Ruddy hell. This is incredibly powerful - well worth watching in full. No other comments needed.
Huge props to @charlotte2153.bsky.social for speaking so honestly and directly. Just a awful thing to happen - and hugely impressive in using it to fight for others.
Yes and very keen on nationalising industries and public services rather than letting local councils do their own thing
Originally proposed by the Liberal Democrats though and then co-opted by the Tories!
We pretend the top marginal rate of tax is 45%, when in fact due to the tapered withdrawal of the personal allowance and child benefit + student loan repayments, top marginal rates can reach about 80% IIRC
I sympathise with this for the US but not quite for the UK because we have one of the most lopsidedly high earner-reliant tax systems in Europe at this point (albeit by stealth)
This is where Labour's route back to relevance lies – in rebuilding a system in people feel like their hard work pays off, a system in which there is opportunity and mobility in place of stasis.
The result is a society in which people feel that social mobility is dead, and in which property ownership and inheritance matters more than any other factor.
The UK's current fiscal setup both artificially restricts the supply of jobs at the lower end of the labour market, thereby harming the young, those with caring responsibilities, the long-term unemployed – while penalising aspiration and progression at the top end.
(Indeed paradoxically, structurally lower productivity growth can lead to more jobs in certain sectors, at least in the short term)
Well I don't disagree but that's more of a quality than a quantity thing I think
(Increasingly (a) is just the 'British' disease, mind – the likes of France and Italy having successfully reformed their labour markets and seen considerable falls in unemployment as a result)
Her policy decision further entrenched the UK's 'transatlantic' fiscal bind: a) it is too expensive to offer unskilled employment (the 'European' disease); b) the median earner isn't taxed enough (the 'American' disease)
I still maintain that Reeves's mistake wasn't that she raised taxes via employer's NICs, it was that she did it in a way that was so heavily skewed towards the bottom end of the labour market
Vague talk about 'community' in Labour circles is always an interesting one, because it can either mean: a) this person is on the soft left and realises their preferred economic policy is impossible in modern Britain but is lost for what to propose instead; or b) this person is a total reactionary
The good, progressive bits of Labour tradition are valuable IMO, but for some reason some people have decided that the bad bits have to be preserved
Yes, the right of Jewish immigration to Palestine was originally associated with the Labour left and opposed by the Labour right/trade union establishment who were deeply antisemitic
Yes I was just coming on to that one! I think what many people today don't get about the temperance movement is that it was more akin to modern 'woke' movements and stuff like veganism; it was a radical progressive movement not a reactionary one.
Yep, and undoubtedly there will have been plenty of people who weren't consistently progressive by today's standards – one can imagine a radical abolitionist woman being deeply homophobic, for instance – but that doesn't mean to say that the denomination itself had a socially conservative bent
There have been a huge range of perspectives *on capitalism* throughout Methodist history, but Naismith's bizarre idea of Methodism as a force for social conservatism and conformity is ahistorical nonsense
The early Primitive Methodists literally supported the French Revolution for goodness' sake.
Women have been *always* been allowed to preach in the Methodist Church (i.e. since the 18th century) and have been able to be ordained since the early 19th century.
I'm sorry but do you even know what Methodism is
Exactly! We should be celebrating that heritage as a party, rather than treating it as if it were an embarrassment.
Yes but not rural mainland Scotland (I think the prominence of free churches explains the Liberals' strength in the North West Highlands).
The only bit of Scotland with a large Methodist presence is Orkney and Shetland (which was of course the only Scottish seat held by the LDs in 2015).
(Likewise Margaret Thatcher, a Methodist by upbringing, was an ultra-liberal Tory; Methodism and 19th century liberalism were very closely aligned)
Yeah the Methodists in the party have very often been the ultra-liberal ones!
I would say I don’t understand the criticism for casting Beryl Reid, but I do (sexism), but she was great in the role, and demographically it’s only implausible if you’re a complete misogynist who thinks older women have no role beyond “granny.”
But this is the thing – when you learn Latin at school what you're learning is a fossilised version of the most prestige and stylised variety of a dead language.
Latin as it was actually spoken/used, when it was a living language, was much messier and more colourful.
That's interesting that that was your experience!
I imagine that which of those two you find harder would largely depend on your relative strength in grammar and phonology (those relatively stronger in former than the latter would prefer Latin over French and vice versa).
There have been a lot of apocalypse cults in Christian history, but I think this must be the first to be so bloody laid-back and jolly about the whole thing
Probably to his left on welfare and to his right on the economy!
