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But, erm, what if some are?

Disabled people who use blue badges to go about their daily lives have said they are being harassed, questioned and even assaulted, as anti-benefits rhetoric becomes more mainstream in the UK.

About 3 million people in the UK now have a blue badge, including 1 in 15 adults in England. The number of people who qualify for the scheme – which allows drivers to park in more accessible spaces – has caused some to warn of misuse and fraud.

The AA has called for a crackdown on people using fake or stolen blue badges as the number on the scheme grows, while the Daily Mail “names and shames” drivers taken to court for fraudulently using a badges.

But the culture of suspicion has, according to the dozens of users who contacted the Guardian, given rise to a tide of abuse from members of the public towards badge holders, including accusations that they are faking their disability.

You know, given the way humans work at least some of those 3 million are going to be taking the piss.

Racism is real prevalent then, eh?

Stress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found.

Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics.

Such physiological differences are not the result of genetic differences, according to the researchers, but rather suggest that socioenvironmental stressors such as systemic racism and deprivation, which are known to have a measurable biological effect, may influence the body’s ability to function healthily during pregnancy.

Sure, this could be true.

On the other hand the outcome for black mothers is worse everywhere. Even in black majority countries it is. Which means that the racism must be so prevasive as to be everywhere, including in black majority countries.

Which could be true too, obviously.

But Occam’s Shaving Kit would suggest that, well, there’s a genetic difference here. Well, over and above the obvious one about melanin. Which, as far as I’m aware, is also true.

All of which should be measured after the known effects of poverty, of course.

It’s even possible to test this. “Black” is not a single and all encompassing diagnosis. So, are there variations within that population by other genetic markers? Are Bantu derived groups affected differently than Nilotic – say and just as an example?

Hmm? No, racism is the conclusion we want so that’s the one we’re sticking with?

“It’s important that we don’t stop trying to tackle the root causes that lead to worse pregnancy outcomes in black women, which are the socioeconomic disparities and the systemic racism they can experience throughout their lives.”

That’s what we’re supposed to be testing, not asserting, Love.

Abuse, abuse.

What followed was, as she describes it in her memoir, a hellish four years for Cain during which, she says, Salazar became emotionally abusive. Cain details a coach who was obsessed with Cain’s weight, isolated her from her own parents, sent her to a sports “psychologist” who was not credentialed, and ignored her clear signs of suicidal ideation, disordered eating and self-harm (Salazar has denied any wrongdoing and he and Nike settled a lawsuit brought by Cain in 2023 alleging the abuse).

The background:

Cain set four different national high school records as a teen, and as a 17-year old made the world championships in the 1500m, finishing 10th in a field of pros. But instead of heading to college to run D-1, she was contacted by Alberto Salazar, a famed running coach at Nike’s Oregon Project, who convinced her to give up college track and go pro, with him.

Umm, how do you become a worldbeater without a bit of pressure?

And that is the complaint by the way. But her autobiog is launched with a full Guardian piece and so on.

Abuse, eh?

Wot?

Virginia Giuffre’s brother criticizes King Charles III for not meeting survivors of Epstein abuse
Sky Roberts said survivors ‘still fighting to be heard’ after king, whose brother Andrew was accused of assault by Giuffre, did not meet with them

The King must meet the enthusiastic tarts of a grubby New York financier?

Really?

Sigh

This belief makes no sense at all. It is evidence of economic derangement, and little else. The reason for increasing interest rates when inflation rises is to suppress what is presumed to be heightened domestic demand arising from economic overheating, driven by excess private-sector activity that pushes demand beyond the economy’s capacity to supply what consumers wish to buy.

Nothing like that situation exists at present. Demand within our economy is already depressed. Consumer confidence is low. Business confidence is declining. Levels of the investment looked to be falling. Simultaneously, the government is looking at austerity once more with the intention of reducing support for those in need in the country.

All the signs are that we have a shortage of demand within the UK at present

So:

Key Inflation Details (March 2026)
Headline CPI Rate: 3.3%
Core CPI (excluding energy, food, alcohol, tobacco): 3.1%

Why’s inflation 50% over target if we have a shortage of demand?

In group and out group

For years, Viktor Orbán, with his anti-migrant and white Christian nationalist rhetoric – sentiments that endeared him to Donald Trump and his Maga base – offered his European counterparts the comforting fiction that racism in the EU was the preserve of a few unsavoury men and women. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Racism is not the work of one individual. It is structural. Racial logic is woven into our laws as well as our political, economic and social systems.

It’s such a weird complaint. Humans always – but always – run on in group and out group lines. It’s a fairly basic environmental pressure upon us in fact. There’s an us and a them. And?

Racialised biases are being stamped into our AI tools.

As I keep insisting for AI to be useful it has to reflect the world as it is. As there is bias in hte world then so must AI be biased – otherwise it’s not describing reality, is it?

Changing this dynamic is not easy. A deeper study of colonialism must be made part of our collective memory to ensure a shared reckoning of how Europe’s wealth, borders and ideas of civilisation were built through empire and racial hierarchy. These truths need to be embedded in our education systems and cultural institutions, not merely mentioned as footnotes in history books or explored in temporary exhibitions.

Therefore up the propaganda, Comrades!

And human beings will still work on in groups and out groups because that’s how humans work.

Expatriation!

The Donald is evil, the US cannot be stood, I’m leaving!

‘I don’t want to be part of a dictatorship’: the Americans queueing up to renounce their citizenship

OK.

In the 00s, the numbers of US citizens renouncing were in the hundreds annually; since 2014, they’ve been in the thousands. This is expected to be a bumper year (matching 2020’s 6,000-plus)

OK.

0.0017% are tryig to leave in any one year.

There are about 800,000 naturalisations each year….the queue running the other way, to get in. If you’re running at 133x the number trying to get in as get out then, well, you know, you might be doing OK?

Still gives Zoe something to write about, no?

Neither figure comes close to the true cost of renouncing if you get a lawyer, which, with no complications at all, will cost $7,000 to $10,000, says Alexander Marino, who heads Moody’s, the largest renunciation law practice in the world.

Blimey. Wonder who suggesated this article to Zoe/the Editor then?

Pikers

A network linked to the leadership of a militia accused of genocide has amassed a vast property portfolio in Dubai as part of a sprawling “paramilitary-industrial complex” across Africa and the Middle East, an investigation has revealed.

Family members, sanctioned individuals, and entities linked to the leader of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have acquired more than 20 luxury properties, worth £17.7m, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the Sentry, a US investigative group.

Trivial. Seriously, not even trying. The sort of amount you can pick up in a couple of decades in a City bank. Pfft.

Of course, there’s not much to steal in Sudan.

Just so wholly joyous

So the debt to GDP ratio is lower than many thought it was. Lower than ONS said it was in fact, as the FT highlights.

But the thing that the Financial Times does not note is what is most important about this. They correctly record that the figure that has been altered every time the data has been restated is not that for the supposed debt, but the figure for gross domestic product. It appears that we are hopelessly unable to get this, in itself nonsensical, figure right.

But, and this is my key point, there may be a very good reason for that.

The figure for GDP is always laden with estimates. It is riddled with assumptions. And the one thing that we know is that the assumptions used by the Office for National Statistics are cautious to the point of being absurd.

In particular, they ignore multiplier effects. When they record a great many types of expenditure, including much of that which the government undertakes, as well as investment expenditure, they fail to consider the consequences and benefits of what has happened. They believe that these sums are lost, forsaken and forgone when the reality is that they are incurred for future benefit, and, as this second chart shows, that benefit does arise and to a much greater degree than the Office for National Statistics ever thinks might be the case.

What is happening? It is that the ONS is persistently under-recording the creation of the literal stocks of well-being created by way of investment, mainly by public, but also some private, spending, with the result that they write off expenditure at the time that it is incurred and then appear to be continually surprised that later income is higher than they expected.

This is the real message that comes out of this chart when the finding is extrapolated appropriately. This is not the point that the Financial Times made about it. But the key issue is that the ONS is so blinded by its neoliberal assumptions, and its refusal to consider double entry when undertaking its accounting, and therefore the relationship between income and capital, and current and future returns, that it produces deeply misleading information, the consequence of which is that we all suffer excess downward pressure on government spending, quite inappropriately.

Well, that tells us. Except the FT tells us:

If the size of the economy in cash terms grows faster than forecast (which may be partly due to rising prices) and the amount of debt stays the same, then debt as a ratio of GDP will be revised down. This is what we’ve seen happen recently. On the other hand, if the economy grows slower than the forecast and debt is the same, then debt as a ratio of GDP will be revised up.

Reader, the size of the economy in cash terms did grow faster than forecast.

The stock of the debt does not rise with inflation. The size of nominal GDP does rise with inflation. What has been happening is higher inflation.

And what do we do when inflation rises, kiddies? That’s right, we reduce the size of the budget deficit in order to reduce stimulation of the economy thorugh fiscal policy. Yea, even in MMT we do that.

Nowt to do here with Spuds blatherings at all.

How excellent and glorious this is

The world is facing a financial crisis because we will be facing absolute shortages of oil, food, and raw materials very soon. And that changes everything.

Markets can never solve the problem of absolute shortages: they simply supply whoever can pay the most. If we leave allocation to the market, the vulnerable will be left with nothing.

The Economist forecasts that the oil crisis will hit us by June 2026 if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, as it will. But all politicians are still talking about are fiscal rules. That is not good enough.

There are only two things that can manage this crisis now. We need rationing of food, petrol, and diesel to ensure they are distributed equitably, and not sold to the highest bidder.

And then we must increase taxes on large companies, commodity traders, and the highest earners and wealthiest people to ensure money can be reallocated to those who will otherwise suffer as a result of the inflation that shortages are going to create.

So, when we face a shortage we must not allow prices to change. If we face a shortage we must punitively tax those with the temerity to supply the thing in shortage.

Rising prices increase the incentive to produce the thing in short supply. Rising prices reduce demand for the thing in short supply. Increased profts are the mechanism by which greater supply is encouraged.

So, as we face shortages we must not use any of the tools we have at our disposal to increase suppl;y and reduce demand in the face of that shortage.

Instead we should tax the crap out of anyone with the temerity to reduce the shortage. Also, we should not allow demand destruction as prices rise – nope, we’ve got to keep demand constant in the face of shortage.

Glorious, eh?

Well, not really, no

Dozens of MPs are opposing Wes Streeting’s decision to award himself power to dictate what the NHS pays for drugs amid growing concern the move may be illegal.

Thirty-one MPs have signed a House of Commons motion voicing their disapproval of the health secretary being handed the power to override the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (Nice) judgment on how much the NHS should spend on individual medicines.

They fear that the change is a “power grab” that undermines the role Nice has played since its creation in 1999 as the arbiter of which medicines constitute value for money for the NHS to buy – and thus which patients can receive – in England and Wales. Nice is widely viewed internationally as a model of how to protect against drug companies charging excessive prices.

Nice is regarded internationally as a method to ration health care treatments. Some think it a good one, many a bad but there we are. It’s a method of rationing, not a method of protecting against high prices.

The of course here exists so as to show that does he Hell mean like of course

There is a close relationship between the Trump era and violence – not just the attempts on his life but also the violence his administration has unleashed on the world, the violence his ICE and border patrol agents have caused inside America, the violence he has incited among his followers. (A few of Saturday night’s guests at the correspondents’ dinner were in Congress on 6 January 2021 when Trump’s supporters attacked the US Capitol.)

The violence of the Trump administration has resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries. That is no justification for Saturday night’s attack, of course, but it is part of what he has wrought in America. He has changed the script in Washington. He has ushered in an America that is more divided, distrustful and hostile; an America where political opponents are enemies to be overcome and destroyed instead of debated and challenged at the ballot box.

Of course, this sort of thing was only done by the fascists in Argentina

Andreas Laake, the head of a victims’ association for “stolen children in the GDR”, estimates the total number of forced adoptions over the state’s 40-year existence to be as high as 8,000, and has recorded 2,000 infant deaths that his organisation suspects could be disguising forced adoptions. In five of these cases, the association has been able to confirm that the deaths were falsely reported. But a state-commissioned report published at the start of this year insists that they were isolated incidents: “A systematic, planned and explicitly politically motivated endeavour on behalf of the state within the adoption procedures could not be proven,” it says. Proof of the opposite would probably oblige the German state to pay compensation to thousands of victims.

The Good Socialists would never have done something like that.

Democracy, eh?

The only reason to change the rules on indefinite leave to remain in the UK, as she is doing, is to use migrants already in this country with legal permission as weapons in Labour’s war to fight off the threat from far-right political parties.

Those “far-right” political parties are gaining a lot of political support because they are proposing policies which a substantial fraction of the electorate would like to see happen. Whether the electorate should think that way or not is a different question. Clearly, that substantial portion do.

Isn’t that supposed to be what democracy does? Makes politicians enact the policies the electorate desires? Or is democracy limited in some manner, to only those policies Spud approves of?

As I like to point out

Inequality is lower than commonly measured:

Councils are offering benefit claimants discounts on nights out, beauty parlours and beach huts under a spiralling “welfare culture” taking hold in Britain.
A Telegraph investigation has found Universal Credit and mental health benefits claimants can receive concessions for drinks at bars, massages and eyebrow treatments via local government schemes, with discounts for jobless claimants also extending to football matches, comedy clubs, cinemas, saunas and spas.
Concessions offered by councils or independent businesses even apply to white water rafting, rowing clubs, yoga classes and ice skating.
Local authorities are also providing benefit claimants discounts on weddings and at leisure centres, while taxpayers foot rising bills.

None of these bennies count as income. Therefore they are not counted when measuring how many people are living on incomes less than 60% of median. So, that relative poverty is over-measured.

How important this is is another matter but it’s definitely true.

When BiS is right about Pigou Taxes

It wants eVED to be the successor to fuel duty. But the numbers don’t add up. Pay-per-mile will raise £7bn a year by 2050-51, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). That’s less than a third of the current £24bn tax take earned from fuel duty.
It seems inevitable that a dramatic increase in eVED charges will be needed to make up the shortfall. What starts as 3p per mile could soon be 10p.

A chunk of current fuel duty is that Pigou Tax upon emissions. If no emissions are being made then that tax – and that tax revenue – should not exist. But here we’ve the politcos insisting that the same revenue must be raised even if there aren’t those emissions that should be brutally taxed.

BiS is quite right that this is a problem with Pigou Taxes. No, I don’t know what the solution is. Other than yes, taxing petrrol is better than giving MadEd a free hand…..

Again?

A gunman stormed a security checkpoint armed with “multiple weapons” in an apparent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at a major event in Washington.

The US president was rushed off stage by his security detail after several gunshots rang out at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday.

Grainy footage released by Mr Trump showed the gunman, Cole Thomas Allen, from California, charging through a Secret Service checkpoint.

Agents drew their guns and managed to stop the suspect from reaching the ballroom entrance. One law enforcement officer was shot but was in “great shape”, Mr Trump said

Of course, it could have been the press he was after…..