He’s cocky, and also he never learns from the past.
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https://x.com/reuters/status/2039620119215681764?s=46
The old Alex Salmond SNP and Julian Assange trick
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He knows deep down that he won’t be elected. This is a good thing though regarding the triple lock comments. It will mean other parties will have to talk about their plans for pensions.
Price of petrol was 1 dollar in my country till a week back. Doubled to 2 dollars now in the space of a week. And more spikes to come if things stay the same.
I put fuel in the fun car yesterday, I only use Shell V Power in that, pre all this bullshit it was usually around the £1.51 a litre mark, yesterday it was £1.97 
Not ideal but it’s not my daily driver so whatever, 156 miles cost me £43 
The panic buying though is just utterly stupid and I think the government need to shoulder a lot of the blame for this. Whilst other countries have a plan in place for what happens when it gets tighter, our lot haven’t really said or done anything, which in my opinion is fuelling the panic buying.
I guess they have a vested interest though, Higher fuel prices = More VAT.
What I also don’t understand is why the gap between petrol and diesel was usually around 10p a litre, why is it now all of a sudden averaging 30p a litre?
Price gouging bastards.
I look forward to BP, Shell and the rest of them announcing historical record profits.
It’s vile, mate. Honestly, utterly disgusting. I understand that Costco diesel went up to 1.80, and it was exorbitantly high at 1.62 when I filled up last week.
I do wonder whether hybrid working pattern jobs will show some leniency on those that have to travel in from further over the coming weeks (though I can’t see it, personally)
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The variation in price just shows how much profiteering is going on.
I feel sorry for the guys who work in the Sainsbury’s near me. Their prices are the lowest so they are inundated with morons filling up jerry cans and shit. Sainsbury’s won’t let them stop people doing that.
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Yeah I filled up in Costco with diesel last week and it was the worst experience I’ve had filling up to date, was like pending armageddon.
What bewildered me more is that the difference between Costco diesel and normal supermarket diesel at the moment is about 3p a litre, I was going past anyway.
My habits of filling up haven’t changed, I always fill to the brim and then when I get to half a tank I’ll fill again so that psychologically I’m not spunking a fortune filling a tank everytime.
Sainsbury is the lowest here too, they had to close on Monday as had nothing there, then there’s a Ford Fuel Oils garage round the corner who when all of this shit started were the first to whack their prices up and are by far the most expensive in the area, but I think that’s more to do with the fact they accept fuel cards and the majority of busses and lorries fill up there. Either way, I flat out refuse to use them now, whereas before I did because they were always a few pence more but they were nicer people to deal with but they’ve shown their true colours in this.
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So far other countries plans seem to amount to “please don’t drive, please work from home, please take public transport” and that’s about it. Not exactly high-brow policy stuff lol
Back in the 70s when this last happened the Danish government banned cars on weekends, which led to the famous bicycle culture emerging (55% of people in CPH commute to work and school by bike) and the government strongly supporting the fledgling wind turbine industry to get away from oil dependency. These two things were obviously transformational for Danish society.
I’m hoping that this significant economic shock will accelerate the shift towards electrification/EVs and renewables/nuclear even more.
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I’m staying calm about polling at the moment, it’s a fickle science. But this is really promising. I think our message is cutting through. Though the ease with which Reform and the Tories (anyone remember them?) could form a coalition from hell continues to worry me.
Hopefully some upcoming Farage scandals will land just before the local elections. It’s all well and good us on the left pointing out when Farage did a racism but that’s what energizes his base. Something that shows him up for the un-patriotic, tax avoiding, creepy, grifter, Russian asset he really is will be the best path forward.
Reasonable and proportionate.
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It’s what the founding fathers would have wanted.
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A left wing, soft, anybody can be what they want to be, let’s all take from the magical money tree. This country going far left is probably worse than it going far right. Scary times.
In the US the Democrats are not a left wing party, by UK metrics they’re centre right at best. So every government in the US since 1980 has been right wing or centre-right. How’s that going for the US right now? Is everything just great over there? How’s that healthcare savings fund coming along? Enjoying getting only 10 days holiday per year?
In the UK we had a right wing Tory government 1979-1997, a centre-right Labour government 1997-2010, then increasingly right wing Tory governments until 2024 when a right-wing Labour government came to power. So things are brilliant in the UK at the moment are they?
Leftists (and I would say I’m centre left) haven’t been anywhere near the seats of power for nearly 50 years. And yet were supposed to fear a progressive government.
The best definition of idiocy is repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different outcome.
Can left-leaning progressives make the US or the UK great again? Possibly not, power corrupts, it’s a human flaw. Should we keep saying that the threat to our society is the left even though it’s been right-leaning governments who’ve overseen 50 years of managed decline in living standards for all but the richest?
I’m not saying we should all become Marxists, I’m not even saying that the left holds the answers. But surely there comes a time when people hold a mirror up to themselves and wonder “Why am I still expecting the rich and powerful to come through for me?”, “All those right wing parties brought me to this very unhappy place where I’m retiring at 67, my kids can’t afford to move out and there’s no job security and the health system is crumbling”.
I know what will fix it all, voting for an even more extreme right-winger next time. Yes, that’ll work, this time.
Stop being so scared of change. If after 4/5 years things are even worse, fine, we know it’s politics that sucks and not a particular flavour of politics that sucks.
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Americans have become so much richer than brits (and europe in general) over the past two decades it is ridiculous. By pretty much every metric americans and the american economy in general have obliterated the Uk.
Average real incomes have stagnated in the UK since 2009 whilst americans have seen theres rise considerably.
Disposable incomes which is more relevant to quality of life are are 20k higher than ours. 40% of american households have household income after tax of 70k vs only 10% of household incomes for us.
They have better job opportunites with a faster growing economy, better economic sectoral split manufacturing, construction, finance, tech, ai etc etc.
They have better regional split. If you remove London from the UK comparisons than england is now poorer than mississipi.
The GBP vs USD relects this.
We would kill to have the oportunities, wealth and future prospects of the USA.
On a geopolitical level they can operate completely insulated from global politics and what is happening in the rest of the world. They deliberately focused on securing it’s own energy since the 90s to not be dependent on imports.
They’ve understood how to win the currency game and make everyone beholden to them.
They are net food exporters.
What does the UK have to show? We are dependent on the rest of the world just to survie being net energy and net food importers and armed forces which have been decimated. For every day people are economy and wealth has stagnated. Our political spectrum is becoming more and more divisive.
Europe and the UK as a whole is orders of magnitute more left than USA and I dont see anywhere in Europe which is outperforming.
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I don’t generally get into the weeds of economic debate because frankly I’m not as good at it as I am at other areas of political debate and I respect the ability of those who do it better.
But it’s probably worth saying with everything you’ve noted about the quality of life for the middle and upper class that poverty rates in the United States also dwarf a lot of other developed economies. That kind of wealth inequality is not necessarily something to be envied.
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You’re right in much of what you write but having been to America 10 or 11 times I’ve never seen poverty like it in a developed nation. There are times you drive around in America and can’t believe you’re in the richest nation in the world. And it’s not just the occasional street it’s large sections of cities are just crazy poor.
I’ve always said I’d love to live in America because I generally felt that I’d make a lot more money and be a lot more comfortable there but yeah, insane wealth inequality as well.
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There is definitely a gradient wherein those who are highly educated or have access to capital can make good bank in US.
I am pretty sure I am correct in saying that a software developer earns 3-4 times more than they earn in Europe on top of lower taxes. So the average disposable income (even after paying a premium for education & health) is substantially higher than Europeans.
USA is also a strong market for businesses. Consumers spending tends to be a lot higher in US whereas in Germany, I see people are generally more conservative in terms of spending, which likely doesn’t rotate money in the society as much as in US.
There is a reason every mid level business (I worked for) wants to enter US market on the very first opportunity.
However, middle class & those below are thoroughly fucked.
One of my guilty pleasure 3 years ago was watching Caleb Hammer on Youtube and you could see people just lived paycheck by paycheck, with little financial cushion, often relying on debt just to get by.
And you have to take car loans because you can’t survive without a car.
When you consider all strata of the society
No affordable health insurance, No affordable quality education, No public safety net if you lose your job, No kindergarden subsidy, No public infrastructure
A developed nation shouldn’t alienate the less economically priviledged to this extent.
People in Germany may not earn as much but they are generally more content with life and have far less crime and that has a lot to do with living a decent life in Germany is extremely affordable.
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I couldn’t live in a country where you can find yourself filing for bankruptcy because of medical bills.
The UK is a great place to live, in spite of what the naysayers would tell you.
Remember all the Brexiters who would constantly tell people to “not talk their country down”? Now look at them. They can barely take a breath before telling you how shit their country is.
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