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#71

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Tamas - December 22, 2025, 01:39:08 PM

This sounds like very flawed right wing logic. That you can't keep helping the poor as they will just choose to stay poor and supported on a survival level rather than try to better themselves.
Not sure where you're coming from here as I know you aren't a rightist.

It's part of Sheilbh's left-wing switch 

#72

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Josquius - December 22, 2025, 01:35:37 PM

I'm very much down with more decentralisation.
Though reluctant around what that means for money. We don't want regions being responsible for setting their own taxes as I just don't trust a lot of people to look beyond their immediate income and to recognise the value of investing in their area.
Itd be a race to the bottom.
What the solution is though I don't know.

So I actually think this is the key.

We have more regional transfers administered by central government from rich regions (basically London and the South East) to poor regions (literally everywhere else) on an annual basis than Germany ever had from West-East following reunification. In that time I think basically all East Germand states have now overtaken the North of England economically. I'd add that because East Germany is getting richer, the fiscal transfers are shrinking while in the UK they are just increasing - it's a little out of date but this also means its coming from a smaller base too as more regions fall behind:


This is from 2010 and in £s not % but the poorest region in Germany receives less of a fiscal transfer than several regions of the UK:


(I'd add here that Scotland's interesting because it is growing at a faster rate than most of England - or Wales - and converging, it's fiscal transfer is growing at a slower rate than the rest of the UK. My suspicion for that is that's because they've got meaningful devolution and a party incentivised to do things differently in some ways - even if I'm not necessarily a fan of the SNP in power.)

I think that is because if you are generating your own revenue then you have an incentive to try and grow - for example by signing and paying for your own transport infrstructure or housing projects. Local government in the UK just gets given lots of statutory duties (social care, homelessness, roads, bins) and cash from government to do it, but because they collect so littleof their own taxes basically no incentive to do anything else. We have the lowest rate of tax collection by local authority/government in the OECD and I think this is a huge part of our problem.

I also think if central government is paying and ultimately the money comes from London that means central government (based in and full of Londoners) will, justifiably, want to stick their oar in and insist on cost benefit analyses etc on a national spreadsheet of projects. I think that's actually a problem for regions that are doing relatively well - and I think this ties to the "tall poppy" syndrome of worrying about Manchester - it's the point made about Leeds and why it keeps getting shafted. Leeds is broadly doing okay. It's not so poor that it requires loads of cash or redevelopment, but also not so rich that it can compete - and that means it's exactly the sort of place that gets ignored and overlooked by central government. You can fully see central government deciding to basically slash any funding or projects that benefit Manchester in coming years because they're already doing well enough (this logic never applies to London because the CBA always looks good there because it's rich so the relative benefit is normally very high).

But what you're saying is I think why, while I think decentralisation is the key, it will never happen in this country. We are a country not just with a National Health Service but proposals for a National Education Service and a National Care Service. We have a National Chewing Gum Strategy that councils must follow, a National Bin Strategy, and, indeed, a National Planning Policy Framework. We hate any idea of a "postcode lottery" or people in different places receiving a different service which means everything gets hoovered up to the national, but I think that then just means we increase the power and wealth of the centre v everyone else.

The other reason is that I think because local authorities/government are not seen as meaningful by people they are perceived as just a layer of politicians/bureaucracy that doesn't add anything. I think this is why MPs are increasingly acting as councillors and calling for things like a National Bin Strategy, but also a vicious circle where their meaninglessness means people don't really want/think they should have powers over things that are actual material (like regional economic policy, tax etc) which in turn means they're perceived as increasingly meaningless. 

This sounds like very flawed right wing logic. That you can't keep helping the poor as they will just choose to stay poor and supported on a survival level rather than try to better themselves.
Not sure where you're coming from here as I know you aren't a rightist.

Leaving it entirely up to areas to fund themselves will just further deepen our inequality. The places that could most benefit from investment will be amongst those less able to afford it.

I also think it is a real risk in the current climate that the areas that most need investment are also those that have lost a lot of their young educated population. More likely to vote in populists promising low taxes and just generally destroying the state and further fucking the region - passing the blame elsewhere of course.

In this there's also the broader problem of a race to the bottom. It wouldn't help anyone to have places competing to attract investment on the promise of the lowest taxes. They will be unlikely to bring in much new investment and far more likely to just leech it from elsewhere in the country. I wager largely purely on paper with little actual benefit in jobs or anything. Just tax income.

The way we do CBAs absolutely needs an overhaul. This isn't an objective scientific measure. We decide what factors go into making it up. We should put far more weight on social good and reduced costs off that than our current 2D direct costs weighting.

Worth noting in your Germany example they had the transfers and the decentralisation.
We just have transfers to keep the lights on with little freedom on spending.

I hate it I don't know how that would work as someone who grew up in Liverpool, Scotland, Oxfordshire and London. I actually think we're not mobile enough as a country as it is and not really sure this feudal tying you to your place of origin helps that. To me it's exactly the sort of thing we need to destroy utterly

I disagree that we aren't mobile. We are far more likely to go to university in another city than people in many other countries, often this sticks or people then move onto a 3rd place.
Small towns greying as half of its youth move to London (or other cities) is a common cliche.

Where would you pick... In Japan its anywhere.
In the Japanese case it's weird as its not necessarily your home town. You can have zero links to a place and choose it. The towns often bid against each other with gifts. Which is not what I'd want to replicate, I would want to do it right.

I really don't see issue with linking you to where you come from. That place made you like it or not. Places that persistently create high earners should get some of the benefits from this.

It could also help with restoring a sense of place in much of the country. A key problem which is core to why so many towns are such disasters.

#73

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by Razgovory - December 22, 2025, 12:58:55 PM

I think Greenland is more likely than Venezuela.  Not many people to resist in Greenland.

If Denmark invokes Article 5, we are in deep shit

I didn't say it was good idea.

#74

Gaming HQ / Re: Europa Universalis V confi...

Last post by Syt - December 22, 2025, 12:49:20 PM

I like the idea of Cortez going full Col. Kurtz

#75

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by Tamas - December 22, 2025, 12:41:01 PM

I think Greenland is more likely than Venezuela.  Not many people to resist in Greenland.

If Denmark invokes Article 5, we are in deep shit

#76

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by Razgovory - December 22, 2025, 12:36:31 PM

I think Greenland is more likely than Venezuela.  Not many people to resist in Greenland.

#77

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by HVC - December 22, 2025, 12:22:27 PM

Doubt hell invade greenland. Too much entanglement with europe. Venezuela is an option, but don't think  hes willing invest the manpower to do it. At most the US will land on some offshore oil rigs or take over a port. Classic pillaging raid. Get some tribute and the promise of future tribute, unfurl a mission accomplished banners and hold a triumph through DC.

#78

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by Admiral Yi - December 22, 2025, 12:16:26 PM

I'm not placing those bets.  I would be happy to take them.

#79

Off the Record / Re: Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

Last post by crazy canuck - December 22, 2025, 12:14:21 PM

So anyone placing bets that Venezuela and or Greenland will be invaded by the US by the end of the year?

It probably depends most on when Trump's advisors determine they need to maximize distraction from the Epstein files.

#80

Gaming HQ / Re: What are you playing? (Red...

Last post by crazy canuck - December 22, 2025, 12:06:06 PM

I have become a bit addicted to Age of Empires 4.  As a middle aged soon becoming old man, my reaction time is way too slow to get a high ladder rank, but I am having fun being a "gold" player which means I am right in the mediocre middle of the player base - but having a lot of fun.