that matter.

The Tory leadership has turbocharged this drift with its iron grip on candidate selection. Anyone wanting to take a tougher stance on immigration is shown the door. You can talk about ‘managing’ migration or recruiting ‘the brightest and best,’ but woe betide anyone who dares suggest net zero migration or scrapping the Human Rights Act.

The same applies when it comes to culture: you can discuss immigration’s impact within the narrow confines of economics, but broach the downsides of diversity and you’re immediately cast out as a pariah. Take Lee Anderson, the working-class ex-miner who was unceremoniously booted out of the Tory party for clumsily suggesting Islamists had “control” over Sadiq Khan. Anderson’s comments were poorly judged, but Sunak bragging about his expulsion in Prime Minister's Questions was pure theatre designed to please the London commentariat.

And Sunak himself? As Chancellor, he commissioned a 'Diversity Built Britain' 50p coin. A trivial gesture, perhaps, but a telling one - a moment of jarring propaganda that exemplifies the modern Tory obsession with placating trendy narratives while alienating their core supporters. The party of Churchill, reduced to the rhetorical playbook of a diversity consultant.

Meanwhile, the broader conservative movement is in tatters. Most grassroots conservatives are scattered, underfunded, and poorly organised, while pro-open-borders lobbyists are highly concentrated, well-funded, and within a stone’s throw of Westminster. Politicians, predictably, gravitate toward the latter. After all, lobbyists wield cash and influence, while local activists struggle to get a hearing. This is made worse by MPs that look ahead to life after politics: the prospect of getting a cushy directorship, a fat consultancy gig, or a stint on the international lecture circuit. Rocking the boat by championing low-status causes – like, say, mass deportations or capping student visas – can scupper those dreams.

PERVERSE INCENTIVES, PART II: NOT IN MY TERMS IN OFFICE (NIMTO)
Modern British politics is mired in a peculiar blend of short-termism and headline-chasing that prioritises optics over outcomes. Politicians today are optimised for the 24/7 media cycle, not policymaking, and their careers are often condensed into fleeting bursts of activity. @Dominic2306 – Westminster’s perennial enfant terrible – has pointed this out repeatedly.

To accuse some politicians of being media darlings is not to deny their work ethic. Many MPs, especially backbenchers, are tireless to a fault. Their lives are a whirlwind of constituency surgeries, local events, and endless attempts to keep stakeholders onside. Yet this relentless hustle belies an inconvenient truth: politics is Hollywood for ugly people. For too many, the adrenaline of engaging with the press gallery trumps the slow, often dull grind of governance. Poring over spreadsheets, scrutinising policy frameworks, or revamping a failing institution lacks the immediacy and dopamine hit of a front-page headline or a viral soundbite.

This obsession with short-term optics is reflected in who ministers hire when they take office. The so-called Special Advisors (SPADs) are a curious breed. Far from being domain experts or seasoned policy wonks, most SPADs are young careerists with backgrounds in public relations or political communications. Their raison d'être is not governance but spin, with their primary mission being to manipulate the media narrative, score cheap wins against rivals, and sway floating voters in key marginals.

The problem? These media whisperers are often comically out of their depth. Lacking expertise in the policy areas they’re assigned to, SPADs approach governance as a PR exercise. This intellectual shallowness leads to bad decisions or, worse, no decisions at all. Ministers, of course, face no real accountability for the failures of their protégés. The SPAD system, acting as a kind of patronage network, ensures ideological loyalty over competence. Imagine Goldman Sachs hiring analysts who can’t do basic arithmetic; in Westminster, this absurdity is business as usual.

This culture of short-term thinking feeds into a broader phenomenon: Not in My Terms of Office (NIMTO). Politicians shy away from tackling deep-rooted problems because real reform requires time, money, and a willingness to upset entrenched interests. Crucially, the political pay-off might not materialise during their tenure, leaving them vulnerable to backlash without reaping the rewards.

Take immigration policy as a case study. Ministers know that deep, 'systemic' reforms – like capping international student visas or tackling exploitative migration loopholes – are necessary. Yet they balk at the prospect of disrupting the status quo. Why? Because genuine reform comes with significant short-term costs. In the case of higher education (HE), for instance, foreign students pay eye-watering fees – £20,000 to £30,000 a year – that subsidise domestic students and keep bloated, inefficient universities afloat. Politicians fear that reducing these numbers will trigger a cascade of negative consequences: higher fees for UK students, bankruptcies for weaker institutions, job losses across campus-adjacent businesses, and a media outcry from vested interests.

This reluctance to act also stems from the outsized influence of concentrated interest groups. University bureaucrats, local businesses, and research communities rely heavily on international students to pad their budgets. Politicians, who dread the blowback from upsetting these groups, choose the path of least resistance. The BBC and other media outlets, always on the lookout for a juicy human-interest story, amplify the grievances of those affected, further deterring bold action.

Yet the status quo is fundamentally flawed. The higher education sector, with its mickey-mouse degrees and debt-ridden graduates, is a bloated boondoggle. Vocational training and apprenticeships, which could help school leavers enter the workforce debt-free and skilled, are neglected in favour of turning universities into certificate factories. This does little for national unity or the long-term integrity of the British state. The idea that endless streams of international students equate to economic growth is a fallacy. While elite institutions benefit from attracting top STEM talent, the current system props up substandard universities and exacerbates housing pressures, fraud, and grade inflation.

The solution? Elite universities should remain elite, while the focus shifts to vocational pathways and on-the-job training. Politicians must embrace dispersed, long-term benefits over concentrated, short-term gains that favour a select few. Yet this requires courage – a quality sorely lacking in Westminster.

The NIMTO mentality extends far beyond higher education. Take the Treasury’s reluctance to raise wages for care workers. Doing so would stabilise a sector in crisis and alleviate pressure on staff turnover, but it would also mean a reallocation of funds - anathema to risk-averse SW1. Similarly, Westminster’s timidity on human rights law stems from the social penalties of rocking the boat. Proposing radical changes risks exclusion from the trendy dinner parties and a barrage of criticism from the establishment media.

Ultimately, Westminster is locked in a vicious cycle of cowardice and complacency. Until politicians prioritise governance over optics, Britain will continue to suffer from half-measures and missed opportunities. What we need are leaders unafraid to break with convention, even if it means ruffling feathers in the short term. Whether SW1 is capable of producing such figures remains to be seen.

Links - 29th December 2024 (1 - Left Wing Economics: UK Labour)

Labour minister blasts 'economically inactive' jobless label - "Labour's new Work and Pensions Secretary has complained that it is 'terrible' to call people who are unemployed and not trying to find a job 'economically inactive', because they are 'human beings' Liz Kendall told MPs she did not like the official term used by bodies including the Office of National Statistics (ONS) because of its dehumanising nature... the soaring bill for health and disability benefits will wipe out the Treasury's £25billion Budget national insurance raid by 2030."
Time to look for a new euphemism, until the left need to virtue signal again

People do not have a human right to receive benefits paid for by others - "Anyone who held out any hope that Britain’s benefit dependency was about to be tackled can finally relax: it’s not going to happen. Ever. It should have happened under the last Labour government, but it didn’t, and for all the same reasons that this Labour government won’t do anything either: establishment push-back, resistance from the poverty industry, threats from rebellious back benchers who fret about getting mean emails from discontented constituents. And if something was ever going to be done about the genuine scandal of the nearly 10 million people in Britain who are “economically inactive” – a euphemistic description for what everyone knows is going on – it was only ever going to happen under a Labour government, for the same reason that genuine reform of the NHS can only happen under Labour: because voters distrust it slightly less than the Conservatives on these areas... The comment that riled me then, and has done so ever since, was to the effect that people had a “human right” (she actually used those words) not to work while maintaining the right to benefits. And that, in a nutshell, is why, 20 years later, this new Labour government will do no more than what Keir Starmer has announced, an inaccurately-described “radical” plan to get Britain back to work by tinkering at the edges of the benefits system, making Jobcentres a bit easier to navigate and offering “support” to claimants to retrain if they feel they want to – if it’s not too inconvenient for them, what with their busy lives and everything. And just in case there was any prospect of these proposals being taken seriously, there will be an inevitable “consultation” period next year, during which all those well-paid advocates of the poverty industry will do their damndest to make sure that whatever proposals finally make it into government policy, they won’t change a thing. The consequences of this inaction – and it is inaction, however much it’s disguised as the opposite – will be a dreadful worsening of Britain’s economy and of the plight of millions of individuals, families and homes. It will mean a chronic and permanent imbalance in the relationship between what the state pays out and what it receives in tax revenue. The status quo can’t be sustained but it can be extended long enough to allow the current crop of politicians retire and bequeath their failure to the next generation of legislators, which is all the “success” they can reasonably hope for. And yes, we all know that the biggest drain on state largesse is pensioners, and that’s a really clever and fascinating counter-argument to those who say we really ought to do something about those of working age who don’t work, rather than deal with people who have worked and paid contributions for the last 40 years. So slow hand claps and congratulations all round. And yes, this government will clamp down on benefit fraud, as if every single one of its predecessors hadn’t come up with that “solution” to the problem. It’s a bit like opposition parties claiming they can increase public spending by “eliminating waste”: it sounds fine but it never happens. It was always no more than a faint hope that a Labour government with a three-figure majority would risk doing something unpopular and necessary, but for a moment I genuinely thought it might actually happen, that there might emerge a generation of political leaders who had more courage than my own did. That’ll teach me to hope."
Damn fascism! The "solution" is to "tax the "rich""

Waste Watch: Benefits bill will soon bankrupt Britain - "On the weekend of Labour’s 100th day in power, a YouGov poll found that nearly 60 percent of Britons disapproved of the Government’s record. However, among the policies which poll favourably with the Great British public is maintaining the two-child cap on child-related welfare benefits, enjoying the approval of 57 percent of the respondents. There are conservative arguments for and against the cap brought into effect by the Coalition Government back in 2017. But it says something about the state of our benefit system that a) a self-confessed socialist administration with a love for big government has decided to maintain the cap and b) voters across the political divide are in favour of that cap remaining in place. This is likely because in its current form, our welfare system raises questions around the affordability of a benefit bill which exceeds the country’s health budget by about £20 billion. It also raises questions around the perceived fairness of the system... By the Government’s own calculations, “[f]raud and error in the social security system currently costs the taxpayer almost £10 billion a year and since the pandemic a total of £35 billion of taxpayers’ money has been taken away from those who need it most.” That is just under 4 percent of the welfare bill which is lost to fraud and error every year. It is also about 6 times the amount of money Labour expects to raise from taxing private education in the country with a view to investing in state schools. But there are other less obvious examples of waste which have recently been in the news too. In September, the Institute of Fiscal Studies published a report which found the UK to have alarmingly earned the literal title of ‘the sick man of the western world’. 10 percent of the working-age population in England and Wales or just under 4 million Brits now receive at least one health-related benefit, at an annual cost of £48 billion. 2.9 million people, or 7.6 percent receive incapacity benefits while 2.7 million, or 7 percent receive disability benefits, with just under half of the claimants of these health-related benefits receiving both. “Prior to the pandemic, 2.8 million got at least one of these benefits (7.5% of working-age adults).” Not only do more people claim benefits now, but fewer people also end benefit claims. These figures mean the UK now spends 1.7 percent of GDP on working-age health-related benefits, against the OECD average of 1.6 percent, with the total health-related benefits spending for all ages having increased from £52 billion in 2019–20 to £65 billion in 2023–24. If, as forecast, spending on health-related working-age benefits continues to grow at this rate, “the UK will likely become one of the highest spenders” amongst comparable countries, with these benefits costing taxpayers 2.1% of GDP in 2028, which would be an all-time high of £63 billion. There has been an exponential rise in the numbers since the pandemic... The conditions which are “the most common among those applying for incapacity benefits” are mental and behavioural disorders, which alone accounted for 41 percent of disability benefit awards, up from 32 percent before the pandemic. But the most worrying revelation is this: “the conditions that claimants have are strongly related to age: 69% of new 25-year-old disability benefit claimants were primarily living with mental & behavioural disorders, while this was the case for only 22% of new 55-year-old claimants.” The waste here is two fold. One, the obvious cost to taxpayers; two, the colossal waste of human capital... Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has launched a Labour Market Advisory Board to advise the Government on “getting Britain working again” and we are told a white paper is to be published soon... “Efforts should focus on increasing economic opportunities and improving the health of the working-age population, rather than solely reducing welfare costs” is the guiding principle, and “early intervention” is advised. For example, “regulatory measures such as taxing high-sugar products are needed”, in order to raise revenue for policy proposals as well as to address health issues such as obesity. Bringing statutory sick pay (currently up to 28 weeks) in line with maternity pay by adding a further 28 weeks to it is one such policy proposal. “If successful”, writes Professor Gregg, “pushing it out to 76 weeks, giving a total of around 2 years with the SSP period, should be considered.” While employers would “have responsibilities similar to those during a period of unpaid Maternity Leave”, the longer statutory sick pay “could involve government-paid benefits rather than employer-paid SSP”. It remains to be seen if these or similar policies find their way into Ms Kendall’s green paper. But it seems reasonable to expect a complete ideological departure from the approach set out in Mr Hunt’s Autumn Statement last year. It also seems entirely reasonable to conclude that the Labour Market Advisory Board is very likely to become yet another quango to invent ways to add to the taxpayer’s burden."
Left wingers will just claim with a straight face that capitalism makes people sick
There is a cost to "destigmatising" and "raising awareness" about "mental health"

Farmers have hoarded land for too long. Inheritance tax will bring new life to rural Britain | Will Hutton | The Guardian

Thousands of UK farmers descend on Parliament to protest a tax they say will ruin family farms - "the famers’ union says more than 60% of working farms could face a tax hit. And while farms may be worth a lot on paper, profits are often small. Government figures show that income for most types of farms fell in the year to the end of February 2024, in some cases by more than 70%. Average farm income ranged from about 17,000 pounds ($21,000) for grazing livestock farms to 143,000 pounds ($180,000) for specialist poultry farms. The last decade has been turbulent for British farmers"

Carl Benjamin on X - "Farmers (English people) have hoarded land (owned property) for too long. Inheritence tax (theft) will bring new life (government ownership) to rural Britains (state monopoly)."

Peter Lloyd on X - "This is Arun Advani. He's the man behind plans to screw farmers with inheritence tax. Documents reveal he actually advocates for FORCED land nationalisation, which would see Labour steal land from farmers and become their landlord. This is the communist reality of the budget."

Hector Drummond on X - "Andrew Lloyd Webber just single-handedly yanked the Overton Window right: "Many, many, many people are hovering around at the moment, rubbing their hands in glee about [the tax]... I can assure you they're not British."
Lloyd Webber also said, "In the longer term what will happen is they'll all be bought by, probably, foreigners, outsiders.""

Keir Starmer should sack Rachel Reeves over her CV fibs - "It would be tempting to feel a modicum of sympathy for Rachel Reeves. As two-tier Keir gallivants the globe, our neophyte Chancellor has been lumped with defending Labour’s indefensible domestic policy. It cannot be easy coming into a key post like this with no previous experience in government and no detectable political nous. She’s making enemies Left, Right and centre, and may soon discover that even her union chums will desert her when economic reality bites.  But reader, do not give into this urge. Since assuming the role, Reeves has barely uttered a single truth: the claim Labour inherited the “worst set of circumstances” since the Second World War was a nonsense, her promises not to raise taxes on “working people” were hollow. She was at it again this week, justifying her inheritance tax raid on grounds it is necessary in order to “invest in... [our] health services”, as though the NHS isn’t already showered with riches.  Even before the election, Reeves appeared to display a somewhat loose relationship with the truth. She is facing accusations of breaching the ministerial code, after reportedly embellishing her CV to suggest she had worked as an economist for the Bank of Scotland before standing for Parliament. Her LinkedIn profile has been changed to reflect that she had actually spent three years in retail banking at Halifax. This would be easier to shrug off as a momentary lapse were it not for her proclamations that she “knows how to run an economy”, or the fact that her most recent book pulled chunks of material from other sources, including Wikipedia, without acknowledgement. She joins a long line of LSE graduates whose training in economic theory seems to have drummed any common sense out of them.  Reeves might feel “deeply proud to be Britain’s first female Chancellor” but, for now at least, we still live in a country that values performance over progressivism. And she is conceivably the worst holder of the post, excluding those of very short tenure, since Anthony Barber triggered a wage-price spiral and massive inflation in the 1970s. Of course, from Elizabeth I’s Sir Richard Sackville onwards, the Exchequer has been a poisoned chalice. There’s rarely been a shortage of eager candidates, but few have had much clue about what to do with it and fewer still enhanced their reputation as a consequence of their stint. Businesses are now warning that Labour’s hike to employers’ national insurance and increase in the minimum wage makes job losses “inevitable”. However innumerate Reeves may at times appear, she must have known that no chancellor can squeeze £25 billion out of the economy without knock-on effects. And bosses are predictably irked: a new survey from even the milquetoast CBI has found that close to two-thirds have a negative view of the Budget.  As pollster Luke Tryl reminds us, pensioners, farmers and small businesses owners – the big losers from the Budget – all “attract significant public sympathy beyond their own numbers and can be highly effective campaigners”. Scrapping the winter fuel payment (WFP) and ending agricultural tax relief might appeal to the bright sparks toiling at the Treasury, but they are politically calamitous. Yet in Reeves, they have one of their own: a bean-counter who shares their proprietary attitude towards other people’s money. She won’t be stung by the WFP in the way George Osborne was by the pasty tax; it’ll just be another of those supposedly “difficult decisions” such as cracking down on non-doms or slapping VAT on private school fees. Is it time for Reeves to go? Tough though it would be to hold back a tear, recent Tory experience cautions against switching ministers every five minutes. In 2022, let us not forget, we had four chancellors. And who would replace her? Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, would probably try to nationalise the FTSE100. Angela Rayner might force us all into the employ of the state. Shabana Mahmood seems to think women aren’t responsible for the decisions they make, which rather disqualifies her from becoming our next female chancellor. Bridget Phillipson says exam results don’t matter, so neither would growth rates presumably: “happiness, wellbeing and inclusion” being more important."

‘Labour will cripple our family business – despite paying £11m in taxes last year’ - "“But this policy puts their jobs more than ever in jeopardy because it rocks the foundations of the business. It’s short-sighted and could devastate family businesses like mine that form the backbone of the economy.”  His frustration is evident. “We paid £1m in taxes last year and consistently invest to stay competitive, even in tough times. Yet now I’m questioning whether further investment is worthwhile. “Why should I expand when my warehouses could end up as part of my taxable estate? This policy discourages growth and innovation.  “If Labour think they’ve delivered a Budget for growth, they either don’t understand how business works or they are delusional. “Very quickly the death of a family member could be the end of businesses that have been around for generations.” Mr Brundle believes the reforms could lead to an influx of foreign investors buying out British family businesses... Looking ahead to April 2026, when the BPR change is set to take effect, Mr Brundle is rethinking the company’s future. “I’m considering an exit strategy. I’d rather sell while the company is stable than leave my family with an unmanageable liability. It’s heartbreaking to think generations of work could end this way.”  For Mr Brundell, this isn’t just about his business — it’s about the long-term viability of family-run enterprises across the country. “We generate huge revenues for the Government. Why would you kill the geese that lay the golden eggs?”... “This has been lauded as a Budget for growth,” he says. “In fact I believe Rachel Reeves used the word 31 times in her speech.  “It just stifles. I don’t know what part of the Budget is growth apart from growth of the public sector.”  It’s not simply inheritance tax that will affect the family, what also worries Mr Manning is the Chancellor’s decision to increase National Insurance contributions (NICs) for employers... Writing to his MP, Samantha Niblett, Mr Manning questioned which of the options he should take to fund the tax raid: 1. Redundancies, 2. Pay cuts or 3. Reduce staff working hours.  Mr Manning still awaits a response. It seems Samantha Niblett MP is yet to set up her office, despite winning the South Derbyshire seat in July... “The Government is taking away the entrepreneurial spirit of business. We’re just losing that appetite to grow, expand, thrive and try because of what they’re doing to us. It’s not just the taxes they’re imposing, it’s the underlying feeling of why should we bother?”... Mr Thorpe doesn’t believe the Government understands small businesses. “They don’t understand that it’s us who employ most of the people in the country and are the workhorse.  “They seem to favour corporates. They look after the corporates and they look after the public sector. We’re seen as cash cows in the middle. Not big enough to cause them a problem and not big enough to make any sort of significant changes.  “We seem to be the people who always end up on the wrong end of these things.” When Mr Thorpe was dealing with his liquidator, she had shared with him that their business had supposedly gone up by 50pc."

How 70pc of Britain’s workforce is doomed to be poorer under Rachel Reeves - "Together, salaried employees make up over 70pc of the British workforce, and on balance they are now set to be worse off... As a result of the Budget, someone on the 2024 median wage of £37,430 – as revealed this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – will now cost their employer an additional £965 a year, Telegraph analysis has found.  This is the kind of charge that awaits the roughly 700,000 freelancers working under “IR35” tax rules – required to pay both employers’ National Insurance and standard income tax on bills paid by clients... Almost eight in 10 of them (342,000) have fewer than 10 employees. Just under a quarter (22pc) of such small firms – defined as micro-enterprises if their annual turnover is also below £1.8m – weren’t even able to turn a profit over the past year, according to market research company BVA BDRC.  The Budget has just made life much tougher for them as individuals, all of a sudden responsible for payroll costs increasing “by just under 2pc”. roke her Budget promise to ‘working people’ Ollie Corfe Related Topics      The Budget, Rachel Reeves, Tax rises   31 October 2024 6:00am GMT 197  Working People      What are you doing to avoid Labour’s tax-grabbing policies? Please email: money@telegraph.co.uk  Rachel Reeves’ Budget was a tightrope walk. Policy by policy, the Chancellor delicately avoided overtly raising taxes on “working people” as defined by a slew of her party’s ministers in the days prior.  But millions will still be affected – albeit either indirectly, or not right away.  The hike in the main rate of employers’ National Insurance up from 13.8pc to 15pc – as well as the 45pc reduction in the secondary threshold beyond which contributions kick in – will hurt both bosses and their employees in turn.  The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Government’s fiscal watchdog, confirms it.  Together, salaried employees make up over 70pc of the British workforce, and on balance they are now set to be worse off.  The number of registered private sector businesses in the UK with employees on payroll stood at 1.4 million at the start of 2024, according to the Department for Business & Trade.  In all, they employ 22.9 million people, out of a total workforce of 33.4 million.  HMRC estimates the combined National Insurance measures – despite the raising of the employment allowance that employers can claim on their liabilities – will see 940,000 companies lose out in net terms, hiking their tax dues by around £26,000.  The latest earnings figures published this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found the median wage to now be at £37,430.  As a result of the Budget, someone on the 2024 median wage of £37,430 – as revealed this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – will now cost their employer an additional £965 a year, Telegraph analysis has found.  This is the kind of charge that awaits the roughly 700,000 freelancers working under “IR35” tax rules – required to pay both employers’ National Insurance and standard income tax on bills paid by clients.  The total business count total includes 428,000 where the owners themselves are involved with the day-to-day – so-called “working proprietors”.  These aren’t captains of industry likely to be able to “write a cheque to get out of difficulties” – who last week Prime Minister Keir Starmer excluded from those he considered “working people”.  Almost eight in 10 of them (342,000) have fewer than 10 employees. Just under a quarter (22pc) of such small firms – defined as micro-enterprises if their annual turnover is also below £1.8m – weren’t even able to turn a profit over the past year, according to market research company BVA BDRC.  The Budget has just made life much tougher for them as individuals, all of a sudden responsible for payroll costs increasing “by just under 2pc”.  Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, defined a working person as someone “whose main income arises from the fact that they go out to work every day”.  Yet the forecasts released by the OBR assume “around 60pc” of the increase in costs will be passed on to employees in the short term. Things get worse from 2026/27, when over three-quarters (76pc) of burden will be borne by workers – in the form of lower real wages."
Left wing logic - employers pay National Insurance, so workers aren't worse off