[TobyD]

The saturation coverage of the royals seems to be largely distracting almost all the media from the fact that the government currently wants to enable bankers to get bigger bonuses (fiscally possibly a good idea depending very much on who you listen to, but it looks pretty tawdry at the moment whatever you think), it's sacked civil servants and Zac Goldsmith, is going to restart fracking, scotch the obesity strategy and the conservative party gets many hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations from the aviation industry.

They must be loving the opportunity to get all the bad news out while noone is paying any attention

[SA Chris]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/09/uk.past

not the first time.

[seankenny]

Nice set of graphs on income inequalty from the FT today:

https://archive.ph/2022.09.16-150230/https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

“In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut.”

I should hasten to add that although I’m not a monarchist, I think the existence of a monarchy in the U.K. is almost certainly irrelevant with respect to the high income inequality here (the psychological effects I’m less sanguine about).

[TobyD]

Nice set of graphs on income inequalty from the FT today:

https://archive.ph/2022.09.16-150230/https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

“In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut.”

I should hasten to add that although I’m not a monarchist, I think the existence of a monarchy in the U.K. is almost certainly irrelevant with respect to the high income inequality here (the psychological effects I’m less sanguine about).

The government has obviously hit on a solution to the problem of migrants on boats in the channel,  making the quality of life in the UK so bad that noone wants to come in the first place.

[Oldmanmatt]

Apologies for FB link, but this tickled me this morning.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0cHBDSqknAczKDfKPQEWNLn2ui8frVZ3h2kyV4QkhZVkLfewGYxC42U2c9U3rx1dHl&id=313774828684270

[IanP]

Nice set of graphs on income inequalty from the FT today:

https://archive.ph/2022.09.16-150230/https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

“In 2007, the average UK household was 8 per cent worse off than its peers in north-western Europe, but the deficit has since ballooned to a record 20 per cent. On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade. A country in desperate need of migrant labour may soon have to ask new arrivals to take a pay cut.”

I should hasten to add that although I’m not a monarchist, I think the existence of a monarchy in the U.K. is almost certainly irrelevant with respect to the high income inequality here (the psychological effects I’m less sanguine about).

While I'm sure there's a large element of truth in the general point being made about inequality in the UK vs other developed European countries I do get pretty irritated by this sort of use of stats particular in a publication like the FT. 

If you want to compare a large moderately rich west European economy to other countries why would you choose two small extremely rich countries (Norway and Switzerland, both less than 10 million people and in the top 10 richest countries in the world) and one very small, probably richer than people think country (Slovenia, 2 million, GDP per capita ppp above Spain and just below Italy)?  Being fairly cynical by nature I wonder if this because it supports the argument better than comparing against countries with similar characteristics e.g. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland etc

[jwi]

I don't understand, in the data dashboard you can compare to any country you like?

Eg

[seankenny]

The FT data guy’s Twitter feed has this:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832891588018176?s=20&t=FLtB5yjnmMWcIr2qThOVNQ

Also worth pointing out that the original article covers the US which is notably large. I suspect they include Norway and Switzerland as they are closer in per capita income to the US than most European countries. 

[IanP]

I don't understand, in the data dashboard you can compare to any country you like?

Eg

I don't think I understand what you don't understand - obviously you can do your own analysis of the data, but shouldn't we expect an article like this to use non partial data to support the argument they are making?

You didn't include Spain, Italy or Poland in your image, shows quite a different picture to that in the FT ?

(I would include an image but on holiday and probably should talk to my better half instead  )

[TobyD]

Well worth having a look at, Truss' chief in number ten being investigated by the FBI: https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1571207166761091074?t=m3ciI31gi9wQ3-oC6Uc-iQ&s=19

That's a week in office before things start to sour?

[seankenny]

I’m of the view that if the U.K. isn’t considering France and Germany as its comparator counties, and say the Netherlands or Denmark as aspirations, then something’s gone wrong in both our politics and our self conception.

Yes, you’re slightly better off being poor in the U.K. than in a country that was under fascist dictatorship for decades and has then been lagging the rest of Europe, a country that was under communist dictatorship for 50 years (which had been badly destroyed in WW2) and the absolute basket case of the larger European countries. Plus two of those are stuck with the shitty end of the Euro. The fact that it’s only marginally better to be poor in Manchester - once the most innovative place in the world - than Sicily - which is and always has been an essentially agricultural society - is really rubbish!

(Also the FT has a big US readership so needs to appeal to them too.)

[IanP]

I’m of the view that if the U.K. isn’t considering France and Germany as its comparator counties, and say the Netherlands or Denmark as aspirations, then something’s gone wrong in both our politics and our self conception.

Yes, you’re slightly better off being poor in the U.K. than in a country that was under fascist dictatorship for decades and has then been lagging the rest of Europe, a country that was under communist dictatorship for 50 years (which had been badly destroyed in WW2) and the absolute basket case of the larger European countries. Plus two of those are stuck with the shitty end of the Euro. The fact that it’s only marginally better to be poor in Manchester - once the most innovative place in the world - than Sicily - which is and always has been an essentially agricultural society - is really rubbish!

(Also the FT has a big US readership so needs to appeal to them too.)

To be clear I'm not arguing that the UK does not have significant issues with inequality, that's pretty obvious and is supported by the data.  However I'm unconvinced that using a biased choice of data supports the argument.  The data for Italy and Spain has UK poor sitting approx equidistant between France and Italy/Spain - pretty poor but not only 'slightly better off'. 

[seankenny]

So you’re saying that rather than aspiring to be a rich but more equal country like Germany or France and seeing that we are lacking, we should really be comparing ourselves to the also-rans of the European economies? I mean, if you must, but do you really think the rural parts of Spain or Southern Italy are particularly comparable to the ex-industrial areas of the U.K.? They are regions that had a totally different path to getting to where they are now and presumably face very different challenges. I don’t see it as a biased choice of data, rather that making comparisons with Spain or Italy (never mind Poland!) is not particularly useful or informative.

[TobyD]

Interesting comments by Justin Welby today about "those who cling to power and privilege " in contrast to "those who serve". The latter was obviously about the queen,  I wonder who the former was directed at?

[Mike Highbury]

Interesting comments by Justin Welby today about "those who cling to power and privilege " in contrast to "those who serve". The latter was obviously about the queen,  I wonder who the former was directed at?

The Lords Spiritual.

[TobyD]

Interesting comments by Justin Welby today about "those who cling to power and privilege " in contrast to "those who serve". The latter was obviously about the queen,  I wonder who the former was directed at?

The Lords Spiritual.

Unelected they may be,  but probably with a lot more experience,  expertise and integrity than you would find in the elected government.  I'd sooner trust Justin Welby with an important decision than the selection of the Conservative party's membership. 

[teestub]

Among all the other terrible decisions, rolling back on the sugar tax and anti obesity strategy as ‘it’s not the government’s place to interfere in people’s lifestyles’ seems almost designed to cause more pressure on the NHS. Sure the current strategy isn’t great but it’s better than nothing https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/19/truss-plan-to-axe-sugar-tax-runs-into-legal-and-parliamentary-hitches

[Wellsy]

Interesting comments by Justin Welby today about "those who cling to power and privilege " in contrast to "those who serve". The latter was obviously about the queen,  I wonder who the former was directed at?

The Lords Spiritual.

Unelected they may be,  but probably with a lot more experience,  expertise and integrity than you would find in the elected government.  I'd sooner trust Justin Welby with an important decision than the selection of the Conservative party's membership.

Well the Tory Party (and it hurts me to say anything in their favour) legalised gay marriage, whereas Welby won't even say gay sex isn't a sin. And he's the leading figure in our state religion! He's a disgrace and he can get in the bin as far as I'm concerned.

As far as "those to cling to power and privilege" well number one on that list is the Royal family and others of their parasitic aristocrat kind.

[danm]

I had a moment of realisation over my morning coffee today. All of our national woes are payback for colonisation and Empire. Bear with me on this. Our place in the world was forged by the blood and toil of our exploited slaves and then fuelled by the plundered resources of the globe. We've never accepted or reconciled ourselves to these facts; our Empire somehow was good for those it subjugated, we abolished slavery (only after profiting handsomely from it mind) and now as a result have a distorted view of ourselves which forms the basis of British exceptionalism. That left us susceptible to Euroscepticism and tied to a vision of the past which enabled the continuation of an anachronistic and twisted legacy of Monarchy and Nobility (unelected House of Lords is fine whilst "unelected EU bureaucrats" are an anathema).

TL:DR You reap what you sow.

[SA Chris]

or our past has come back to haunt us

[TobyD]

I had a moment of realisation over my morning coffee today. All of our national woes are payback for colonisation and Empire. Bear with me on this. Our place in the world was forged by the blood and toil of our exploited slaves and then fuelled by the plundered resources of the globe. We've never accepted or reconciled ourselves to these facts; our Empire somehow was good for those it subjugated, we abolished slavery (only after profiting handsomely from it mind) and now as a result have a distorted view of ourselves which forms the basis of British exceptionalism. That left us susceptible to Euroscepticism and tied to a vision of the past which enabled the continuation of an anachronistic and twisted legacy of Monarchy and Nobility (unelected House of Lords is fine whilst "unelected EU bureaucrats" are an anathema).

TL:DR You reap what you sow.

Although I'd certainly agree with some of that in part, I don't think such a wholly negative view is helpful,  or indeed that it can represent hundreds of years of history.  I think its impossible to say that the empire was all bad, or all good for that matter.  The UK wasn't the only colonial country,  just perhaps the most successful in the last few hundred years, the Netherlands,  France, Germany all had empires,  and now a different relationship with that history than us.  In some ways the empire has a positive influence on the UK today,  a diverse culture,  cuisine and population.  But also some of what you say is true,  the atrocities of the empire are big parts of the history of India, Australia and many African countries to mention a few; and they're conveniently overlooked in the way history is taught here.
I'd highly recommend reading Empireland by Satnam Sangera for an interesting perspective on the legacy of empire in today's UK.

[spidermonkey09]

Its not hard to find ways the imperial system worked really well for colonisers. Much harder to find ways it worked well for colonised peoples. Too much 'impossible to say whether the empire was good or bad' discourse (which also completely misses the point as Sanghera points out in his book) seems to ignore this fact.

[seankenny]

Weren’t the Bhuttos just minor league Sindhi landlords until the big landlords backed the wrong side in 1857 and got themselves killed or disempowered by the eventually victorious British, who then elevated the Bhuttos into a far more prominent role? And couldn’t one make the argument that those areas with long standing British influence like Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai, overall have better outcomes now than the areas where British influence was far, far lighter, such as most of western Pakistan? Didn’t lots of Indian financiers (mainly Gujerati) do rather well out of the British, at least in the East India Co stages?

I’m not for a minute saying that being colonised was great for those at the wrong end of Empire. Merely that there were winners out of the process, otherwise it simply wouldn’t have worked. Anyhow aren’t you doing a PhD on this stuff, I’m sure you are more informed than I am.

[spidermonkey09]

Definitely, British patronage has meant that some groups had better outcomes than others; as you say, without this balancing of interests the whole system wouldn't have worked (especially under Company rule). I suppose what I'm getting at is I don't see some wealthy families/ groups becoming wealthier or more influential through patronage as a good argument for 'the empire wasn't all bad' (I know you weren't making this argument!). Especially when viewed through the lens of centuries of slavery, imperial plunder, massacres etc etc etc. Probably easier to find individual/micro cases of 'beneficial effects of the empire' but harder to find general/macro ones.

What I'm more getting at is that I personally see 'the empire wasn't all bad' discourse as a way of drawing over the veil and diverting attention from research/raising awareness of the atrocities of empire which have been incredibly underresearched for years, which is one of the reasons our public awareness of empire is so poor. Its a favourite tactic of TV historians like Niall Ferguson, mostly because the audience like it and it avoids any engagement at all with difficulty issues. Sanghera has consistently argued against a 'balance sheet' approach to empire which I totally agree with; it reduces the debate to a binary distinction which is really ahistorical.

My research is on frontier violence in India and Queensland so I'm no imperial expert by any means but I do find it hard to see much thats positive in what I read!

[seankenny]

Fwiw - as a non-historian! - have to agree with all that.

By frontier violence does that mean any geographical area in particular, like NWFP, or is it broader than that?