Brexit Britain plunges into poverty as bills soar

Still, they’re a bunch of arm-breaking bullies, so fuck 'em.

(really joking, I like swans (also, not for eating)).

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There’s not enough brown sauce in the world…

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There is a link, but it’s not causal. Brexit is a symptom of an underlying incompetence in UK government that has also led them to worse outcomes than any of their European peers. Just two examples:

  • The UK has the worst-insulated homes in Europe, yet in 2012 David Cameron decided to end all subsidies for home-insulation projects as part of his “get rid of all the green crap” agenda.
  • In 2017, Centrica (the privatized utility formerly known as British Gas) decommissioned its natural gas storage facility at Rough, which accounted for 70% of the UK’s gas storage capacity. This was approved by minister and free-market-orthodoxy ayatollah Kwasi Karteng, who issued a fatwa that the omnibenevolent market’s ability to provide shall not be contested
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Is there a reason to associate neo-liberalism with Iran? I mean, they probably have more government run sectors of their economy than the UK does at this point? :woman_shrugging: Part of the problem the west has with Iran, is that they do not have enough of a free market economy. Seems like something that Karteng would be staunchly against, in fact.

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You could have made your point without the bullshit Islamophobic anti-Iranian vibe but instead you went all in. Makes you sound like a Daily Mail subscriber looking to shift the blame after you voted Leave.

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17 posts were split to a new topic: The nomenclature of cultures and civilizations

I’ve had goose. Pretty fatty, but really good.

This source says

Throughout the 1500s-1800s, turkey slowly became a more and more popular Christmas meal in wealthier British households, with the British royal family even making the switch to turkey in the 1850s (replacing their traditional choice of roasted swan). But turkeys were expensive, so cheaper options including goose and chicken remained popular on most Christmas tables until the mid-20th century.2

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… without even replacing it with, like, nuclear power or some shit, so people could at least heat their paper-thin houses wastefully?

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No, Theresa May tried to revive the nuclear programme with Sizewell Hinkley Point C, and was excoriated for it by publications like The Economist (oddly enough, because nuclear power is not price competitive with renewables). Of course, they were assuming the omnipotent and omnibenevolent Market would always provide, including when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing and the terminals of the power interconnect with France have burned down.

The Tories were certainly sharp-elbowed enough when it came to securing Covid vaccine supplies via beggar-thy-EU-neighbor policies, I don’t know why they didn’t exercise the same supply-chain skepticism towards energy.

That said France went all-in on nuclear in the 70s, but failed to invest in maintaining skills like welding and their socialists (François Hollande) pandered to the greens like in Germany by shutting down replacement nuclear projects and breeder reactor R&D, which is why electricity supply in France this winter is going to be touch and go. But France did invest in insulation, the government paid for 60% of the cost of replacing my parents’ inefficient 40 year old gas furnace with a heat pump last year, and now they are completely weaned off natural gas.

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ah the “Texas plan”

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Exactly. Questioning the infallibility of the Market is heresy of the highest order.

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Just not most of them, just the ones willing to throw their own under the bus. It doesn’t make the Tory party less racist.

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I have it every Christmas. The one for this year is already ordered

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I believe the UK standard way to describe a politician in charge of something they don’t understand but have an ideological agenda about anyway is “Czar”.

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A Czar more often refers to someone whose task is to do something where there is no acceptable solution and has no power to actually affect the status quo. The position is often quietly dissolved having been ignored.

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How about this?

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We decided to leave the UK in 2019 for a few years and wait out the worst of it before going back. Unfortunately this starting to look like we will be away for a decade or two (or three), at which point probably no point in going back.

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Yep, my best plan is to be made redundant at 53 so i can get my council pension and then get a 2nd job, lol

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I left in 2017, and for a while I was unsure if I made the right decision. I went back to visit for the first time and I have to say I was shocked at the state of my home town. It’s as destitute again as it was in the 80’s. All those decades spent climbing out that pit of poverty only to get shoved right back down again. I feel a bit sad saying this but I’m glad my kids weren’t born where I was.

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