What caught my eye this week.
Naturalists have been surprised by the sight of thousands of 10-inch pulsating penis-like creatures wriggling about on a windswept beach.
The story was originally reported in the journal By Nature, which shared a photograph of one of the worms:
In taking up the story, the Guardian explains:
These penile figures typically burrow under the sand, far beneath the feet of beachgoers.
But the recent storms brought on some waves that swept away the layers, leaving them exposed.
Here’s a photo from Instagram, which gives a sense of the landslide:
Pretty disgusting, eh? Hope you weren’t eating!
Have a great weekend.
From Monevator
Lars Kroijer on tax efficient withdrawals and on the climate emergency – Monevator
What order to put things into an ISA or SIPP – Monevator
From the archive-ator: Review of How To Make A Million – Slowly – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!1
Online dealing platforms struggle to cope with post-election result trading frenzy – CityWire
Trapped Woodford fund investors will begin to receive money in January [Letter, PDF] – Link Fund Solutions
Paul Volker, the legendary US Federal Reserve chief, dead at 92 – [Audio] BBC and Klement on Investing
Investors grit their teeth for a ‘low return’ decade [Search result] – FT
Get ready to gasp: ‘I order takeaways six nights a week’ – BBC News
Products and services
ThinCats joins LandBay in closing retail peer-to-peer platform ahead of new regulations – Alt Fi
Ratesetter will pay you £100 [and me a cash bonus] if you invest £1,000 for a year – Ratesetter
Thousands were paid to use extra renewable electricity on recent windy weekend – Guardian
Comment and opinion
The myth of over-diversification – Allan Roth
Four investment adages that don’t make any sense – Morningstar
The best way to invest is the one that works for you – Abnormal Returns
Durn Furriners [US perspective but relevant] – Humble Dollar
Don’t expect the roaring ’10s for US stocks stocks to be repeated in the ’20s – Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance
Pulling your retirement levers [US tax and social security, but rest relevant] – Can I Retire Yet?
This is how dangerous ‘dollar-cost ravaging’ can be for your retirement – Marketwatch
Over-weighting REITs: Why don’t more experts recommend it? – Oblivious Investor
A behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life-cycle of a typical retirement blog – RiversHedge
When financial dreams fade and change – The Simple Dollar
Naughty corner: Active antics
Putting private equity ‘dry powder’ into perspective – A Wealth of Common Sense
What machine learning will mean for asset managers – Harvard Business Review
Seed investors should ‘index’ into every credible start-up to do best – AngelList Blog
The social subsidy of angel investing [Mostly a San Francisco thing, but echoes in London] – Alex Danco
Politics
How class, turnout, and the Brexit party shaped the general election [Search result] – FT
This was a stunning victory for the bullshit-industrial complex – Marina Hyde
An example of the bold, innovative tactics that riddled this election – sock puppets exposed via Twitter
Merryn Somerset Webb: The UK voted for capitalism – now go out and buy it [Search result] – FT
Will the election result bring a bounce for house prices and shares…? – ThisIsMoney
…and what does it mean for landlords? – ThisIsMoney
Super-rich family buy £65m house after Johnson’s victory – Guardian
Classic Dom clicks his fingers and the celebrations begin – Guardian
We are leaving… at last! – DIY Investor (UK)
Tide turns for Polish emigres, lured home by booming economy after Brexit jolt [Search result] – FT
Kindle book bargains
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou [The Theranos story] – £0.99 on Kindle
Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the odds on your side by Howard Marks – £0.99 on Kindle
How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work by Caroline Webb – £0.99 on Kindle
Off our beat
Is ‘arrival fallacy’ affecting your happiness? – The Stylist
Stop believing in free shipping [aka delivery] – The Atlantic
Trade-offs: The currency of decision making – Farnham Street
The influencer and the hitman: A years-long domain name feud ended in a bloody shootout – One Zero
Why Instagram killed tabloid star – New York Times
Go outside – Seth Godin
Third base – Scott Galloway
And finally…
“We’re right 50.75% of the time . . . but we’re 100 percent right 50.75% of the time,” [Robert] Mercer told a friend. “You can make billions that way.”
– Quoted by Gregory Zuckerman, The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Friday!
- Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”. [↩]
Comments on this entry are closed.
” What The UK Spends On Takeaways”
Amazing! Almost exactly mirrors the desire to remain strapped to the EU…
Third base article, nice.
Grateful someone is doing upbeat blog without the E word. Takeaway stats astonishing. I wonder if this is a case of “If you build it they will come.”
Does only cover cities. In rural areas the nearest we get to delivery is a pheasant stunning itself on the window. And they don’t bring side dishes.
Cheer up – £’s up, shares are up, FDI poised to rise, no chance of another referendum or remaining in the EU… going to be a lovely Christmas
Could have indyref2 – then with scotland gone we can be tory forever
I love the fact you chose to lead with fish that look like knobs rather than the election result.
I’m not a fan of the Tories however I’m reasonably happy we avoided another hung parliament. Hopefully we can get a soft and slightly less damaging exit now the DUP/ERG have lost their influence.
Well I suppose we could do what southern states rebels used to. What would be our equivalent of driving muscle cars with confederate flags on. I feel like binging on Firefly.
@ Tony Edgecombe –
Not leading with the election result? Surely a leaderless shoal of, penis fish/voters lying helpless on the beach is practically Swiftian?
Classic TI!
It does remind me of a bouncy castle I saw once on phoenix nights
I know this not a political blog or is only in that politics obviously has a big effect on our investing behaviour
“Investor” is uncharacteristically silent on the recent political earthquake
We investors need to know the way ahead and look forward to his perspicacious comments
xxd09
An image fit to grace any drawing room. Thanks for that @ TI. Glad it’s California.
@L — You’re very cynical. I was just posting an interesting story about a senseless and pointless act brought about by a vast mass of witless creatures and the whims of nature.
Hope that clears things up!
@xx0d9 – Oh, the election? Well Brexit is definitely happening, softer likely because Johnson knows any Brexit is bad economically and Hard much worse and he’s vain man who wants to be popular. And now he has the numbers to sidestep the ERG ultras.
Investing, it’s as you were. No changes to tax breaks etc, likely relief rally in UK assets, good times if you’re in the top 50%. Avoiding Hard Left tilt good for pound and inward investment.
I did well on Friday, like anyone investing expecting a Johnson majority. I’m alright Jack.
Another bad day in a long run of bad days for the UK and those in touch with the 21st Century, but we’ve been over that many times and Remain a lost cause now.
The rally of the pound suggests the fear was more about corbyn than brexit, or at least there’s more certainty now.
Arguably putting labour on the backfoot should outweigh any negative effects of brexit for a while to come, and breaking traditional voting is a start. To sustain it they need to find ways of bringing prosperity up north, or policies that favour low earners like threshold increases or childcare
@Matthew (14)
I’m not sure anyone can guess at the motive behind many of the votes cast. On one TV interview the chap questioned stated that although he thought Corbyn was the best thing for the UK, he would not vote for him because he wouldn’t go through with Brexit, so he was voting Lib Dem instead!
Not looking so clever now are you? That’s what you remainers get for your disgusting behaviour over the past 3.5 years.
@borderer – there were like you say people who went libdem or farage because they wouldn’t go tory or the split of remain. In a straight 2 horse race I imagine labour would have those seats, but even so you did get some switchers, straight from lab to con – it breaks the ice – brexit is the penetrating issue (pardon the pun!) and memories of thatcher and austerity are slowly fading
But con really do need to show the north and scotland how they can improve their prosperity, these votes are worth investing effort into
Sour grapes again. Not a good look.
@ADOF — LOL. Doing something stupid twice doesn’t make it clever.
Took four elections and three years but we got through to them 😉
I could do my usual and pontificate about why what happened happened but won’t. At least we may finally get over Brexit part 1. Of course the trade deal will no doubt be both hard and will leave some leavers feeling ‘betrayed’. The next general election in 5 years will be just as interesting I am sure. Wonder if anyone will be riding on a rejoin ticket….
Hard brexit, soft brexit, or flaccid brexit I wonder
I think to be honest as long as borders are technically more controlled and we put up a shrek style “keep out of my swamp” sign (even if in reality its quite lenient) most leavers will be happy with whatever trade deal, and leaving at all was the hardest step.
Farage still has a role to keep the tories in check over the decades, because our newfound border powers will become a new political issue, possibly actually more traditional labour territory if con eventually goes free market
Much like a rubiks cube, the more you play with the brexit issue the harder it gets
Horrible election but it wasn’t about the EU for me. Corbyn’s programme of nationalisation, seizing 10% of shares in UK companies without compensation, removal of the dividend allowance, increase in dividend tax, huge increase in corporation tax and legalisation of abortions up to 9 months were of far more importance to me. In or out doesn’t matter when swivel-eyed lunacy of that nature riddles a party’s manifesto. It was thoroughly depressing to be presented with arguments that were properly settled in 1983, the stinking corpse of Marxism should never have been exhumed to once again pollute the atmosphere. I only hope that Labour learn the lesson and move back to the centre, or we will have to replace them with the Liberal Democrats. Incidentally, that process began on Thursday as Labour went from second to third in many seats.
Yes, Boris is far from ideal but given the LDs were not going to win this was the best result for which we could have hoped. The ERG cannot force a hard Brexit now. And from a purely selfish perspective, I must admit that Friday’s relief rally among small caps and the FTSE 250 made me a bit of money. Hope everyone else took another step towards FI as well.
I am hopeful that the big majority will enable a softer and less economically damaging Brexit than might otherwise be the case. Boris desperately wants a deal and not getting one will not only be very damaging to the economy, but be viewed as a complete failure. His WA has demonstrated that Boris will compromise (euphamism for cave in) on his red lines when put under pressure. Hard Brexit fantasists should prepare themselves for a sellout.
I could be being overly optimistic here though. The man is very unpredictable and the risk of Brexit becoming an unmitigated disaster cannot be ruled out.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Dec 2020 if we crash out on ‘WTO rules’, and the WTO is no longer functioning https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/08/wto-faces-crisis-over-settlement-disputes-unless-trump-backs-off
When I looked at our SIPPs yesterday I found they were down a fair bit as they are crammed full of US share ETFs. The rise in the pound shaved thousands of portfolio value.
I think boris can reach some kind of rudimentry/version 1 deal by then – he managed it with the withdrawal bill, considering may wasted a lot of time
@Naeclue
Not sure of your definition of “a fair bit” but I was also down albeit by nothing more than noise. FTSE trackers were up, EM tracker was up and developed trackers were down. The end result was week on week my portfolio moved downwards by 0.03% which is just insignificant noise.
I took a bitter profit on the domestic side and a little loss on the rest of the world stuff that wasn’t hedged, all in all just over a percentage point up, not too unusual in the scheme of things. My holiday got cheaper next year and life goes on. Still, all that is left to do is make the most of the job. A hung parliament would be good for no one.
There seems to be some hysteria about BJ
But everyone seems to have forgotten what a disaster he was as foreign secretary and mayor of London (water cannon, garden bridge, buses with no aircon and no windows)
It’s startling how everyone who has any past dealings with him loathes him
GBP/USD ended up hardly moving, from 1.315 to 1.333, so just 1.35%. There was an initial surge to 1.35 but that was met by significant profit taking. The currency had already made most of it’s move into the election. It was priced for Tory majority of 40 ish, with a sub 20% probability attached to a hung parliament. Within hours, the market had moved on to thinking about something more relevant: the US-China trade deal.
The GBP/USD is still well below it’s Apr-18 levels of 1.40-1.43 and also the pre-Brexit vote level of 1.50. I can’t really see how it gets back up to those levels on it’s own. The USD is stronger than April 18 and while Brexit can now drop out of view for six months, the trade deal will be a mess unless the government capitulates (a la Withdrawal Treaty). FDI (excepting the usual offshore money buying London property) will want to see that trade deal. To get GBP/USD back sustainably above 1.40 requires a weaker Dollar. Of course, we could get that as the real issue for next year is the US election. The UK is now a sideshow.
@TI –
A joke on my part, not cynicism, sorry if not a very good one!
So the liar has won by a landslide. Feck it. Life goes on.
The £ moved a smidgen, and I gave back a little of my post referendum gains. And for those celebrating the fact it rose 2 or 3 cents, remember it fell about 25% or so after the referendum. Great for me as I invest more or less as per global equity proportions.
So I’ve been looking for a place to buy in Spain to initiate my brexit (that’s Brod-exit) plans. €60k for a seaside flat in Glaicia anyone?
@matthew, you do realise that ‘boris’s’ WA was basically May’s? He just pivoted to an earlier version which she’d rejected due to lack of DUP support. So she’d done the hard work, he just blustered in and caved. On that basis, I agree with ZX that the rapid ‘trade deal’ is likely to be a similar capitulation. It’s the best we can hope for frankly.
Another dull week, livened up by the lead article. thanks TI
I’m not sorry that the country agonised over the Brexit decision for three years. It seems to me that leaving the EU is an extremely important matter, that should not be decided by a narrow simple majority in a referendum. But now the matter is clear, and as a believer in representative democracy I must accept the outcome.
I am glad that Johnson has a large majority, so that any problems which might arise cannot be blamed on ‘remainers’. Let us hope that Brexit is a great success, but I suspect that it will be a mixed blessing at most.
I think those who interpret the election results as Brexit vs Remain are wrong – if nothing else it looks as if rather few Conservative Remainers switched elsewhere. And it means labelling Labour as a Remain party, when it fudged to the end.
To be honest, I think that it more likely means that there were more who voted to keep Corbyn’s Labour out than keep Johnson’s Conservatives out. But they were both pretty unattractive. In terms of their manifestos they were both dishonest in the same way: Conservatives promised tax cuts but that “you” wouldn’t be the one paying through poorer services, Labour promised better public services but that “you” wouldn’t be the one being taxed higher to pay for them. The Liberals actually had a pretty well thought out manifesto, but as usual the first past the post system squeezed them out.
Where does the idea come from that Johnson might pivot to closer alignment with Europe now he has a big enough majority to ignore small numbers of Tory extremists? He could, but there is no evidence he will, more likely he will simply continue his usual path of “what’s best for Boris”. And that might not be good for the rest of us.
@jonathan – two reasons why he might pivot closer- 1. It’s what the EU want and 2. He may not actually want to crash the economy. But it’s a best hope, and may turn out to be wishful thinking.
@Vanguardanfan — I agree. The best way to understand Johnson is to think “what is definitely best for Johnson?” And best for Johnson is a strong economy, a strong financial sector throwing off wealth (and taxes) and parties in London where people stop turning their back on him and ambling away when he walks in the room. That translates into ‘soft’ Brexit (albeit as we’ve discussed before that means something different now compared to three years ago.)
@Jonathan — There are undoubtedly lots of factors in play, but I’m certain there was a *huge* Brexit overlay on this election. Agreed every option on the ballot paper was unattractive.
Election as ‘Referendum 2.0’: Doesn’t work with first-past-the-post. Count Labour as a Remain party on the grounds of promised second referendum and you get 53% of the votes for ‘Remain parties’ versus 47% for pro-Brexit parties. But even I was arguing with friends on Thursday night that under the system we have that’s spurious talk, and Johnson now has his Brexit mandate. The country has voted again for Brexit. Remain is over.
Unpleasant party choices: I’m as Remain-y as they come and even I had big problems with the Lib Dem ‘Revoke’ pledge. Corbyn far too old-style socialist. Johnson is charismatic and I fell for it back in the London Mayor days, but he was long ago revealed as an unprincipled scheming liar with zero respect for unwritten social and constitutional norms. Greens I like on the environmental picture but otherwise Marxists and anyway irrelevant without proportional representation. SNP not standing in England.
Outcomes: Big Tory majority, certain Brexit, that’s not my preference, even though a potentially softer one. Small Tory majority, danger of hard Brexit, potential of no Brexit if shenanigans. Hung Parliament, yet more national self-harm. All cases: A nasty and toxic campaign that is moving us ever further from the truth meaning anything important, with people happily voting for Tory/Leave/Brexit politicians who have repeatedly been shown to be full of it, and yet just doubling down.
I agree many people couldn’t stand Labour. Like nearly all of us here I think this incarnation of Labour is like a SOAS student union gang, and pretty much disconnected from its old heartlands. (As I was arguing with a Labour insider friend last weekend, that calling these places ‘mining towns’ is now two generations away from accurate. They are call center and betting shop and nail bar towns.) I’ve been 100% against Corbynism from day one.
But I STILL don’t think that’s enough to get places like Wrexham to swing to the Tories in a world where Brexit doesn’t exist.
I suppose we’ll find out in five years, but when it comes to this election, remember, places like Putney — posh-ish, middle class, professional — swung to *this* very left-y high-taxing capitalism-boxing Labour:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000887
Why did they? Because Putney was 70%+ Remain.
These divisions will take a long time to go away, with issues like Scotland and Northern Ireland keeping them in the news for years to come if nothing else. And I personally am in no rush to forgive and forget. We’re Brexiting, but I’ll be signing up for EU citizenship if it’s offered, and I will never forget. I don’t think I’m alone.
Thanks to Investor and others BTL who give their considered opinions on finance. Which is one reason (after the Herculean and often unacknowledged efforts of the writer(s)) that MV is such a sterling blog.
When I read the comments section I have a mental picture of a circle of rather mature, bearded men exchanging profound and learned views. (Caveat – this is probably wrong, and behind some of the user names are some wise ladies. Maybe someone has a false beard and artificially deep voice.)
I feel uncomfortable with harsh political exchanges, crowing, or the comments section used to expound a political view outside of strict financial implications. So can we glue our face foliage back on and be the supportive group that we normally are?
A thought for all those Leavers who have preached constantly about respecting Democracy and The Will Of The People this past 3.5 years: CON+BRX+DUP+UKIP amassed 46.5% of the votes between them; the parties that included a promised commitment to a 2nd Referendum in their manifestos secured 51.5%. The remaining 2% was shared between Independents.
It’s an irregularity of our electoral system that 56% of the Seats can be secured with less than 44% of the Vote.
Just sayin’…
@vanguardfan – true that it is taken from may’s work, but may wasted a lot of time, running down the clock, johnson does do what’s best for johnson and was (and is) therefore motivated to come up with quick, decisive wins, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been prepping the blueprints of what he wants long ago
@all – we can’t interpret labour as a clear vote for remain, as they had an officially neutral position and supposedly promised to offer their own deal to appeal to brexiteers, labour was a vote for a 2nd referendum attatched to socialism, where the offer is a customs union – admittedly though that’s too many issues right there to make this a straight choice, and they sucked in sone from both camps.
But it was quite clear that people are hesitant to instant-revoke, or at least when they were voting a large mass of remainers didn’t see the lib dems as viable
@Harps
I was surprised by the SNP getting 80% of the Scottish seats with 45% of the votes.
What’s the most appropriate voting system is is a non-trivial question.
Answers on a post…
B
Let’s leave mud slinging and crowing to other social media outlets, more typically known for such views.
OK all, thanks for the good answer. I can see that Johnson might decide that “what’s best for Boris” is a thriving economy in the 2023 run-up to a future 2024 election, and that isn’t remotely available with a hard Brexit.
And I agree, Jo Swinson’s “revoke article 50” ploy worked against her, in the same way as Corbyn’s “free broadband”. The voting public may be susceptible to over-optimistic promises, but they resent clearly unrealistic offers along “vote for me and get a free lollipop” lines.
For those feeling politically homeless these days, this visualization tool is an interesting bit of fun:
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/survey3d.py
p.s. Suspect my result explains why I surprised/alienated so many readers back in 2016:
“You are economically fairly right-wing, very strongly globalist, and very strongly socially liberal.”
My father was born and brought up in Trimdon Grange, Sedgefield and worked in the deep pits like all the rest of his family. That they should vote against Labour there shows what damage has been done to the party by the trendy crowd in London. No mining jobs in Trimdon Grange/Station now so you are correct on both points @TI. But how do you think the likes of the antifas crew cavorting in teeshirts are perceived in deprived ex-industrial areas?
Immense damage to remain was also done by all that press coverage of the snide remarks and actions of the EU leaders ( remember Luxembourg?).
Also ironic that JC was correct about not swinging behind remain.
Can’t say I am optimistic about how the myriad negotiations and trade offs are going to go. Better to go for a soft broad brush package and hope the shouts of betrayal are contained.
Answers on a post eh? Having lived and voted in a country that switched from FPTP to MMP (a proportional representation system) I will confidently say the latter is better 🙂
However there seems to be no appetite for reform in the UK. Count your blessings – at least it doesn’t involve an Electoral College.
@Mr Optimistic:
Well, exactly as I wrote in that same comment:
p.s. I’ve just realized SOAS might not be a familiar acronym everywhere (it’s almost a shorthand in London). It was the School of Oriental and African Studies, but I think that name has been ditched in recent years. Anyway, individual SOAS alumni can be very personable and interesting, but as a group / institution they are über-woke and political. (And this is coming from someone who is apparently “very strong global, very strongly liberal” according to the test earlier in the thread! 🙂
History will record Corbyn’s biggest failure as his failure to swing behind Remain in 2016. You can trace the full shitshow back to there.
A weak metropolitan liberal called Jeremy was always going to be as popular in forgotten northern towns as pompous public schoolboys called Boris are in Scotland… in what looks like being a relatively easy parliament for ‘the Minister for the Union’ it’ll be Scotland and Ireland that will pose the biggest challenges. Scottish Labour will have to at least go neutral on independence to retain any relevance and if he keeps the hard-line we could well see Catalan-like scenes up here.
@GooeyBlob Just because people who can get pregnant want control over their own reproductive organs, it never meant Corbyn or Labour backed
“legalisation of abortions up to 9 months”
as you put it.
I’ll thank you to keep your dangerous lies to yourself.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-manifesto-abortion-rights-reproductive-corbyn-women-a9212481.html
@ harps @ Bolt’s. First past the post (FPTP) isn’t perfect but I would argue that it is the least bad voting system. All political parties are broad coalitions of opinions that at a general election coalesce behind a manifesto. FPTP as a voting system that is designed to generate a majority government allows voters to know exactly what policies they are voting for (and just as importantly what they are voting to reject).
With PR systems coalitions tend to be formed after the election. This results in lots of between party horse-trading of policies and gives disproportionate power to the smaller parties. This may seem tough but do we want a voting system where say the Greens / Brexit Party / DUP (!) hold the balance of power. The smaller parties still do get to influence policy, as when they do well in vote share some of their agenda will often get adopted by one of the two big parties.
@eandg totally agree. Corbyn could have swung it for remain in 2016 if he’d been minded to. That and a failure to adopt a strategically smart (electorally and for the country) position afterwards meant that a second referendum campaign, lacking any real political clout, was always on the back foot. I’m afraid that demonstrated Corbyn’s failings as a leader – you can’t have a flat footed, inflexible and ultimately stupid position on the most important issue of the day and expect people to back you as the country’s leader. A compromise position was there for the taking, especially after 2017, but there was no appetite to work across the political spectrum to achieve it (quite the opposite, the party has become utterly intolerant of even internal variations in opinion).
I don’t think that electoral calculus tool should be taken too seriously. It has me down as ‘strong left’, which is quite an irony. I’d call myself soft left social democrat, otherwise known as ‘Tory Blairite scum’.
@TI mentioning wokeness – the concept of wokeness deserves its own analysis I think as a force that creates a sort of tribalism/bandwagon jumping – if someone is not a minority then woke ness is the closest they can get, but they will always be viewed with suspicion by the actual minority
Ironically Conservatives have displayed more acceptance of groups in the upper ranks
To all those remainers suddenly moaning about FPTP… remember you wouldn’t respect Leave’s win with a majority of votes cast in 2016. You were more than happy that so many leave constituencies voting for parties that promised to respect the referendum returned remain MPs in 2017
Remain MPs which, btw, achieved nothing.
Brexiteers have moved the conversation so that ‘soft brexit’ is essentially a form of hard brexit, so we’re now in the position that remain is over and we’re going to get some form of hard brexit…
Pretty awesome ! I won’t be surprised when planes are still able to take off and land and the economy doesn’t crash ( three and a half years and counting)
In the end, the question of Europe destroyed the Labour Party and UKIP, not the Tories… David Cameron wasn’t so silly after all
Thanks for the heads up on the Jim Simons’ quote (book is on the buy whenever you are next on Amazon list). Never heard of him so did some googling, this blog is a good starter https://medium.com/ml-everything/how-renaissance-technologies-solved-the-market-part-1-2814eb271dc3
Hi @Passive Investor, my comment on FPTP was simply an aside; my main point was about respecting The Will of The People as that was the main thrust of Leavers’ argument, and that appears to have switched…
However, I accept that we will now leave the EU and that we must move on; I just hope that this victory for the Leavers does not prove pyrrhic for us all. On many different levels…
@BBlimp — I agree with your verdict on the ultimate impact of the post-Referendum Remain rearguard action by MPs and others.
I can also give you yesterday’s football scores if that’s helpful.
As for the impact on the economy, well, as you say, it’s been three and a half years and we still haven’t Brexited. Another, what, 12-18 months minimum before we’re actually out (i.e. not in transition) and under new terms, more likely longer, and very possibly as much as 10 years. Of course companies and the economy are adapting, albeit at great and (economically) pointless cost, as well as with a giant distraction of political time and effort. (Worth it if you believe in Brexit for max technical sovereignty, nationalism, or racism, otherwise again pointless.)
In all events, far from ‘out tomorrow and home for tea’ as the gist of the Leave campaign variously had it. And as you well know but I won’t wait for you to concede (as I have many times forecast will be the case from Leavers once we Brexit) the project has already damaged the economy, to at least the tune of £100bn so far, but that’s an old figure (from BOE) and we can probably add 50% to it.
The kind of person who votes for Brexit for economic reasons can no more see a small persistent drag on the economy (which is what I think almost any non ‘old style’ soft Brexit will be) than they can see a lie on the side of a bus, though, so I am resigned to hearing such inaccuracies indefinitely.
Sour grapes? No. The facts don’t change just because one fact-light / emotion-heavy side wins a bad argument.
@Matthew — Identity politics is a vitally important and complicated subject that I am not going near with a 30-foot barge pole on this blog. 🙂
The book about James Simons is a great read-let’s the average punter realise what it takes to beat the market with some consistency-index funds for me!
Re Scotland. If Brexit is done by 31 Jan 2020 -can anyone see the Scots voting to go out of Britain without the EU to go alone in the big bad world-doubtful
The Scottish electorate have mastered the art of tactical voting ie No to leaving the Union but happy to send mostly SNP MP,s to Holyrood and Westminster-presumably feeling the Scots MP,s are the ones that care most about Scotland
Such interesting times
xxd09
@TI (61)
A very good friend of mine in education management once employed a teacher who turned out to be very “woke”. He was asked after about six months by the teacher why they didn’t have a BAME or an LGBGT society . He simply replied that the school did not like to bracket it’s students… Conversation over.
In the end it was an easy win. Corbyn promised a lot more arguing (don’t forget he really wanted to leave but was hostage to his London voters), Boris promised an end to it. Everyone I knew including remainers wanted it done and voted Boris.
But we did dodge a pretty big bullet. Apart form all the overt stuff. As I’ve always said housing was the last untapped tax resource and our red friends have been trying to figure out how they can get their hands on it for years. The lastest thinking is separating the house from the the land. A sort national leasehold system. The idea being you pay a form of rent to the Government for having a house on their land. Now it’s early days and couched in terms of buying and voluntary there was a worry it would cause a price crash, but the thinking behind it was once established and operating they could transform it into a compulsory system and it would act as a brake on house prices, they could adjust land rents up to discourage ownership as required and at the same time redistribute wealth from home owners to the poor.
It does have some merits, but would make retirement into your own home a more expensive proposition as a new variable cost would enter the equation. Certainly I hadn’t factored a new rent bill into my retirement plans.
@xxd09 — Who knows for sure about Scotland, but I think Scotland leaving the UK in the next few years is much likely than in the last Referendum. A lot has changed. We have nearly all SNP MPs, and a country that wants to stay in the EU, living under a Tory government in a UK that’s now leaving the EU.
On the other hand, those who lambasted Project Fear and the purportedly bullying tactics of the EU in negotiation will without doubt use those supposedly reviled arguments against Scotland to try to convince the electorate to stay.
And the arguments will again have a lot of strength, from an economic point of view, incidentally. Divergent trading arrangements and a hard border between England and Scotland would be hugely damaging, mostly to Scotland.
But perhaps the win for Brexit shows us nationalism trumps the economy today. I am sure Leave tacticians might say arguing the case for the Union from an economic point of view would be self-defeating, and given what’s happened nationally I’m inclined to listen to them. Who can win the hearts not the head?
Interesting commentary.
I was out at a Xmas party on the eve of the election with a cross section of remainers and leavers. The dialog was mature and respectful. A breath of fresh air. I’d say everyone felt they were voting for the least worse option opposed to the best option.
What was funny to me on the box was a 70+ year old lady from midlands saying she couldnt vote for the red one or the buffoon. Sums it up really.
Whilst Ive voted labour before (I float) I couldnt vote for Corbyn. I could feel my soul cracking to even consider it. Which reminds me a new labour leader will probably be as bad. Unite act as Kingmaker. This could have been so different under David Milliband. Remember Len McCluskey is kingmaker when he only polls 15% of the Unite vote! Cranky.
‘Nationalism trumps the economy today’
I’d say that all politics is actually identity driven, much more emotional than rational, about reaffirming the type of person you think you are (or want to be). I suspect it ever was thus, but has become more apparent with the leave/remain identities, and with the rise of social media advertising which reduces everything to a 15 second emotional soundbite.
@Marked — Indeed. I believe with David Milliband we get no slim Leave win but rather at least a slim win for Remain, probably more, and we likely get Labour elected on an anti-austerity backlash back in 2015. I float, too, and also vote tactically. I couldn’t vote for these Tories, on lying leadership, ideology etc (not on their impact on my wallet, which they will boost significantly) but I have voted Tory in the past. Most of the current Conservatives I like are on the fringes, so who knows how I’ll vote in future. I think many feel this way. Perhaps as Brexit slowly leaves the picture (like an ice cube melting in Greenland) things will clarify.
@Vanguardfan — Good point. Some have said Labour’s ‘For the many not the few’ backfired because lots of people want to be among the few. You certainly see that in the US where I’ve had e.g. a 75-year old driving a bus and living a self-admitted life of material hardship tell me America is the country of dreams where anyone will make it if they try.
On a related note, interesting to see how as a general tendency more educated / affluent people have swung Labour, non-graduates swung Conservative, although that’s also a clear Brexit overlay.
Again, one of the most fascinating political questions of the next few years (which I do NOT intend to engage with on this blog 😉 ) is how much these tectonic shifts in party constituencies revert after Brexit, and how much they’re being remade more permanently.
The Tories have a massive opportunity here to spread the working class gains made under Thatcher in the South East nationally.
@Passive Investor – I’m an old bloke and a long-time supporter of PR in some shape or form. However, I’ve always been aware of the argument about the risk of disproportionate influence of small parties and our recent experience with the DUP has raised doubts in my mind. I wonder whether there are any electoral systems or constitutional arrangements which address that issue.
@vanguard – I actually think identity is just a tool to filter out competition in a protectionist agenda, or to outcast one version of politics in a political agenda,
Meritocracy can cut through it to some degree
@ti – I think many brexiteers would be happy to see meddling scotland and northern ireland gone – when protectionism and political dominance outweighs national pride, but I think it is viable to bring prosperity to these areas and turn them blue
@ Martyn # 64
You are aware that historically the UK did tax imputed rent up to the 1960s under Schedule A, and the sky didn’t fall in? And the rent that you don’t budget for in retirement is still paid by you. It’s the opportunity cost on the return on capital tied up in the value of your house. That money isn’t earning you a return on the markets.
I see the election result largely as a triumph of marketing. “Get Brexit done”, was hugely successful, with large swathes of the population, many not at all well off, not bothering to ask a) how? and b) In what why will this benefit me?
Why should a hard right controlled Tory government do anything for Northern seats when their votes are so easily obtained?
One thing I am unsure about is to what extent the number of ERG members have changed. If the ranks have swelled in proportion to number of seats, or in greater numbers, Boris will not be able to ignore them and optimistic thoughts about a pragmatic, business friendly, soft Brexit could go out the window. There is no comprehensive free trade agreement that both the EU and ERG will sign up to.
@ narclue
Why should a hard right controlled Tory government do anything for Northern seats when their votes are so easily obtained?
What’s hard or right about this government? It is socially liberal and economically more left wing (in terms of govt spending vs borrowing) than arguably any since 1979. Wanting to control immigration rather than have a free for all (or to overly restrict it) just seems sensible to most people as does making still dangerous criminals serve their sentence. On one reading you could say that Corbyn has won quite a victory by dragging the centre ground leftwards economically. I do agree with you that it will be difficult to improve the red-wall constituencies too much. I don’t this will through lack of will but because there aren’t easy solutions to problems. Better education and Healthcare take years to feed through and in a small country like the UK, London as the main economic centre will always be a draw for ambitious Northeners. (I can only think of half-dozen of my contemporaries from Manchester 30 years ago who stayed there).
There is a comment above about tribes which got me thinking. Very few voters in national elections choose rationally on the manifestos, far more based on what they feel they can associate with. Corbyn’s Labour assumed the support of a working class base, just like their 1970s predecessors. Much too small a number now self-identify as working class to form the basis of a parliamentary majority, and the Referendum suggested level of education might be a better predictor of the new political tribes.
The other factor, which is important for Labour and Liberals as they choose new leaders, is that in a general election people’s credibility as national leaders beyond the party faithful is critical. The Tories got that right, in their leadership election they rejected Rory Stewart who showed an astute analytic mind and vision but didn’t look like a national leader in favour of Johnson who lacks personal qualities but had that something that might appeal to the public. Corbyn failed to show national leadership qualities as Leader of the Opposition, and that was fatal with the public. Swinson similarly lacked credibility, in my opinion not because she was female but because she came over as too young and inexperienced.
@Passive Investor, how does doing harm to UK business and driving very profitable business offshore and square with pragmatic, one nation Conservatism? Make no mistake, leaving the EU is hard right/hard left ideology. The idea that it will benefit the vast majority of the population (a very gullible population) is utterly delusional.
Judge whether the government is controlled by the hard right by what they do, not what they say.
This election was never just about Brexit. Re: Martyn’s comment “As I’ve always said housing was the last untapped tax resource and our red friends have been trying to figure out how they can get their hands on it for years”, exactly this!
Even if you fall into the lower 95% of income earners, and wrap everything in ISAs and SIPPs to avoid any new dividend or capital gains taxes you are still going to get smashed by Labour. Even forgetting about a 10% nationalisation of every listed non-utility company (and closer to 100% of utilities) or much more punitive inheritance tax.
If parliament thwarted anything as elaborate as some kind of radical land value tax Labour would just go for the simpler approach. They’d ramp up council tax and/or re-rate/value house bands so anyone owning anything above the bottom rung of the housing ladder is shafted on a permanent and ongoing basis – regardless of the present income.
So they’ve lost the property owning middle class vote, or anyone who aspires or hopes to join them. And they’ve lost much of the working class vote not just through Brexit but their clearly telegraphed policies to open up freedom of movement to the whole world. Without any filter on skills, wealth or other attributes. There would be an enormous pull factor just from the NHS and benefits relative to the standard of living in third world countries.
Which would just increase the cost burden of the NHS, benefits and housing in a vicious circle. Not to mention the terrible impact on the environment of millions of new arrivals – more houses, more buildings in general, more cars, more pollution, more rubbish produced for landfill, less room for trees and re-wilding. Not that Labour and the Green party – who share very similar policies in this regard – would ever admit to the paradox.
Talk about completely missing the point about why the working class voted for Brexit.
@ Ermine #71
No I didn’t know we already did something similar (will however read up on it now you’ve drawn it to my attention) only spotted this proposed wheeze after the election, they were (and are) still thinking about how they would get it operate and what the possible consequences could be. (They are very worried about causing negative equity issues so are still working how they allow wages to gradually catch up with property values). Still, they won’t be in any great hurry now, there are 5 years before they get to have another crack at getting elected.
@ naeclue Ah, so leaving an undemocratic institution which has gradually taken powers from the UK government and repatriating those powers to democratic control, and doing this after holding a referendum and then winning an election with Brexit as the central policy is ‘Hard Right’. Thanks for enlightening me.
@Martyn Schedule A was ended in 1963. It was the logical counterpart to Mortgage Interest Relief At Source, which gave people relief against the interest they paid on the loan given they were taxed on the income.
Home owners’ special interest pleading meant that MIRAS carried on for another thirty years, though it was eroded through capping from the late 1980s onward.
I would imagine as the proportion of renters in the population increases that sort of proposal will return at some point. Consider Labour’s proposal as a straw in the wind pointing ten years hence 😉
@Passive, I don’t buy into this garbage about the EU being “an undemocratic institution which has gradually taken powers from the UK government”. This is part of the tabloid spin and lies designed to hoodwink clueless voters.
Leaving the EU is a hard right and hard left policy that a significant number of people have been talked into accepting. It happens.
@all — We’ve been relatively even-tempered so far (even me and @BBlimp! 🙂 ) so while I can there are big disagreements, please try to debate the facts rather than escalating. (Easier said than done for both sides I know, and for me too, yes.)
Whilst you could say electing mep’s makes it democratic, you could never as a country elect enough meps to have any control, as a voter you can’t elect the presidents, and the rest of the parliment would be chosen by the rest of europe, who are quite happy for the uk to be a source of income to them
@TI et al
Not a Leaver but making a virtue of necessity as is my wont, I welcome the election aka second referendum result to the extent that it may hopefully reduce immigration.
From the metaphorical hill that I stand on there are not overstretched GPs, nor too few hospital beds, nor overloaded classrooms, nor overcrowded motorways, nor a housing shortage, nor other ills of the same ilk. For me there are too many people in the UK, and I welcome with open arms anything which may assuage this situation.
@TI. You say Johnson “was long ago revealed as an unprincipled scheming liar with zero respect for unwritten social and constitutional norms”. Please give some examples.
@Factor — Well we’ve been over this many times. For example, since you mention the NHS, consider that about 13% of NHS workers are not British. Related, we’re barely 72 hours into the new Government and already their crazy pledges about 50,000 nurses have been admitted as fanciful (/invented) maths by government insiders, given the many thousands set to leave.
On other points, here’s a useful new graph showing the tendency to swing to Tories in Brexit supporting areas:
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1205795131590369280
And in less educated areas (which has an overlay of course with Brexit):
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1205796106870886400
For 3.5 years people have been spitting feathers here when you mention that less educated people voted more for Brexit, and well-educated tended to vote much more for Remain. Presumably they find it personally offensive in some way, even though they purport to be intelligent enough to understand that “tending” and “majority” doesn’t mean “everyone” in every group.
Personally after a weekend of reading I continue to be convinced that Brexit was a big factor in the Tory majority, which is quite something given the state of this Labour party.
But on the educated/intelligent front, I don’t doubt it was aided by the fact that so many don’t seem to care that the people at the top of the Tory leadership repeatedly lied to them when involved with Leave, and ever since — this has been shown beyond doubt, I won’t waste time rehashing it — and are also full of it. (E.g. Gove introducing Johnson on election night as a great leader, only 3.5 years after he made headlines around the world by stabbing him in the back because he was “unfit to lead”.)
The younger, creative, more urbanist-centered people of this country who will create most of the wealth for the country in the years to come disliked-to-hated Brexit, mostly aren’t fans of the Tories, expose these lies to each other on social media, and support Labour in a way that wasn’t the same 30 years ago.
Yes they are the metropolitan elite if you want, but guess what, that’s the group that matters economically these days, for good or ill. By all means educate more people in the provinces etc — I just voted for it and lost. But also understand that when those people graduate they’ll mostly still go to London, Cambridge, Bristol, Brighton, Oxford, New York, Berlin et cetera, too. Some will be right-leaning nationalists, but all the trends suggest most will not.
And sure, some of them will drift right as they age. Others may well go abroad, especially if the EU citizenship plan comes through. (It won’t happen, but if only a million or so did! I’d be laughing my head off all the way to the airport.)
@Getting Minted — Really? If people can’t see it by now then they will never see it. (At least seeing it but saying “I can’t vote for the alternative because I want Brexit or I think Corbyn is a danger to the economy” is open-eyed).
Just a few random examples and then I’m probably done with this thread (1) proroguing Parliament, shown to be entirely unconstitutional by the highest courts in the land, though some will probably say they and their newspaper columnist of choice knows better (2) almost ceaseless campaign ‘facts’ such as stating his government was building 40 new hospitals that were not facts (real answer is six) (3) refusing to publish a report into Russian interference in elections along normal timetables (4) switching to head the Leave campaign barely months before it began, after years as a skeptic-but-reformer, on purely opportunistic grounds (5) kicking out numerous long-standing Tory MPs from the party for not voting for his deal after repeatedly not voting for his predecessors’ himself (6) claiming no British prime minister could sign up to the backstop, and months later trumpeting a deal with the EU whose only significant innovation was to make the backstop a front-stop (7) not dying in a ditch when we didn’t leave by October 31st (or more realistically resigning).
This isn’t even to go into his well-documented and seemingly woeful personal life. (I don’t care 1% who puts what bits into whom, but I do care if they don’t take responsibility for it.)
This is just off the top of my head. The idea that this person could have been elected Prime Minister in this country shows the extent to which we’ve fallen and are increasingly living in a free-floating disassociated spectacle of a society.
I would gladly have Johnson on my debating team, or possibly on my board game team, assuming he didn’t turn the board over in a Kobayashi Maru move when doomed.
But some boundaries are too important to be defined by what you can get away with.
I just thank my stars I decided to get myself a massive F-off fund years ago (and I am proud I voted thinking about the many who have not). I see a non-trivial chance I may have to use it over the next few years. Exactly where to F-off to is also increasingly non-trivial, although at least in the EU the grim trends that led to Brexit seem to be calming down.
So sure, it’s a much bigger problem than Johnson per se (encompassing everything from technological change, globalization and alienation, wealth inequality at the top, stratified societies (urban/rural, London/not-London, Red State/Coasts etc), our lack of ‘antibodies’ to new forms of tech monitoring and consequent targeted propaganda, foreign state meddling using novel strategies, and the long time/generations now from a good old war on our doorstep that reminds everyone of what is really at stake when you decide to go back to the jingoistic nonsense of the pre-War era, rather than talking about the Blitz spirit like an ERG phony).
But he has certainly found his milieu.
To oversimplify, I look at a country I love tonight seeing a charlatan elected by a slender majority (of Referendum Leavers) who believe in fairy tales among the best, a jingoistic past among the middling masses, and some new racist/cultural new order at worse. Profoundly depressing.
@all — Sorry if anyone has more to add or hasn’t had their say, but I am going to close comments here.
This doesn’t reflect the discussion, which has been in the main excellent from all parties/sides, for which I thank you.
I’ve got a big (and unfortunate) day ahead of me tomorrow, which starts early, and I can’t be monitoring comments from here and certainly not tomorrow.
Thanks all. We’ll see but I have a sense this might be a good place to stop with politics on Monevator for a while.
p.s. Quick update to tack on this link to Ashcroft’s polls, which give a solid insight into voting demographics.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/12/how-britain-voted-and-why-my-2019-general-election-post-vote-poll/