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UK inequality is lower than most suppose

The average Londoner pays £5,000 more in tax than the services they receive. The south-east contributes £2,000 a head, and the east of England breaks even. The rest of England, like the three other nations, is also a recipient of money from the capital region.

London wages are indeed higher. This gets caught in the estimates of inequality. But the costs of living in London are also higher. Not just rent, but a pint and so on. We do not have equal prices across geography. These higher costs are not included in estimates of inequality.

That is, we might be measuring inequality of income but we’re not measuring inequality of consumption – and it’s of consumption that actually matters to how people live their lives.

Add into this that London stands out, much much more, than the capital or other richer regions of other countries does. And we’ve our explanation for why the UK has, apparently, higher inequality than other countries It’s geographic, yes, and a result of bad measurement.

This international food trade

Though UK farmers produce sufficient quantities of staple foods such as meat, milk, eggs and wheat to meet most domestic demand, the country relies heavily on overseas growers for vegetables and fruit – imported fruit makes up more than 80% of supply.

So, roughly speaking, we already do what the Greenie campaigners insist we should. Grow what we can grow here here and import the things that cannot be grown here. So, that’s settled then.

I suppose it’s an idea, yes

Reparations campaigners believe that the harmful legacies of slavery persist in economic underdevelopment, poor health among the African diaspora, and contemporary racism against black people.

But given that the African diaspora – sans poor Haiti – is richer than Africa the payments would seem to be required the other way around, no?

Anyway, the correct answer is “Fuck Off”

Well, yes

To have introduced such economically demented measures simply for political expediency is totally unforgivable.

But that’s why political control of an economy is such a bad idea. Because things economically demented will be imposed for political reasons.

BTW, that’s Nigel talking about Jeremy Hunt.

All rather 1984, no?

Young people who drop out of education and work should be tracked through a single data system to ensure they do not fall through the cracks in state provision, the former cabinet minister Alan Milburn will recommend.

More suveillance, more control, more state.

The unified database would allow schools, colleges, councils, job centres, youth services and mayoral strategic authorities to share information and see in real time when a young person stops attending education or work. The system would track people from the age of 16 to 24. Currently, monitoring and support end at 18.

They just can’t help themslves, can they?

Oh, very amusing

James Watt, who co-founded BrewDog with friend Martin Dickie in 2007, has previously said that he was left “heartbroken” by the brewer’s collapse.

Watt’s tenure at BrewDog was marked by controversies, including criticism for the dubious taste of marketing stunts and an allegedly “toxic” working culture, for which he apologised.

He has since set up several new businesses, including Social Tip, which pays people to make social media posts about brands.

There was one of those with blogs back in the day. They made something of a mistake and offered me an $18,000 a year salary. Which, of course, I took, until they ran out of money (lasted over a year tho’).

What will happen is that a horde of low value posters will turn up, followed by a significant fall in the cash on offer per post, until people are making 50p a time, if they’re lucky. For that is what happened last time.

Big piece! All men’s fault!

In The Guardian!

I know, shocker, eh?

South African women were killed at a rate of 12.2 per 100,000 in 2022, nearly six times the global rate,

The male murder rate in S Africa is some 45 per 100,000. Three, nearly four, times as much.

The Commission for Gender Equality has called for an urgent safety audit of the affected areas.

Guess which rate the CGE is complaining about?

Nolethu Ndude is a South African social entrepreneur,

Being an entrepreneur means finding out what the audience wants then giving it to them. Which she’s done rather well with The G here, no?

You don’t say!

No, noooo:

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced a 15% increase in the country’s main cash-transfer programme for poor families, as well as free weight-loss jabs, prompting criticism from opponents who say the moves are electorally motivated just two weeks before the presidential election.

He’ll be promising $5,000 each if he wins next, right?

All auctions of stolen goods, right?

So, what are they supposed to do?

Germany’s finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, called on ‌the European Commission at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Dublin on Friday to propose possible ways to tax what he described as the excessive profits of oil companies.

“Several member states have been calling for models for a long time,” Klingbeil said, demanding proposals by next month. “People can see how oil companies are exploiting the situation, overcharging and significantly increasing their profits.”

There’s x amount of oil and or diesel around. That hsa to be allocated. Price is always the best method of rationing – that way you know it’s going to those who really need it. What alternative system do you want the oil companies to use? How *should* they decide who gets some?

Eh?

If pursued, this programme might reduce the current scale of bond sales by the Bank of England, which could, as a consequence, slightly ease upward pressure on interest rates, but by very little. That is because the guidance given is almost as important when it comes to long-term interest rates, which is what QE and QT are meant to influence, and the clear indication given is that the Bank wishes to dispose of all the bonds that it acquired after the 2008 financial crisis and the financial crisis of 2020, which arose as a consequence of Covid.

This decision makes no sense at all.

First, it gives the clearest possible indication that the Bank of England is intent on keeping interest rates in this country above the level they would naturally be for years to come.

So, we did something to reduce interest rates: QE. Reversing that is QT.

But if we do QT this raises interest rates above where they would naturally be? Eh? But we’ve just agreed that we artificially lowered them with QE…..

The first is that the Bank of England has no comprehension at all of inflation, or the impact of monetary policy on it.

Oh, right.

So HMRC goes after the old and confused then, eh?

The founder of Addison Lee owes £20.5m in tax after a tribunal dismissed a claim that he should be treated as a nom-dom despite living in the UK since childhood.

Given the reports that seems like a reasonable read of the law, yes. But this:

Griffin, knighted in 2024 for services to business and charity, did not give evidence in person to the tribunal after HMRC accepted he was not medically fit to do so due to “cognitive decline”.

Can’t have people dodging tax merely by being demented now, can we?

What a super argument

Our latest work on this subject is one part a pragmatic attempt to come up with an ethical framework to guide the space, and one part a worrisome empirical finding. For the former, we make a straightforward argument for authentic, autonomous and transparent influencer conduct and disclosure if someone gets paid to promote a political candidate, cause, or campaign. For the latter, one of our research teams, at the University of Tennessee’s Information Integrity Institute, found that to people who consumed more content from political influencers, disclosure mattered less. We hypothesize that those heavy social media users operate from a baseline assumption that all creators get paid in some way – regardless of if it is disclosed or not. It’s not hard to imagine that they’ve become inured to online astroturfing in this era of digital disinformation.

Ethical political influencer conduct, we argue, means that creators must take their responsibility as information purveyors seriously – they should serve as role models rather than spin doctors for people searching for insight on civic and political issues. Creators can and should retain autonomy when they engage with politics. Rather than becoming mouthpieces of campaigns, they should be true to their own beliefs and clear about presentation of opinion versus genuine news. Most of all, influencers should disclose if they got payments or other perks from a campaign. They owe it to their audiences.

So it doesn’t actually matter, given that folk are cynical – realist – enough to know that everyone’s being paid. But everyone should still do what we want anyway.

Who knew?

The process is so cumbersome that even people who are literate and have institutional and organisational support can struggle to establish their eligibility. “The process of receiving the enumeration form, knowing when you have not received it, reaching out, then trying to create a paper trail is so daunting that the entire burden of proving your eligibility is placed on the citizen to protect their own constitutional right,” says Deshmukh.

This is to register to vote in India. But who knew that Indian bureaucracy would be complicated? Really, who could have guessed?

Eh?

Governments create money when they spend. Commercial banks create money when they lend. Both processes happen every working day. If creating money automatically caused inflation, modern economies would be permanently experiencing rapidly rising prices. They aren’t.

But, but……the argument is about “how much” money is being created.

Really?

A PR campaign to discredit a judge and thus get a court decision overturned?

The researcher behind the Duke of Sussex’s phone hacking claim is preparing a campaign to discredit the High Court judge who threw out the case, The Telegraph can reveal.

Umm:

The Telegraph has seen a document that suggests he is now soliciting support for a campaign to undermine the judge as the Duke and his fellow claimants weigh up whether to launch an appeal.

OK, so maybe a chancer looking to set up a scheme rather than an active campaign.

But, umm, no, eh?

Graham Johnson plans to undermine the legal credibility of Mr Justice Nicklin, who ruled against the Duke and his fellow claimants in their £50m case against the publisher of the Daily Mail.

Seems a bit fanciful, the people who need to be swayd are the judges of the Court of Appeal. And I tend to doubt a PR camapign is going to get to them. But even so, no, not something I think is a good idea. Really, just not…..

Georgie, Georgie

The human race contains some right ones:

Here it’s mostly middle-aged men in “lifted” pickup trucks, which have been modified to be as loud and smoky as possible. Two local SUVs have been refitted to “roll coal” from twin exhaust towers mounted behind the cab, releasing a dense black cloud of soot when the driver hits the “smoke switch”.
….
There’s a similar racing culture in mid-Wales, where I lived until 2012. Night after night, a convoy of cars with exhausts modified to be as loud as possible would race past, at 50mph or more in a 30mph zone.

Some right ones.

In one of the poshest parts of London, the Chelsea Truck Company advertises “iconic urban 4x4s”. “Iconic” appears to mean huge. But what the hell is an “urban 4×4”? And why is it legal?

Therefore ban Land Rovers.

It is perhaps, a bit of a leap there. Why not, instead. jail the little scrotes actually causing the problems?

Shows how unworldly I am

Or mrely ill-informed I guess:

Fiji has declared a national HIV emergency amid a spike in infections as the Pacific nation grapples with a correlating rise in methamphetamine use.

Meth? HIV? I thought meth was smoked. Or, perhaps, taken as a tablet? Which is sweet summer child of me apparently.

Sure, sure, injectables and HIV, that makes logical sense.

The health minister said the government estimates that one in every 60 adults in Fiji is now living with HIV.

Which is, you know, pretty high?

Among HIV cases in Fiji with a known mode of transmission, over half were linked to sexual transmission and more than 42% to injecting drug use, according to UNAIDS.

Who is selling what in order to afford the meth is the next useful question, no?

Oh, rightie ho then

Climate crisis likely behind devastating Nepal-Tibet floods that killed more than 1,300, first study finds
Scientists say global heating was a destabilising factor in collapse of 200,000 sq metre glacier in August
Climate breakdown probably weakened the glacier that collapsed causing catastrophic floods and killing hundreds of people in Nepal and Tibet last month, the first scientific study of the disaster has found.

Note how weak the claim actually is. Likely, probably. Which, given that it was a chunk of mountainside that came down is as strong as anyone is willing to be. Even this lot are willing to be.

But of course by tomorrow we’ll all be told that it’s absolutely proven. Its Science™

At last, at last!

Common Weal has appointed a panel of experts, including lawyer and former SNP MP Joanna Cherry and Professor Richard Murphy, to address a raft of concerns the think tank believes the independence movement has so far failed to answer.

The project will focus on a number of issues ranging from currency to what the think tank called “the boring work” including how an independent Scotland would establish new regulatory agencies and the transition of the postal service.

Common Weal said that addressing the granular detail of building a new, independent Scottish state would win over voters who were concerned about the feasibility of such an undertaking.

Someone has given Murph the opportunity to design and plan an entire country! Glories!

Now let’s see how he gets on, eh?