“The expression on the face of Number 10 is that of a man who never looks where he is going and is then constantly surprised to find that he has stepped in dog excrement.”
“The worst forecasters were those with great self-confidence who stuck to their big ideas,” wrote Mr Cummings himself. They are lousy at understanding the world and coming to good judgments about it.”
Sounds awfully familiar
“The more successful were those who were cautious, humble, numerate, actively open-minded, looked at many points of view.”
That sounds a lot less familiar.
“Johnson has spent a career living for today and letting tomorrow take care of itself...over promising and under delivering”
In fact there has been a super forecasting failure in the Conservative Party as a whole, and in the voting public.
Everyone knew what he was like.
But somehow they were unable to connect that knowledge to the foreseeable outcomes (without much in the way of super powers at all)
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It is the argument that simply “governing well using all levers available”, as Stoller put it in the first half of Biden’s presidency, does not necessarily translate into popular gratitude or political success.”
“They cite the Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s $500 billion green energy strategy, the American Rescue Plan Act, which helped to lift 2mill children out of poverty, & the US’s generally dynamic economy as achievements to which the public responded with a collective shrug
Politico described Stoller’s diagnosis as “good policies no one understands”. Obamacare had similar results.”
There has to be a continual storytelling which connects to people’s day to day realities.
Their ability to do the weekly shop without grinding anxiety.
Potholes!
I’ve been thinking about the broad but shallow majority Labour has and what it means
1/. It is the result not just of a profound disgust at Tory political behaviour even from their own traditional voters but also of a highly intelligent and organised electoral strategy.
2/. It is pretty obvious that Lab and Lib Dem struck some sort of non aggression pact in a large number of seats to their mutual benefit. It took a lot of the poison out of tactical voting that we saw in 2017 and in 2019 in particular. So did the change in leadership.
As @Samfr pointed out : the seats where there was no such non-aggression pact and the opposition was split, this resulted in saving MPs such as Braverman & Mel Stride
In just 42 seats in England and Wales was the Tory vote bigger than the combined Lab/Lib one.
They don’t tax your state pension. But your state pension is added to any other income you have and that IS taxed…(basically treating your state pension as part of your normal personal allowance (PA). Not enough to meet the PA limit.
7 out of 8 pensioners do not GET the full new state pension. Most are on the old state pension (or less) of c £8,800 pa.
So that arrives untaxed.
However that does accrue so that if you have any additional income once it reaches the £12,570 threshold (inc your state pension) THOSE income sources as taxed as normal…as they should be
Even on the NEW full state pension you are way off the PA still.
We’re just pausing over tea to discuss the location of the DC solar panel isolation switches as the loft is not a good location for me up a wobbly loft ladder and very awkward loft hatch
They are going in the spare bedroom cupboard so easy for me to get to
The team is absolutely lovely.
Tomorrow the roofing panel team will arrive: James and Rhys who have both been doing this for 4 years.
James is ex military
Rob and Andy (electricians and survey team)
Geoff (sales consultant) has been in solar for years.
Just thinking about my young Ukrainian Refugee today.
Two years ago today she was awoken by her brother in law, a customs official, telling her to get out of Kyiv straight away. Forget her home and job there. The Russians were invading.
She left to go to her parents
So did her sister and her two young children. To a tiny village in the Poltava Region. All living together in their parents house.
What must it have been like for her? Realising that the war was not going to be over quickly and her lost home and lost job were now her reality
Meanwhile her cousins were fighting at the front. The loss of life and destruction of property all too real and the grim stories of torture, rape and deportation of children growing louder.
Suddenly having to take off to a foreign country she had never visited to survive