lost

Taking out Saddam and a Sunni minority governing a Shii majority is looking more stupid by the day.

Apparently women move to the right after having kids. Probably linked to being more aware of threats (percieved or real) So women could be explained by the declining birth rate.

Yes I'm well aware I wasn't at an age that was using many public services and the difference between the old hospitals and new PFI ones was striking. I feel like housing costs are such as massive component of quality of life. My girlfriend at the time who was a little older and went straight into work I think was working the police call centre for £6 an hour and bought a 1 bed cottage for £22k, she used to buy food at M&S because in her words she had more money than she knew what to do with. Another friend worked in a record shop and used to be out every night everywhere. That was the big difference for me if you worked, even an unskilled job there was a clear jump in quality of life, you'd have a decent amount of disposable income.

I'd say it depends. The quality of public services went up but I'm not sure about quality of life. I was at uni in 1997 (which was free) I did an unskilled job on the side for beer tokens and the people who were doing it as their full time job were earning enough to buy houses and raise families (before minimum wage and tax credits) those a bit higher up the ladder in the private sector still had final salary pensions. I'm not saying any of that is labours fault as the change from the 1990's with things like housing and pensions has happened globally due to demographics but I think in the working class areas at least (if you were not a miner I suppose) they'd prefer the 90's.

I actually think most fans of other clubs liked him during the first few years. There has definatley been a change in demeanor though which I guess is probably linked to him wanting to quit.

Yes I was also thinking that it may force a few clubs to panic in the next 6 months. If he'd leave before a potential title though is another matter.

Who do we fancy for Liverpool next Alonso?

reform upto 13%? Must be their best ever performance.

Yes its quite difficult to gage and I havent been since covid so I'm only going on what I read. I think the farming industry is subsidized over there so cheap food has always been a massive thing. I remember going in the 1990's and having $2.99 all you can eat breakfasts and wondering how the hell they did it. A good measure of a country is McDonalds and I saw the dollar saver burgers which existed as recently as as 2018 are now $2.89. Also some of the price rises in vegas look mental. A meal for two at a non-posh chain resturant now coming in over $100.

I've been seeing as many "cost of living" posts from the U.S as I've seen from the U.K. It's optimistic to think that sort of stuff has damaged the Tories but won't damage Biden. The people in power always get the blame.

As far as I can see your graph proves my point. The blue bit is well above the OECD average and puts us in the top 7 for state funding. There doesn't appear to be any comparable country signifcantly higher for state funding and the top countries have completely different systems where the private sector does more of the work.

Yeah but I mean specifically the NHS. Do we raise taxes to 90 year highs, muddle along for 3 or 4 years for the pyramid on which social security is based to become a bit more oblongy then raise taxes to 100 year highs then repeat every 3 or 4 years? As far I can see, refusing to even look into if a system that was set up when we had 40 - 50 workers paying in vs 1 taking out vs soon to be 3 to 1 needs a bit of an update, is like the yanks who still think every facet of the right to bear arms from the wild west days is still relevant.

Not so sure. I think they realise what the Tories have been doing isn't working. I've read quite alot Streeting has written on the subject and he makes alot of sense.

Not sure where you've read that. The OECD average is 9.2% of GDP we spend 11.3%. Remember the top countries in europe like Germany and France have a private element so we can't compare apples and oranges. From a purely state funded point of view we are pretty much maxed out.

I don't disagree but the NHS coupled with the triple lock, the trend under the Tories has been massive wealth transfer from the young who work to pay for this with the highest taxes in 80 years. Hopefully labour have better ideas than to continue hiking taxes and I said, look at countries who are getting better outcomes whilst spending less.

Think its a bit more than that. Anyway the plan worked perfectly. They were so far behind in the polls they needed to get the voter share up high enough so that they could justify Corbyn staying on and the right of the party not taking back over but not enough so they'd have to actually try to deliver after promising everything to everyone.

Theres been a book written about it: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-2017-election-campaign-nhs-spending-plans-a8555621.html

Apparently the same thing happened with brexit.

UKIP does though as well. I just dont think you can argue people were voting for left wing policies when they were switching to labour for lower taxes. That in itself causes the issue if they had won Corbyns "free lunch" of an uncosted manifesto would of unravelled and been a complete mess.

Looking at that graph. isn't May 2017 when the Tories announced the dementia tax?

Well my main issue is I don't agree with the rules. I think Kaosmark's suggestion of doing it regarding debt would be fairer. I can't think of any other industry where someone is wanting to come over and invest in one of the poorest parts of the U.K that we'd be saying no and thinking its a good idea to say no. Evertons new stadium will create jobs and investment like the etihad complex and investment in ancoats has in Manchester. If the Saudi's want to invest in Newcastle why not? These are areas that haven't really recovered since the deindustrialization of the North.

£184 million net spend since the Russians took over in 2016 so £23 million a year isn't mad though there were some big contracts handed out in that time period. I think Everton fans accept they have been badly run but are the War in Ukraine and increases in stadium interest debt post covid acts that deserve punishment when a number of clubs tried to break away and basically end any sort of reward/qualification for winning, we were told it wasn't fair to punish the fans. There is also the mater that all though City have 115 charges 7 of those are the same as they have hit Everton with twice in one season so why say can't city take those charges now whilst they investigate the rest? Everton are probably going to end the season with over double to punishment for going into administration and it feels like the rules have been rushed out to stop an independent regulator being imposed on the prem.

I'd say Streeting is spot on and its the main reason I'll be voting labour next time. Labour are doing the right thing looking at the Australian system. You can see a little plateu around "austerity years" 2011 - 2013ish apart from that spending has just got straight up in real terms and as far as I can see hasn't provided a better service.

No need for states after the apocalypse I guess:

Still dwarfed I guess by the people who have to support the winning team all the time. I think Spurs do something with their ground and NFL for extra revenue. Villa could be in the sh*t when the Grealish money rolls out of the 3 year period.