In part because the BBC/grauniad/education axis has deliberately failed to explain why there's no magic money tree, why rent control is always a disaster and why public provision of services is always dire
Yet the less sophisticated think there is such a tree.and never consider there won't be any road mending companies if the pot holes aren't repaired soon. People who lounge about watching free Netflix aren't much cop at mending roads and operating machinery in factories. We've run out of labourers.
But they’re not ‘really’ privatised. I mean the profits are sure.
But as a consumer I can’t change my water supplier for instance. There is no competition. And a regulator is a poor substitute.
Much the same for rail. Don’t know much about buses. Tho I believe there should be a state provision for rural communities etc.
Energy industry is effectively nationalised already. In that the govt is completely in charge of supply. And effectively also controls many aspects we would cover as ‘demand’. I mean. It’s Miliband, not the market which is charge. Even the left acknowledge that…
Japan has quite successful privatized rail. And has numerous entirely private rail lines that have never been under government ownership.
The fact that the British government made a complete hash of privatization doesn't mean that it is necessary to return the system to state ownership
Same goes for energy, which the NetZero bollocks means that the government is making everyone pay lots of dosh to a bunch of green energy grifters
There are definitely cases for rural transport subsidies - especially for pensioners - but I'm not necessarily sure that buses are the answer. Again here in Japan the bus companies are private but they get paid by local governments to run lines that would otherwise be totally uneconomic. I've seen news that in a few places the local gov has changed to a subsidized taxi service because it costs the same more or less and is actually more useful for those who don't live near bus stops and/or want to go to places not served by buses
Very interesting Francis. I like the Japanese model but we have to acknowledge we have a very different culture. Imagine the grift which would result if the British government started laying on free taxi services. Oh hang on. We don’t need to, we can see some of the abuse that already occurs in the SEND system.
It doesn't cost much (JPY 500-1000 I think =~ £2-5) but you have to pay so abuse by customers is limited.
And the companies have to track usage and claim the subsidy. Sure it can be abused but its very local so everyone knows everyone and so I think abuse is relatively rare. For sure its not like, say, the Learing center frauds in the US
My parents used to get taxi vouchers instead of a pensioner bus pass from Oxfordshire council because the rural area in which they lived had no bus service. This was back in the 1990's! No idea if that scheme still exists there.
That’s the point, free market models don’t work for natural monopolies. They need public ownership, and that ownership doesn’t have to take the form of the previous British Rail and water boards.
I’d agree with this Jim. As a broadly free market guy I’d rather I didn’t, but I basically do. But the ‘Ofnonsense’ rubbish as a way to regulate them clearly doesn’t work either.
OK So the UK has 4 different water regimes in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with different degrees of public control. By cost of delivery and quality of output (lack of leaks etc.) the English version is the best
Thanks for cheering us up. Not sure what else we can do now - is it time to build a resistance movement? LSO gatherings in abandoned old churches where we can meet with cans of beer, cigarettes and reminisce about the old days? Maybe swap my battered copy of 1984 for your copy of Lord of the Rings? Someone has a battery powered CD player (don’t want to be discovered) and plays Elgar in the background. As the sun goes down we sing Jerusalem, wiping back the tears and one at a time not to attract attention make our way home …
Much to be said to use this time - when not here - to build real connections with friends, neighbours and like-minded ‘locals’ who may depend on one another more than they would otherwise have done. NCF may be intuiting the same thing.
Great post but I don’t quite share your pessimism - and I don’t say that often to anyone! The wildcard, if is our electoral system of First Past the Post. The religious vote is heavily weighted in certain areas so the number of MPs it can muster is limited. And it’s not even a city wide thing. The latest polls for Birmingham show how most council seats could go to Reform despite the high ethnic population.
Let’s see Steve, to be honest I think this next election could go any way at all. It’s all a bit bonkers really, with anything possible. But I stand by the idea that there are fewer and fewer of us who don’t have a (short term) interest in keeping the state subsidy gravy train from roiling on…..🤔 ATB
That was always the plan, as detailed in the 1996 book ‘The Blair Revolution: Can New Labour Delver?’, written by a certain P. Mandelson. You create the ‘Labour century’ and make it the natural party of government by turning it from the party of the working class into a coalition of benefits scroungers, the public sector and the unlimited number of immigrants, who vote left, you ship in. In 1992 we dared to vote the wrong way, again, so our betters needed to stop that happening, forevermore, once they got the opportunity.
Or no votes for non contributors. It seems harsh or (clutches pearls) ‘right wing’, but people who are net takers keep voting to spend more and more of my money- that doesn’t seem fair either.
I am apparently about to, or already have, renew(ed) my subscription to LSO and today's effort has reminded my why you're worth it. I love the wickedly funny phrases that you dream up - "a full on Kim Leadbeater" took a second to sink in but well worth it.
I read it yesterday Jim! Great article and you made some good points I hadn’t considered before. Well worth a read. Thanks.
I think I had a caretaker/undertaker line for her in my notes. Cos I find Cooper pretty unbearable.
But there is no reason you should agree with me.
TBH I think Rayner will get it. Because she passes the ‘human test’. I think she’d be a total disaster and ruin my business and then my subsequent retirement. And I still think if I met her I’d like her more than the others!
It’s all about the timing. The knives are out for Starmer on May 8, Rayner is still in a financial guddle and Burnham doesn’t have a seat, the also rans are not an option for the reasons I said, everything points to a caretaker PM, and Cooper is front rank for that, not least because the puffed up blowhards think she’ll be a pushover to manage and get rid when the time suits. Not the best analogy, but they thought the same about Hitler.
38% of 18 to 24 year olds say they would vote Green.
This is because the establishment has failed them.
Failed to provide an environment in which there are jobs, any jobs, available to young people.
Failed to create a society where home ownership is a reality rather than a no hope dream.
Failed to provide them with an education of any value, just debt and left wing indoctrination.
Failed to allow parents to bring them up properly in the first place.
There is nobody in Labour that speaks for young people, or any people for that matter, except themselves. It does not matter who is the Leader. All that will change is the timetable for bankruptcy. Big spenders will immediately fall foul of the bond markets, probably lasting less time than Liz Truss. More realistic leaders will, like Sunak, merely limp on, hopeless.
Agreed. None of this will do Green voters any actual good. It will only make them poorer, and even more convinced it is someone else’s fault, probably ‘greedy billionaires’ or Winston Churchill.
Outstanding as ever, some laugh out loud moments there.
You do ordinary folk a great disservice. Most people I talk to are well aware stuff is not free, and that we are all paying for it - even my son's friends (we've educated them well). They are fed up with the current administration and are champing at the bit for an alternative.
The left is dead, for a generation at least. Yes, I know in The South the Greens/Islamic party are popular, but that's not the whole of the UK.
Bravo — another rip-snorter LSO! Ah the imagery: A leather-clad Phillipson as Dors, Starmer in a pinny serving the tea to her cabinet as Janet… I’d pay good money to watch that episode.
I expect Starmer finds Trudeau’s levels of gas lighting, oppression, and enforced woke ideology as an inspiration.
Sadly for him he didn’t pursue any of these policies with the rigour his party demands. So he’s out.
And yes. He’s done a lot of damage. He’s giving votes to children, abolishing jury trials, rolling out digital ID, expanding the welfare state, reversing the EU referendum, bankrupting the country. Apart from that, he’s pretty harmless. 🤔
Strangely full and yet incomplete. You substackers who write on this topic all forget: among the folk the English don't like - French, Americans, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, Middle East overstaying guests, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Russians, Argies....the folk they dislike most are the English. I put it down to the plague. We don't even like those who give us money, the Boss, the Social Servies, tourists - ask the Cornish and Welsh. We don't like those who don't like Farage and Trump. Nor do we like those that don't. 130,000 like Rupert Lowe and think he'll make a difference. A true Englishman, he's declared who he doesn't like - inspirational for Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Islam who don't even like each other either.
Yet in that zone of Englishness, the High St, we queue, admire each others' dogs, say 'sorry' if somebody bumps into us by mistake and hold doors open for people we don't know for so long we could be accused of being unpaid commissionaires.
Oddly, we dislike folk who belong to better organised and wealthier countries; easy going folk from warmer countries with more sunshine. And yet, people from other countries who are persecuted and disliked, flock to come here. We still lead the World, we're so much better at it. They've emulated our industrial and cultural revolution to such a degree now they're as badly off as we are. It's quite literally our fault.
On great form here, Low. Brilliant rundown of the runners 'n' riders (so to speak).
I have been banging on to anyone who will read/listen about the dependency critical mass having been breached as well.
I confidently predict a sovereign debt/bonds crisis, swiftly followed by 1970's-style IMF intervention. It's the only way I can see to stop the benefits gravy train. Which is like that bus in the "Speed" film, but without the speed limiter.
Yeah, let's 'ave Big Ange for the next head of black comedy, I say. Ed would be grimly fascinating though. But the tabloids wouldn't be able to joke about last one out of Yookay turning out the lights, as the power would probably be off by then. Enjoy the elections, LSO!
Thanks James. It can only get worse from here. Starmer isn’t going to stave off execution by cutting the welfare bill.
So he’ll do the opposite. Ditch Reeves. Move Mahmood to number 11.
Rayner in as home sec, in the hope it kills her off. But she’s canny enough to demand extra powers and control over something like a part of local government spending. (Don’t know-just guessing what it could be) So that she has a constituency dependent on her for cash. Making her harder to sack.
Or the price might be double extra union powers-actually with her background that makes more sense.
Anyway. That’s my guess.
I love your Speed analogy btw. Also ‘turn the lights off…’ 🎯
Mahmood as Chancellor. Interesting thought , Sir. By the way, you are spot on about her being by far the sharpest of the bunch, even though it is a limbo - level bar that we are talking about. She can actually think on her feet. Which must make the rest feel threatened in a big way :) . ATB !
Of course part of the problem is that actual reforms are dreadfully unpopular
https://www.samizdata.net/2026/04/as-ever-the-british-electorate-wants-incompatible-things-but-do-not-despair/
In part because the BBC/grauniad/education axis has deliberately failed to explain why there's no magic money tree, why rent control is always a disaster and why public provision of services is always dire
It’s almost as if they have an agenda….🤔
Yet the less sophisticated think there is such a tree.and never consider there won't be any road mending companies if the pot holes aren't repaired soon. People who lounge about watching free Netflix aren't much cop at mending roads and operating machinery in factories. We've run out of labourers.
We've run out of factories!
But they're told us ALL OUR LIVES that it's up to someone else to do it for us and everybody learned to believe them.
Talking of dire public services, the private sector is doing a grand job with water, rail, energy and buses, aren’t they?
I’d agree they’re failing Jim.
But they’re not ‘really’ privatised. I mean the profits are sure.
But as a consumer I can’t change my water supplier for instance. There is no competition. And a regulator is a poor substitute.
Much the same for rail. Don’t know much about buses. Tho I believe there should be a state provision for rural communities etc.
Energy industry is effectively nationalised already. In that the govt is completely in charge of supply. And effectively also controls many aspects we would cover as ‘demand’. I mean. It’s Miliband, not the market which is charge. Even the left acknowledge that…
Japan has quite successful privatized rail. And has numerous entirely private rail lines that have never been under government ownership.
The fact that the British government made a complete hash of privatization doesn't mean that it is necessary to return the system to state ownership
Same goes for energy, which the NetZero bollocks means that the government is making everyone pay lots of dosh to a bunch of green energy grifters
There are definitely cases for rural transport subsidies - especially for pensioners - but I'm not necessarily sure that buses are the answer. Again here in Japan the bus companies are private but they get paid by local governments to run lines that would otherwise be totally uneconomic. I've seen news that in a few places the local gov has changed to a subsidized taxi service because it costs the same more or less and is actually more useful for those who don't live near bus stops and/or want to go to places not served by buses
Very interesting Francis. I like the Japanese model but we have to acknowledge we have a very different culture. Imagine the grift which would result if the British government started laying on free taxi services. Oh hang on. We don’t need to, we can see some of the abuse that already occurs in the SEND system.
Well first off. it isn't FREE. It's subsidized.
It doesn't cost much (JPY 500-1000 I think =~ £2-5) but you have to pay so abuse by customers is limited.
And the companies have to track usage and claim the subsidy. Sure it can be abused but its very local so everyone knows everyone and so I think abuse is relatively rare. For sure its not like, say, the Learing center frauds in the US
My parents used to get taxi vouchers instead of a pensioner bus pass from Oxfordshire council because the rural area in which they lived had no bus service. This was back in the 1990's! No idea if that scheme still exists there.
That’s the point, free market models don’t work for natural monopolies. They need public ownership, and that ownership doesn’t have to take the form of the previous British Rail and water boards.
I’d agree with this Jim. As a broadly free market guy I’d rather I didn’t, but I basically do. But the ‘Ofnonsense’ rubbish as a way to regulate them clearly doesn’t work either.
OK So the UK has 4 different water regimes in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with different degrees of public control. By cost of delivery and quality of output (lack of leaks etc.) the English version is the best
https://www.timworstall.com/2022/12/wrong-question-3/
IIRC he's done an update somewhere on his Substack (https://timworstall.substack.com/ ) but substack search is pants so I can't find it, though I can find https://timworstall.substack.com/p/of-course-we-pay-water-bills-who which is sort of related
Thanks for cheering us up. Not sure what else we can do now - is it time to build a resistance movement? LSO gatherings in abandoned old churches where we can meet with cans of beer, cigarettes and reminisce about the old days? Maybe swap my battered copy of 1984 for your copy of Lord of the Rings? Someone has a battery powered CD player (don’t want to be discovered) and plays Elgar in the background. As the sun goes down we sing Jerusalem, wiping back the tears and one at a time not to attract attention make our way home …
OK Martin, where do I sign up? Actually my friend Bruce at the NCF put on a local event a bit like that last weekend!
Much to be said to use this time - when not here - to build real connections with friends, neighbours and like-minded ‘locals’ who may depend on one another more than they would otherwise have done. NCF may be intuiting the same thing.
Great post but I don’t quite share your pessimism - and I don’t say that often to anyone! The wildcard, if is our electoral system of First Past the Post. The religious vote is heavily weighted in certain areas so the number of MPs it can muster is limited. And it’s not even a city wide thing. The latest polls for Birmingham show how most council seats could go to Reform despite the high ethnic population.
Let’s see Steve, to be honest I think this next election could go any way at all. It’s all a bit bonkers really, with anything possible. But I stand by the idea that there are fewer and fewer of us who don’t have a (short term) interest in keeping the state subsidy gravy train from roiling on…..🤔 ATB
That was always the plan, as detailed in the 1996 book ‘The Blair Revolution: Can New Labour Delver?’, written by a certain P. Mandelson. You create the ‘Labour century’ and make it the natural party of government by turning it from the party of the working class into a coalition of benefits scroungers, the public sector and the unlimited number of immigrants, who vote left, you ship in. In 1992 we dared to vote the wrong way, again, so our betters needed to stop that happening, forevermore, once they got the opportunity.
Perhaps we could get an extra vote for being a taxpayer?
Or no votes for non contributors. It seems harsh or (clutches pearls) ‘right wing’, but people who are net takers keep voting to spend more and more of my money- that doesn’t seem fair either.
Of course that is how it all started -men over a certain age who were also property owners. Now 16-year olds mooted and who knows next ? 12-year olds?
I cannot argue with that!
I am apparently about to, or already have, renew(ed) my subscription to LSO and today's effort has reminded my why you're worth it. I love the wickedly funny phrases that you dream up - "a full on Kim Leadbeater" took a second to sink in but well worth it.
Thank you Malcolm! Yes. I do confess to being quite pleased with that one!
And thank you so much for your subscription and support. 🙏
Quite brilliant. X
🙏
Of course LSO, we all know that your obvious, deep rooted misogyny is what really stops you from the 100% cert punt that is Yvette Cooper
https://m62jim.substack.com/p/the-only-adult-left-in-the-room-why
(Only joking, I’m cosplaying a Labour backbencher)
I read it yesterday Jim! Great article and you made some good points I hadn’t considered before. Well worth a read. Thanks.
I think I had a caretaker/undertaker line for her in my notes. Cos I find Cooper pretty unbearable.
But there is no reason you should agree with me.
TBH I think Rayner will get it. Because she passes the ‘human test’. I think she’d be a total disaster and ruin my business and then my subsequent retirement. And I still think if I met her I’d like her more than the others!
Best
Not my cup of tea but she's be more fun down the pub than miserable Cooper.
It’s all about the timing. The knives are out for Starmer on May 8, Rayner is still in a financial guddle and Burnham doesn’t have a seat, the also rans are not an option for the reasons I said, everything points to a caretaker PM, and Cooper is front rank for that, not least because the puffed up blowhards think she’ll be a pushover to manage and get rid when the time suits. Not the best analogy, but they thought the same about Hitler.
No Jim. It’s a great analogy! 🤔🫣🤣
38% of 18 to 24 year olds say they would vote Green.
This is because the establishment has failed them.
Failed to provide an environment in which there are jobs, any jobs, available to young people.
Failed to create a society where home ownership is a reality rather than a no hope dream.
Failed to provide them with an education of any value, just debt and left wing indoctrination.
Failed to allow parents to bring them up properly in the first place.
There is nobody in Labour that speaks for young people, or any people for that matter, except themselves. It does not matter who is the Leader. All that will change is the timetable for bankruptcy. Big spenders will immediately fall foul of the bond markets, probably lasting less time than Liz Truss. More realistic leaders will, like Sunak, merely limp on, hopeless.
Agreed. None of this will do Green voters any actual good. It will only make them poorer, and even more convinced it is someone else’s fault, probably ‘greedy billionaires’ or Winston Churchill.
If the 16year olds get the vote it will be even more for the Greens. Make the voting age 21 again and bring some sanity into people's choices.
Outstanding as ever, some laugh out loud moments there.
You do ordinary folk a great disservice. Most people I talk to are well aware stuff is not free, and that we are all paying for it - even my son's friends (we've educated them well). They are fed up with the current administration and are champing at the bit for an alternative.
The left is dead, for a generation at least. Yes, I know in The South the Greens/Islamic party are popular, but that's not the whole of the UK.
Let hope so Toffeepud.
And many thanks for your kind words too! 🙏
Have shared your outstanding work widely.
Many thanks for that. It really does make a difference. 🙏
There’s another option. Slippery stays.
Can Angela Rayner be any worse? Best not answer that. I ♥️ Angie!
🤣
Tour de force!
Thank you Paul!
Bravo — another rip-snorter LSO! Ah the imagery: A leather-clad Phillipson as Dors, Starmer in a pinny serving the tea to her cabinet as Janet… I’d pay good money to watch that episode.
Me too Novi 🫣
I wanted to comment with the Peter Griffin "Top. Men". Gif.
🤣
🤣
I feel your pain but can Starmer be as bad as Trudeau was for Canada? He hasn't been in office long enough to do any lasting damage, has he?
I expect Starmer finds Trudeau’s levels of gas lighting, oppression, and enforced woke ideology as an inspiration.
Sadly for him he didn’t pursue any of these policies with the rigour his party demands. So he’s out.
And yes. He’s done a lot of damage. He’s giving votes to children, abolishing jury trials, rolling out digital ID, expanding the welfare state, reversing the EU referendum, bankrupting the country. Apart from that, he’s pretty harmless. 🤔
No votes for illegals yet? If not, there's still "work" to be done.
💪
Strangely full and yet incomplete. You substackers who write on this topic all forget: among the folk the English don't like - French, Americans, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, Middle East overstaying guests, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Russians, Argies....the folk they dislike most are the English. I put it down to the plague. We don't even like those who give us money, the Boss, the Social Servies, tourists - ask the Cornish and Welsh. We don't like those who don't like Farage and Trump. Nor do we like those that don't. 130,000 like Rupert Lowe and think he'll make a difference. A true Englishman, he's declared who he doesn't like - inspirational for Labour, LibDem, Green, SNP, Islam who don't even like each other either.
Yet in that zone of Englishness, the High St, we queue, admire each others' dogs, say 'sorry' if somebody bumps into us by mistake and hold doors open for people we don't know for so long we could be accused of being unpaid commissionaires.
Oddly, we dislike folk who belong to better organised and wealthier countries; easy going folk from warmer countries with more sunshine. And yet, people from other countries who are persecuted and disliked, flock to come here. We still lead the World, we're so much better at it. They've emulated our industrial and cultural revolution to such a degree now they're as badly off as we are. It's quite literally our fault.
On great form here, Low. Brilliant rundown of the runners 'n' riders (so to speak).
I have been banging on to anyone who will read/listen about the dependency critical mass having been breached as well.
I confidently predict a sovereign debt/bonds crisis, swiftly followed by 1970's-style IMF intervention. It's the only way I can see to stop the benefits gravy train. Which is like that bus in the "Speed" film, but without the speed limiter.
Yeah, let's 'ave Big Ange for the next head of black comedy, I say. Ed would be grimly fascinating though. But the tabloids wouldn't be able to joke about last one out of Yookay turning out the lights, as the power would probably be off by then. Enjoy the elections, LSO!
Thanks James. It can only get worse from here. Starmer isn’t going to stave off execution by cutting the welfare bill.
So he’ll do the opposite. Ditch Reeves. Move Mahmood to number 11.
Rayner in as home sec, in the hope it kills her off. But she’s canny enough to demand extra powers and control over something like a part of local government spending. (Don’t know-just guessing what it could be) So that she has a constituency dependent on her for cash. Making her harder to sack.
Or the price might be double extra union powers-actually with her background that makes more sense.
Anyway. That’s my guess.
I love your Speed analogy btw. Also ‘turn the lights off…’ 🎯
Mahmood as Chancellor. Interesting thought , Sir. By the way, you are spot on about her being by far the sharpest of the bunch, even though it is a limbo - level bar that we are talking about. She can actually think on her feet. Which must make the rest feel threatened in a big way :) . ATB !