domjg
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Post by domjg on May 5, 2024 21:13:13 GMT
lens - some analysts are looking ahead and thinking through the collapse of Putin's Russia as the exit strategy, rather than the battlefield retaking of Ukraine's lost territory. I've no idea how likely or not that may be, but with the right weapons, Ukraine has demonstrated the capability to strike very deep inside Russia. They could, if they wished, do an awesome level of damage to, for example, Russian oil exports. To date they haven't, largely, it is suspected, because of western pressure not to provoke a global oil crisis. I suspect we'll see some dramatic attacks inside Russia in the months ahead, and mounting pressure on Putin. But where this ends, your guess is as good as mine. But where's the evidence that mounting pressure is having any effect on Putin alec ? - quite the opposite if anything, his control is stronger than ever. Continuous escalation will inevitably lead to a nuclear confrontation. So we should be too scared to confront Russia due to the threat of nuclear escalation? That’s certainly what they want us to believe. Not buying it, face up to Russia, like the bully it is, it will always back down. |
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on May 5, 2024 21:31:44 GMT
Sad to hear that Bernard Hill has died. Boys from the Blackstuff is in my top 3 TV series ever - who could forget him as Yosser Hughes pleading 'Gizza job'? He arguably gave the best performance in the Lord of the Rings films - his Theoden has a depth of characterisation that doesn't exist in the books. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 5, 2024 21:38:48 GMT
However, even the possibility of such an event is an indication that the SNP's internal procedures haven't been brought up to date. The rule that any member could stand for the leadership, was appropriate for a party with no (and then few) MPs, in the days before there was a Scottish Parliament.
It is now an anachronism.
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 5, 2024 21:47:34 GMT
Front page of the Mail on Sunday, King Charles opinion poll and what Angela Rayner may or may not have done 10 years ago In fairness it's been a slow news week, it's not as if anything else has happened over the last couple of days... Tough that the king was required to get cancer just to disract public attention from the government's election performance.
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 5, 2024 22:01:59 GMT
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on May 5, 2024 22:02:49 GMT
Now the local elections are out of the way, to return to the mystery of how Trump is doing so well in polls despite all the very obvious problems he has (and he still is doing well btw - Emerson College polled the 7 key swing states 25-29 April and Trump led in all of them. National polling is more or less level, but irrelevant). AP has an interesting suggestion on this - basically that many voters haven't yet accepted that Biden and Trump are the only choices on offer: "VOTERS IN DENIAL Hovering over it all is the disbelief of many voters, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Biden and Trump — their respective parties’ presumptive nominees — will ultimately appear on the general election ballot this fall. “I think we have an electorate that’s going through the stages of grief about this election,” said Sarah Longwell, who conducts regular focus groups with voters across the political spectrum as co-founder of Republican Voters Against Trump. “They’ve done denial — ‘Not these two, can’t possibly be these two.’ And I think they’re in depression now. I’m waiting for people to hit acceptance.” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said many voters arel recovering from what he called “a knock-down, drag-out fight” that was the 2020 presidential election. “Many of them have not wrapped their heads around the fact that it is, in fact, going to be a rematch,” Cooper said in an interview. “When they do, I don’t think there’s any question that Joe Biden is going to win the day.” VOTERS UNDERWHELMED WITH THEIR OPTIONS It is clear that Biden and Trump have serious work to do to improve their standing with voters. While optimistic in public, Biden allies privately acknowledge that his approval ratings may be lower than Democrat Jimmy Carter’s numbers at this point in his presidency. Trump’s ratings are not much better. Public polling consistently shows that voters don’t like their 2024 options. Only about 2 in 10 Americans say they would be excited by Biden (21%) or Trump (25%) being elected president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March. Only about one-quarter of voters in the survey say they would be satisfied about each. A recent CNN poll conducted in April found that 53% of registered voters say they are dissatisfied with the presidential candidates they have to choose from in this year’s election." The whole article is well worth a read, as it discusses the two campaign strategies. apnews.com/article/biden-trump-president-election-six-months-uncertainty-12e52060e54c8f48be001d159f4a4dcb |
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Post by mercian on May 5, 2024 22:05:54 GMT
oldnatLike democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on May 5, 2024 22:14:35 GMT
oldnat Like democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state. There is another, very common option - an indirectly elected or appointed head of state with mostly ceremonial duties, which is what many countries have. The main advantage over our arrangement is that such posts, while having no executive power, are regarded as guardians of the constitution and expected to stand up to a misbehaving Prime Minister, whereas our monarch just obeys the orders of the PM and is not allowed to say no regardless of how rogue they go. Example - the readiness of the Queen to grant Johnson's illegal prorogation of parliament, which had to be stopped by the Courts. They are also available to shake hands at sporting events and open festivals of course.  |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 5, 2024 22:29:29 GMT
oldnat Like democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state.
In a parliamentary system, no Head of State should have executive power, other than a duty to preserve the constitution against attempts to illegally suborn it. The Irish Presidency has much to recommend it.
Monarchists regularly claim that "the monarchy brings in loads of tourism" but never produce the data to support the claim. If having a hereditary monarchy automatically brings in "loads of tourism", then that must also apply to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain etc, while Republics such as France must have few visiting their former palaces like Versailles. Looking at tourism figures, perhaps decapitating the monarch is actually an economic benefit.
You may like to have Andrew Windsor as your Earl in Mercia to open your fetes, but 75% of those in the Highlands in this poll want him stripped of that fatuous title in Inverness. |
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Post by mercian on May 5, 2024 22:33:42 GMT
Re the Scottish version of the Post Office scandal which I read - one thing that occurred to me as a former programmer and system developer and project manager - was that some of the people involved in the development MUST have known about the faults in Horizon. From my experience a lot of them would have been contractors who would be on the contract for a few months or a year and perhaps thought it better not to make waves while earning a good screw (though I often did when contracting surprise surprise  ). But there would have been some technically knowledgeable people who either worked directly for Fujitsu or were on long-term contracts who would have known. This dragged on for 20 years. At the very least why didn't somebody get it fixed and sneak out an update 'for security reasons' which stopped the errors? So not only is the Post Office culpable, but also Fujitsu. Declaration of Interest: I never liked ICL (as Fujitsu used to be) because although they were a British company at the time they had a cosy (possibly corrupt) relationship with the government and nationalised industries and the companies I worked for were often in competition with them. As an independent contractor I did once work on a contract for a big insurance company at which many others were employed via Fujitsu. At the end of the contract they tried to recruit the independent contractors. There were about 30 of us. 1 person (a single mother) expressed interest because it would give her more financial security. Most of us just laughed at them. Such was their reputation then (mid-90s I think). |
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Post by eor on May 5, 2024 22:43:07 GMT
Now the local elections are out of the way, to return to the mystery of how Trump is doing so well in polls despite all the very obvious problems he has (and he still is doing well btw - Emerson College polled the 7 key swing states 25-29 April and Trump led in all of them. National polling is more or less level, but irrelevant). Just on that point - you're right of course that national vote share has no direct bearing on the outcome. But I think national polling is still useful at this stage because there is vastly more of it than there is state polling, and it has a pretty strong track record in recent elections. So while it would miss something local that disproportionately affected one key state, any more general shift in sentiment that was likely to impact multiple swing states would almost certainly become visible in national polling more quickly and more clearly than it would in the state polling. |
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Post by mercian on May 5, 2024 22:44:49 GMT
oldnat Like democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state. There is another, very common option - an indirectly elected or appointed head of state with mostly ceremonial duties, which is what many countries have. The main advantage over our arrangement is that such posts, while having no executive power, are regarded as guardians of the constitution and expected to stand up to a misbehaving Prime Minister, whereas our monarch just obeys the orders of the PM and is not allowed to say no regardless of how rogue they go. Example - the readiness of the Queen to grant Johnson's illegal prorogation of parliament, which had to be stopped by the Courts. They are also available to shake hands at sporting events and open festivals of course. I understand that Johnson was given legal advice that he could prorogue Parliament in the particular circumstances. This may have been overturned later by the courts, but at the time he saw the queen both of them would have understood that it was legal. Of course the queen chose to avoid politics as much as possible and relied on advice from PMs at least publicly, but that could happen in your system too. There were times when she got involved. I think there was one in the early 70s with one of the close elections between Heath and Wilson. And of course we never know what goes on in the weekly audience. with the PM. I have heard that she was always pretty well abreast of what was going on and kept the PMs on their toes. |
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Post by lens on May 5, 2024 22:50:07 GMT
lens - some analysts are looking ahead and thinking through the collapse of Putin's Russia as the exit strategy, rather than the battlefield retaking of Ukraine's lost territory. I've no idea how likely or not that may be, but with the right weapons, Ukraine has demonstrated the capability to strike very deep inside Russia. They could, if they wished, do an awesome level of damage to, for example, Russian oil exports. To date they haven't, largely, it is suspected, because of western pressure not to provoke a global oil crisis. I suspect we'll see some dramatic attacks inside Russia in the months ahead, and mounting pressure on Putin. But where this ends, your guess is as good as mine. Sorry, but again, whilst I'd love to be proven wrong, I think anyone who is looking at an endgame of a collapse of Putin's Russia is guilty of wishful thinking and very unlikely to be correct. Never say never, true, but not the most probable scenario. And even if such did happen, isn't there a strong possibility that a successor may be *MORE* hardline than Putin, not less? Even more gung ho, and fully prepared to use at least tactical nuclear weapons? And to hell with the consequences? Yes, maybe we will see more dramatic attacks deeper into Russia in due course. And then maybe even more brutal reprisals from Russia on Ukraine? A lesson from history is that wars evolve, and with them the technology of warfare. Russia may have been surprised by their lack of success initially, and found their weaponry less sufficient than they thought they would need, but matters evolve and I have heard they are rapidly ramping up relevant production facilities. A lesson in that respect from WW2 is that they have the vast geography on their side. Russia can strike across the entirety of Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't have that luxury against Russia. But arguably it's manpower that will ultimately force Ukraine to the negotiation table. Russia is undoubtedly suffering heavy casualties - but so is Ukraine. And it's likely that the current high Russian losses may in part be due to being on the offensive. Ukraine may be just able to cope at present, but do they have what's necessary for even a limited offensive, let alone completely retaking all occupied territory? I simply don't see any of Ukraine's allies going as far as sending their own troops into combat. Weapons and supplies, yes. Troops, no. And Ukraine is finding conscription more and more a problem, contrary to some of the propaganda we are hearing. (Believe me on this one.) Eventually there are going to have to be negotiations and compromises. And compromises on both sides. It's not going to be easy, but both sides are realistically going to have to accept an endgame that falls short of their ideal. |
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Post by mercian on May 5, 2024 22:52:40 GMT
oldnat Like democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state.
In a parliamentary system, no Head of State should have executive power, other than a duty to preserve the constitution against attempts to illegally suborn it. The Irish Presidency has much to recommend it.
Monarchists regularly claim that "the monarchy brings in loads of tourism" but never produce the data to support the claim. If having a hereditary monarchy automatically brings in "loads of tourism", then that must also apply to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain etc, while Republics such as France must have few visiting their former palaces like Versailles. Looking at tourism figures, perhaps decapitating the monarch is actually an economic benefit.
You may like to have Andrew Windsor as your Earl in Mercia to open your fetes, but 75% of those in the Highlands in this poll want him stripped of that fatuous title in Inverness.Our monarchy brings in more tourism than the others because we have retained all the flim-flammery. Most of the remaining continental monarchs have been stripped of the flim-flam. I think you'll find that Andrew's been stripped of royal duties. Titles could be next if he keeps being naughty. |
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on May 5, 2024 22:55:36 GMT
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Post by Rafwan on May 5, 2024 23:10:22 GMT
oldnat Like democracy, I think that constitutional monarchy is a terrible system, just better than all the others. An absolute monarchy is obviously very risky and often bad, as is an elected head of state with executive power (e.g. Trump, Putin). An alternative would be an elected head of state with mostly ceremonial duties. How would that be better than what we have? The monarchy brings in loads of tourism and the extended family perform a lot of opening fetes, being patrons of various bodies and so on which you wouldn't get with an elected head of state. There is another, very common option - an indirectly elected or appointed head of state with mostly ceremonial duties, which is what many countries have. The main advantage over our arrangement is that such posts, while having no executive power, are regarded as guardians of the constitution and expected to stand up to a misbehaving Prime Minister, whereas our monarch just obeys the orders of the PM and is not allowed to say no regardless of how rogue they go. Example - the readiness of the Queen to grant Johnson's illegal prorogation of parliament, which had to be stopped by the Courts. They are also available to shake hands at sporting events and open festivals of course. John Curtice said one of the decisive turning points in the fortunes of the Tories was Partygate. One moving image stood out as a compelling illustration of the rank injustice of this. It showed the Queen in black garb, grieving, alone and socially distanced, at the funeral of her late husband. How is that for subterranean executive power against a misbehaving prime minister? |
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Post by eor on May 6, 2024 0:00:21 GMT
Rather nice to see the speeches from both Parker and Street in the West Mids. Respect shown by Parker for his predecessor and the defeated Street displayed decency and humility. I am reminded of the time Michael Portillo lost his seat, despite being credited as the mastermind of the election strategy and a very prominent politician, regarded as future conservative leader. Not disputing your actual point, but as an aside I think you've maybe demonstrated the tricksy nature of recollection from bygone eras here and performed the unusual feat of conflating Michael Portillo and Chris Patten. Patten as Party Chairman ran the (successful) 1992 GE strategy for the Tories tho narrowly lost his own seat in Bath along the way. Portillo was indeed seen as a likely future leader when swept away by Blair's New Labour tide in 1997 but was Defence Secretary at the time. (whilst I don't think anyone would want to be credited with masterminding the 1997 strategy given they lost half the parliamentary party that year, the honours I believe would belong to Brian Mawhinney and Michael Heseltine) |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2024 5:54:12 GMT
"The monarchy brings in loads of tourism"
Royal propagandists keep on spouting this nonsense.
It isn't true.
While the trappings of monarchy palaces , changing the guard, royal parks etc do attract a relatively small minority of tourists the primary attraction and cash generation from inward tourism have nothing to do with the fact we have a hereditary head of state.Tourists would visit and do visit these locations irrespective of whether Charles Windsor or any of his clan are there.
The Palace of Versailles generated amongst tourist the most for a " royal" venue in the world, it does so of course despite the fact that no French " royals" have resided in it for over 200 years.
The royal propagandists and their media and political acolytes claim cultural tourism as generated by them , when it clearly isn't.
UK tourism is a major part of the UK economy, worth around £130bn a year.
UK residents traveling within the UK and visitors from overseas spend billions of pounds on hotel bookings, visitor attractions, restaurants, theatre tickets and much much more.
Overseas visitors alone add around £30 Billion to the British economy.
There are countless organisations set up to support the industry and to promote Britain, its constituent countries and our large towns and cities as tourist destinations.
Tourism employs almost 10% of the UK’s workforce and attract around 40 million visitors to the UK a year
None of this has anything to do with having a hereditary head of state.
The royal propagandists claim £500 million is generated by royal tourism a tiny fraction of the total , but even this figure isn't true, amongst this figure incidentally they include visits to st Paul's cathedral , because our hereditary head of state is also head of the church of England.Visit Britain who know better conspire in this nonsense
It's bollocks.
Apart from royal tat ( normally made in china) cultural tourism which does generate around £12 Billion a year would happen irrespective of royals.
Visits to the tower of London or Windsor castle for example are not governed by the fact that for a few days or weeks of the year a royal might be shuffling around, there's no change in visitor numbers if they are there or not.
There will of course be no acceptance of this reality by the flag huggers leading both the Tory and the Labour party and there's no mileage at least in English politics in calling it out in the face of the overwhelming cobblers generated in the media, but none of this makes the claim that a royal family generates revenue true.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 6, 2024 6:05:44 GMT
For those suggesting Ukraine should give up yet more of their country to the murderous brutal Putin (he is a dictator, the elections are a sham), it would be interesting to know how much and what parts of the UK and it's population they would be prepared to sacrifice to Putin for peace...
We know from the past few years Putin has invaded and has defacto control over parts of Georgia. Then the Crimea, then Donbass
Anyone who thinks ceding yet more territory to Putin, will end his 'territorial demands in Europe', clearly haven't studied history
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2024 6:51:01 GMT
"what parts of the UK and it's population they would be prepared to sacrifice to Putin for peace..."
The obvious answer would be none, but Skegness did fleetingly cross my mind.
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Post by nickpoole on May 6, 2024 6:56:13 GMT
"what parts of the UK and it's population they would be prepared to sacrifice to Putin for peace..." The obvious answer would be none, but Skegness did fleetingly cross my mind. Bromley. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 6, 2024 7:08:58 GMT
Re the Scottish version of the Post Office scandal which I read - one thing that occurred to me as a former programmer and system developer and project manager - was that some of the people involved in the development MUST have known about the faults in Horizon. One of the documentaries explained that in the event of communication failure between branch and central data store, intervention by central staff was necessary to correct accounts. Which immediately raised the potential for fraud by those central staff, but obviously scope for mistakes as they tried to rebuild account details. I don't know exactly why this process might go wrong, but Fujitsu people said it was essential. A number of the victims said that after postmasters asked the p.o. to properly investigate their accounts and it seems Fujitsu was asked to do this, Fujitsu then found more money missing. That totally isnt possible unless somehow record keeping was faulty, there couldnt be extra money missing if accounting proceses were absolutely incorruptible. It seems likely that if a follow up discovered there had been mistakes wrongly saying money was missing, then it would be quietly dismissed. But if by chance errors went the other way, it ended in court. In a flakey system where random errors were occurring, it seems likely we have only heard about the ones which went against postmasters. I still don't see quite how this fraud was supposed to work in the real world. Postmasters could only steal money by carrying out transactions and not recording them, but how could they do that? If someone wants to renew their tv licence, that had to be recorded. They couldn't just issue a fake one. If the system recorded a genuine licence sale, why would anyone just take money out of the till expecting to get away with it? I just don't see how postmaster could have seen a way to steal money that was a viable crime. The p.o. was basicly saying thousands of people helped themselves from the till believing the automatic accounting system would somehow not notice the shortfall. That's actually quite crazy. P.o. relied upon no one knowing thousands of people presumably chosen from respectable backgrounds had suddenly decided to commit a crime they could never hope to get away with if the software was actually working. Computer weekly or whatever it was called finally decided to publish the story after they found about 30 people affected and therefore believed it couldn't possibly be thieving nutters. But the p.o. had accused MOST of its postmaster of pinching money, though only 1000 or so came to court. Its obvious what happened here was p.o. couldn't admit it's accounting system didnt work. This is all against the background that government was trying to sell p.o. all through this period. How can you sell a company whose core operation is flakey? The software also cost billions of pounds, such that had p.o. never introduced it, it might have come close to profitabity. It was forced upon the p.o. by the major government in order to catch benefit fraud. Something they soon abandoned because benefits changes allowed them to track this by other means. This left the p.o. on be half of government defending a system which had never ever been seen as cost effective by the p.o.. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 6, 2024 7:19:26 GMT
Eventually there are going to have to be negotiations and compromises. And compromises on both sides. It's not going to be easy, but both sides are realistically going to have to accept an endgame that falls short of their ideal. There is absolutely no doubt the west could have won this war by now. It's not too late to win it now. But to do so we have to support them properly and we have not been willing to do that. All we have really done is send them our old equipment and spare ammunition. To win we should have been sending the best and massively ramping up production to supply all they could fire at Russia. We totally did the bare minimum to look good. And that was mostly out of embarrassment that ukraine did not simply lose in a fortnight as both Russia and the west seem to have expected. Ukraine was supposed to be an expendable object lesson, not a permanent western funded war. The west has the worst possible outcome right now, an eternal war. It is trying to force Ukraine to settle by denying it enough weapons to win. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 6, 2024 7:29:30 GMT
John Curtice said one of the decisive turning points in the fortunes of the Tories was Partygate. One moving image stood out as a compelling illustration of the rank injustice of this. It showed the Queen in black garb, grieving, alone and socially distanced, at the funeral of her late husband. How is that for subterranean executive power against a misbehaving prime minister? Yeah but this has cut both ways. Lots of people now believe the lockdown regulations were stupid and pointless, not just me. Labour supported them just as much as con. While johson was caught flouting them, the true message of this was he never believed there was any point to them, but still imposed them on everyone else. Many agree. Labour isnt popular not merely because it has no standout policies of its own but because it accepted brexit instead of fighting it as its voters wantec, and accepted lockdown idiocy and the trillion pound cost of same to the nation. How can you support a party which wasted a trillion pounds on a policy which didnt work? Except that FPP gives you only a choice of con or lab, and con are evidently much worse. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2024 7:41:46 GMT
"that FPP gives you only a choice of con or lab, and con are evidently much worse."
That's true however fptp allows a minority to select the worst of two as happened in 2015,17 and 19.
PR makes compromises essential and tends to iron out the idiocy.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 6, 2024 7:44:10 GMT
Visits to the tower of London or Windsor castle for example are not governed by the fact that for a few days or weeks of the year a royal might be shuffling around, there's no change in visitor numbers if they are there or not. That's not the same as arguing wholly abolishing the royal family would make no difference. The special events like weddings and coronation, and day to day appearances, all add to the mystique and advertise the uk as a tourist destination. The whole world notes these events, making people think of the UK. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2024 7:46:07 GMT
The farming industry doesn't seem to have got the regime message that Brexit has been great for them.
Almost as if government ministers are talking total cobblers.
"Farmer confidence at lowest in England and Wales since survey began, NFU says
Union cites extreme wet weather and post-Brexit phasing-out of EU subsidies as main reasons for slump"
"Farmers’ confidence has hit its lowest level in at least 14 years, a long-running survey by the biggest farming union in Britain has found, with extreme weather and the post-Brexit phasing-out of EU subsidies blamed for the drop.
The National Farmers’ Union warned there had been a “collapse of confidence” and that the outlook was at its lowest since the annual poll of its members in England and Wales began in 2010.
Most farms are expecting to reduce food production next year, with arable farming particularly badly hit.
‘It’s pretty gloomy out there’: new NFU chief Tom Bradshaw fights to give food producers a better deal
Tom Bradshaw, the NFU’s president, pointed to extreme wet weather and the phasing-out of EU basic payment scheme (BPS) subsidies as key reasons for the downturn.
“Our concern today is that if members don’t have confidence, then we as a country can’t deliver food security,” said Bradshaw.
"Vote Brexit and starve" didn't see that On the side of the big red bus!
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2024 7:49:10 GMT
Danny
"coronation"
We have a lot of those do we?
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Post by jib on May 6, 2024 7:52:27 GMT
Intrigued to see someone else has joined the Truss wing of the Lib Dems.
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Post by bardin1 on May 6, 2024 7:58:30 GMT
"what parts of the UK and it's population they would be prepared to sacrifice to Putin for peace..." The obvious answer would be none, but Skegness did fleetingly cross my mind. Bromley. That reminds me - I was working in bromley when the Iron Curtain came down and they were selling off bits of the berlin wall. There was a suggestion the council could buy it and erect it between Bromley and Lewisham |
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). But there would have been some technically knowledgeable people who either worked directly for Fujitsu or were on long-term contracts who would have known. This dragged on for 20 years. At the very least why didn't somebody get it fixed and sneak out an update 'for security reasons' which stopped the errors?
