Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Railway cricket seems to have largely disappeared now, but it was still thriving then, and when I left BR to join LT and was introduced to my new colleagues, first up was a West Indian guy who was given main billing not for his technical abilities, which were considerable, but for his role as opening bowler for the LT team! Good cricketers were definitely ‘in company celebrities’.

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, brack said:

I suspect a lot of landlords would happily raise the rents on their ill maintained ex council houses and soak up any such increase in payments made either directly to 'the poor' or via housing benefit.

 

My understanding is that that is the case.

[Regularity]

8 hours ago, Donw said:

Mathematically that is true,, however you cannot just raise the income of the poor unless you start doing away with pay diffeentials so it will cause the whole scale to rise somewhat.  If the unemployed were to be given the 60% level a lot of people might decide it wasn't worth working unless you got more.  You could squeeze it up a bit  but there needs to be enough incentive for people to get on.

Yes, but you are now talking about the political issues. I was correcting your statements about the statistics and your application of distributional assumptions to a measure which is designed to be free of them.

The secondary function of a progressive taxation programme is to redistribute wealth: apart from paying for services, it also generates income for benefits to ensure that no one is obscenely poor. As such, it could be viewed as a compulsory charitable subscription to society.

Quote

Actually we could in theory reduce the top level but these are either entrepreneurs whose income is generally more dependant on market forces or the bosses of multinationals who are likely to demand and get higher raises than the rest of us. Up the tax on them and they will either find ways to avoid it or simply get a pay increase to conteract the effect of the tax.

I don’t accept your premise as a sine qua non. This reflects societal norms and values: why not encourage a different mindset, where people think, “Great: the more I earn from the common wealth for myself, the more I give back to the society that provided it?” This, IMO, is where Labour are failing, and with their traditional paternalistic “Nanny state” view lost the 1979 General Election, which saw a massive shift in values.

You don’t have to reduce the salaries of the rich at all, just make sure that they aren’t evading taxes. Increasing the top level of pay does not have to happen, but human nature being what it is...

Quote

So while we could probably change the proportion below the poverty level. Getting everyone above it would be very unlikely and trying to do so might well depress economic growth by having to restrict the income of the middle. There are a lot of voters around the median.

 Yes, and they are repeatedly told that lower income taxes are good for them, despite the fact that all evidence is to the contrary: taxes need to be paid, and if paid on consumption rather than income, disproportionately benefit the wealthy and penalise the majority.

[Edwardian]

Well, started on the Pullman adaptation last night. I only managed 10 minutes or so before Miss T decided that we should spend the night in A&E (she's fine, thankfully), but already I could tell that this was a different class of adaptation.

 

I've not watched much Beeb in the last 2-3 years, and, I have to say His Dark Materials made me realise that I'd forgotten how good BBC drama can be.  It does WotW no favours to be screened at the same time; it is lamentable in comparison.

 

Miss T had violent headaches, dizziness and localised numbness. NHS 111 said "off to hospital with you", but it appears to be nothing sinister.

 

I'm probably going back to bed soon ...

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Well, started on the Pullman adaptation last night.

 

For a moment there, I thought...

 

 

Trust Miss T is recovering quietly. These sudden childhood illnesses can be alarming.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Well, started on the Pullman adaptation last night. I only managed 10 minutes or so before Miss T decided that we should spend the night in A&E (she's fine, thankfully), but already I could tell that this was a different class of adaptation.

 

I've not watched much Beeb in the last 2-3 years, and, I have to say His Dark Materials made me realise that I'd forgotten how good BBC drama can be.  It does WotW no favours to be screened at the same time; it is lamentable in comparison.

 

Miss T had violent headaches, dizziness and localised numbness. NHS 111 said "off to hospital with you", but it appears to be nothing sinister.

 

I'm probably going back to bed soon ...

 

Sorry to hear that Miss T was unwell, best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Yes, my initial thought too was that you were doing some cut-n-shut work...

 

Of course, the production team of His Dark Materials has Philip Pullman peeking over their shoulders (I believe he's on the credits) so there's a bit of restraint over the flights of fancy of the scriptwriters, unlike WotW, where they can do what they like.  There ARE differences between the series and the books, but rather than wholesale rewriting and invention, they appear in the main to be shuffling scenes about from one place to another to fill in backstory.

 

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-11-25/his-dark-materials-tv-series-compared-book-differences/

 

It would be nice to think that HG might have a chat with Charlie Dickens and arrange for the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to visit the WotW Production team and scriptwriters this Christmas Eve!

 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Hroth
Minor character swapping...

[Annie]

Yes my good wishes as well for Miss T's recovery.  Having to suddenly rush children off to hospital is never good for one's peace of mind.

[runs as required]

I have never been able to align poverty in Britain with the plight of peoples in places where a lot of my career was targeted : Mozmbique, the Horn of Africa, the troubled Sahel Regions, and more briefly Latin America and the south Asian sub Continent.

 

One of the most rewarding periods in my working life was right at the end, part-time with York University. The Department of Politics found itself the embarrassed host to an ex Kings Manor home-grown PhD from Palestine who'd blossomed into a high powered Professor under the UN's Kofi Annan's auspices after succeeding as the 'UN Conflict Resolver' in East Timor. 

Prof Sultan Baraket had spawned a highly regarded "Post War Reconstruction and Development' Masters course in which mid career army Majors, burnt out War Correspondents, Journalists etc. came together with their experiences from war zones.  In the second Semester they wanted to try PWR&D practical live projects.

 

Sultan charged me with facilitating locations in the North East!  Everyone wished these to be "kept under the radar" from the media, but we were never short of  'war zones':  from the Tees - around the Durham Coast to the Wear and Tyneside. 

 An active Women's Group in the West End of Newcastle (only a couple of miles from home) hosted the York students over a period of years. Food growing allotments on waste ground near primary schools, motor bike restoration, community newspapers even a radio station were set up.
Sadly all withered within about 5 years of students graduating because of the absence of any sustaining local animateurs/financial pot due to Local Government budgets being cut punishingly.

 

What remains the  most telling indictment to me was the shock of the multi-national postgrads at discovering the initial “hopelessness” of the communities they came to work with in the NE – even though materially: housing, clothing and access to schooling was better compared with the war zones they'd come from. 

Amongst the direst war-torn Afghan, Sierra Leone, Columbia/Central America, SE Asia populations, the postgrads thought hope never completely dies:  things may one day improve.

Is this "evidence base" good enough - or must evidence be determined statistically?

dh

 

[Sultan and his course relocated to Doha, Qatar some years ago - despite Prince Charles attempting to lever York's unwanted course into his educational Foundation]

 

Edit

Very sorry to read of your A&E scare  James  (there is a lot to be said for not being too remote from a hospital A&E)

 

  

Edited November 27, 2019 by runs as required

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

For a moment there, I thought...

 

We don't have a drooling rating button, but I have to admit to being tempted to model the Nickey Line more than one for precisely the above reason!

[Allegheny1600]

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, runs as required said:

I have never been able to align poverty in Britain with the plight of peoples in places

I wholeheartedly agree!

A lot of my childhood in the 1970s, was spent travelling through Europe and Morocco with my parents and we saw some utter deprivation and yet, those people who were literally destitute would still make us welcome in their homes that were little more than mud huts.

In Morocco, we did try and help decent people as best we could (we were not 'rich' by British standards but we were to the locals) and we were often invited into their homes in return.

The slightly more affluent would probably provide us with one of their own chickens (for example) as the main meat dish but I do remember one occasion where we were given the most revolting, fatty, grisly "meat" ever. My parents insisted I ate it however as the hosts would have been grossly insulted if we had rejected it and it likely cost them a week or more income.

They were so poor yet so generous and I bet we "only" gave them some old clothes to warrant such an invite.

That was Morocco but I definitely remember such poverty plainly visible in Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia, even parts of Greece. Most such countries have subsequently pulled themselves out of such poverty, Morocco now has the only High-Speed railway line in the whole of Africa but I bet there are still many examples of individual poverty.

[Regularity]

5 minutes ago, runs as required said:

I have never been able to align poverty in Britain with the plight of peoples in places where a lot of my career was targeted

That's why, as a nation, we pay 0.7% of our GDP to international relief. Only a small amount of our nation's wealth, but a significant sum of money for those most in need.

 

Personal view: provide clean water, clean basic healthcare, and reliable communication (roads, railways and internet) plus maybe electricity using local resources (sunlight, water) and stay the **** out of their politics.

If they want help in transforming/improving their citizens lives, by all means cooperate on those projects, and it is not unreasonable to raise things like human rights issues as part of the negotiation, but absolutely no involvement in anything more than basic firearms (revolvers) for the police and national defence forces (rifles). Everything else should be policed by the UN at the home nation's request. Not everyone thinks the latter works, but look at the reception the England soccer team recent got in Kosovo in recognition of our involvement there as part of KFOR.

 

I am probably out of tune with most of the population on this, but my view is that if governments are looking after people properly (welfare internally, essential support externally) then I have already done the minimum part of fulfilling a "social contract", as has everyone else, but I am free to donate to other charitable projects as I wish. Likewise for everyone else - including them not doing anything further.

[Nearholmer]

RaR

 

What novel writers have know forever, now backed by a building body of structured evidence, is  that what makes people content isn’t as simple as meeting material needs, then meeting material wants and then material whims, but is largely about hope.

 

People who are in pretty basic physical circumstances, but have realistic hopes of betterment tend to be happy. People who have their basic material needs already met, and are looking towards wants and whims being met, but for one reason or another lack realistic hope, or worse still live in fear of material and other worsenment (if there is such a word) tend to be miserable.

 

Add a dash of relative deprivation, being able to see others either materially better off or, even worse, full of hope when they have none, turns miserable people into discontented, disaffected, deeply grumpy people.

 

My gut feel is that this is at the heart of the divide in this country ...... some places are full of hope, and some have little or none, and have drifted into discontent and disaffection. 
 

K

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

We don't have a drooling rating button, but I have to admit to being tempted to model the Nickey Line more than one for precisely the above reason!

 

I think that photo is actually taken at Wirksworth, which like the Hemel Hempstead line saw all three generations of Midland motor trains - the steam motor carriage, the 4-4-0T + Pullman lash-up, and finally the vacuum-control motor trains.

[Regularity]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I think that photo is actually taken at Wirksworth, which like the Hemel Hempstead line saw all three generations of Midland motor trains - the steam motor carriage, the 4-4-0T + Pullman lash-up, and finally the vacuum-control motor trains.

Ta. Knew it was somewhere else, but didn’t know where.

[runs as required]

Is that recognisably an MR crest on the side of the 4-4-0T ?

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Is that recognisably an MR crest on the side of the 4-4-0T ?

 

Yes, the pre-1907 version. This indicates that the engine is otherwise in M&GN livery. At a later stage, after but not long after 1907, the engines were painted in Midland livery but with the M&GN number in brass numerals on the centre of the tank side and no other insignia. 

[Donw]

9 hours ago, Regularity said:

Yes, but you are now talking about the political issues. I was correcting your statements about the statistics and your application of distributional assumptions to a measure which is designed to be free of them.

The secondary function of a progressive taxation programme is to redistribute wealth: apart from paying for services, it also generates income for benefits to ensure that no one is obscenely poor. As such, it could be viewed as a compulsory charitable subscription to society.

I don’t accept your premise as a sine qua non. This reflects societal norms and values: why not encourage a different mindset, where people think, “Great: the more I earn from the common wealth for myself, the more I give back to the society that provided it?” This, IMO, is where Labour are failing, and with their traditional paternalistic “Nanny state” view lost the 1979 General Election, which saw a massive shift in values.

You don’t have to reduce the salaries of the rich at all, just make sure that they aren’t evading taxes. Increasing the top level of pay does not have to happen, but human nature being what it is...

 Yes, and they are repeatedly told that lower income taxes are good for them, despite the fact that all evidence is to the contrary: taxes need to be paid, and if paid on consumption rather than income, disproportionately benefit the wealthy and penalise the majority.

 

I agree with much of what you say, my stock reply to those grumbling about paying tax is 'think yourself lucky to be earning enough to pay it' followed by 'Would you be willing to swap places?  I do believe there is a limit and once the government takes more than half of what you earn I think most of us would think that too much except where there are silly wages where I think it better to stop those wages being paid.

The question of the taxes being too low is something that comes under the subject of a concensus. I do feel that if people understood clearly  what the total income was and how it was spent  it would help. Rather difficult to be complaining about taxes  and NHS waiting lists if you see a clear link. It seems to me governments rather like people to be in the dark allowing them control the spending without too much public reaction. 

 

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

RaR

 

What novel writers have know forever, now backed by a building body of structured evidence, is  that what makes people content isn’t as simple as meeting material needs, then meeting material wants and then material whims, but is largely about hope.

 

People who are in pretty basic physical circumstances, but have realistic hopes of betterment tend to be happy. People who have their basic material needs already met, and are looking towards wants and whims being met, but for one reason or another lack realistic hope, or worse still live in fear of material and other worsenment (if there is such a word) tend to be miserable.

 

Add a dash of relative deprivation, being able to see others either materially better off or, even worse, full of hope when they have none, turns miserable people into discontented, disaffected, deeply grumpy people.

 

My gut feel is that this is at the heart of the divide in this country ...... some places are full of hope, and some have little or none, and have drifted into discontent and disaffection. 
 

K

 

 

 

Very important points there Kevin. I do believe that television has given people unrealistic expectations, also I think Children have been very widely spoilt   over the last few decades which results in a nasty shock when they find out the world doesn't see fit to giving them just what they want when adults.

Don

[Nearholmer]

Lack of any effort by governments to publish really clear and easy to understand information about where public money comes from, what it is spent on, and the state of national debt (an idiots guide to the budget, really) is something that annoys and baffles me no-end.

 

No government of any colour that I can recall has ever done it, leaving the job to those people who draw charts in the Guardian, yet every local council manages to circulate a leaflet doing the same for their income and expenditure.

 

It should be a legal obligation for the national budget to be published to every household in a form that an intelligent 11 year old can understand.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Nearholmer

[nick_bastable]

32 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It should be a legal obligation for the national budget to be published to every household in a form that an intelligent 11 year old can understand

 

 

do you refer to the present crop of wanna be MP's by chance ? although 11 may be too old 

 

Nick

[runs as required]

10 hours ago, Donw said:

... I do believe that television has given people unrealistic expectations ...

This is true across the World

About 10-15 years ago I was on (an EU funded) assignment in northern Malawi. We stopped mid Sunday afternoon at a welcome single shop at an otherwise isolated road end.

Sipping our cold drinks, we joined a dozen old men, barefoot dusty and threadbare, joyfully wisecracking away while watching "Desperate Housewives" on a telly slung off a giant beobab tree. It was powered by the same little Honda generator that had cooled our drinks.

The shopkeeper (who spoke English) explained they were actually all waiting to watch Bolton Wanderers in a live Premier league match.

 

I always recall that when reading of yet another drowning of migrants off Libya.

dh

[Hroth]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It should be a legal obligation for the national budget to be published to every household in a form that an intelligent 11 year old can understand.

 

Its worth bearing in mind that though the average reading age of adults in the UK is approximately 11 years, up to 5% of the adult population can have a reading age as low as 5-7 years.

 

I do recall an information leaflet published by the Government possibly from the early 60s describing the national taxation income as a £1 stack of coins (Shillings?)  with on one side brackets indicating which tax the total came from and on the other, brackets describing what it was spent on.

 

Would that be comprehensible?

 

Although young, it must have made an impression on me, but I don't know if I really understood it!

[teaky]

When it comes to presenting data, perhaps some guidance is required?

[Nearholmer]

Any way of presenting the information would need to be “road tested” on sample groups to check its understandability, but even if a mere 90% of people were able to understand it after all that effort, that would be c50 million more people than anyone has bothered to explain it to before.

 

i find it deeply disturbing that we’ve had compulsory primary education for about 140 years, yet continue to treat intelligent grown adults as if they are too ignorant to understand simple things.

 

It’s no wonder a lot of people behave as they are a great deal stupider than they really are, if they are treated as if they are.

 

Intelligence across a population follows a normal distribution curve, so it is patronising and misleading to assume that most of the population are stupid - they simply aren’t.

 

 

 

[wagonman]

I seem to remember a Tory Education Secretary (all right, it was Gove) declaring it was to his aim to make all state schools "above average"...

[Hroth]

Just now, wagonman said:

I seem to remember a Tory Education Secretary (all right, it was Gove) declaring it was to his aim to make all state schools "above average"...

 

Too horrible even for satire.