Big J

So it appears that a significant percentage of Tory MPs want Boris back. Not because he's a good leader, but because he can win them their elections and save them their jobs. What a miserable reflection of the British parliamentary democracy. Integrity, honesty and ability to do the job seem to mean nothing.

And she's gone!! Hahahahahaha!! 😆 What a complete and utter flustercuck.

That's Braveman gone now. The first of many? Seems like Truss is getting closer and closer to the end.

Quite unlike you to be so optimistic! 😄

I respect your take on the overall process and don't disagree that a democratic process of sorts was followed, but the entire campaign for Brexit was littered with half truths and complete lies, which had the effect of causing a tiny majority to vote for it. The upshot now is that the UK finds itself in a much lesser position than it did prior to Brexit with little benefit. But that is water under the bridge and no longer has the same effect on me as it once did. It has happened, the consequences are being suffered and perhaps in a few years it'll be reversed. Time will tell. On the point of Conservative Party leadership, it does rather seem that competence isn't a valued character trait for prospective leaders. Sunak accurately predicted what would happen if Truss took over, yet he isn't leader and she is...

That as the case may be, the Conservative Party has gone through such a seismic shift in recent years that continuously replacing the leader without the general public being allowed to choose seems to be undemocratic.

I have a lot of time for Rory Stewart and I agree, he's cut from a slightly different cloth to the others. The Tory party is a very broad church which in and of itself is one of the causes of Brexit (offering the vote was an act of appeasement to the ERG that backfired spectacularly on Cameron).

That as it may be, he's pressed from a similar mould to the likes of Cameron, Major, Ken Clarke, Rory Stewart. Today's Tory party bears little resemblance to that of 10-15 years ago.

Well we disagree on the character of Starmer, and that's OK, but I feel that after 3 new Tory PMs that haven't been elected, it's time the public had a vote.

Even if you don't agree with his policies, at least you'd be voting instead of watching a Tory elite play king/queen maker.

Oh f*ck, I don't know. Why do we have to choose between shit and shitter? Well I suppose the point is that we didn't get to choose....

I agree. She's been living in her own head, her own ideology. No regard given for the circumstances she finds herself in. Tone deaf, living in a bubble, utter moron - take your pick. Who'll take over and when? I've no idea. It took them long enough to get rid of Boris. As awful as he was, Truss is a whole other league of disaster.

All roads seem to lead to the same destination of the UK being stuffed. I've no idea what the solution is. It's frightening really.

This is my point really. It's not that I'm driving to say that the UK or it's inhabitants are inherently bad, rather that the public and private sector have been so badly managed in the past decades that the situation the UK presently finds itself in is possibility unfixable. A poison chalice for whomever takes over after Truss is given the boot. We're out of covid now, and yet the Exchequer still borrowed £11.8 billion in August. Almost £145 billion in the year up to the end of March (£2130 per man, woman and child in the UK). The UK national debt is now £2,365 billion (almost £35k for every man woman and child). With no hope in the short to medium term of even balancing the budget, how can this ever be tackled? £8.2 billion a month just in interest payments. With this foundation of insolvency, what can any prospective PM offer other than savage cuts, tax rises and austerity, if the public finances are ever to function?

I can agree with you (to an extent) about freeloaders, but immigration into the UK has increased since Brexit. The only difference is that it's more 'brown' people (non-EU) and British nationals can't easily leave.

It's nice to know that I'm loved! 😆 There isn't anything anyone can do about the weather of course. It is what it is. But the general state of the public finances, public services and housing market is something that's been festering for decades now and is leaving a huge number of people in an untenable situation. The government is bankrupt in all but name. Basic services are not being provided. Taxes are at an historically high level, but then so is public borrowing. And all against the backdrop of historically high house prices and soaring interest rates. I have got no idea how to fix it. Truly. But after 12 years of Conservative rule, it seems like they've been presiding over a larger and larger fire whilst all the time trying to put it out with petrol. Of course other places have problems too. No where is perfect, and I include Sweden in that obviously. But it seems like the UK has more than it's far share of issues now. Not least an apparently learning-disabled PM.

I left the UK 2.5 months ago and I'm still working through my roadside timber. It's selling, but slowly. The issue is that the timber industry in the UK is too small and too varied. Too many species on too broad a variety of sites with an insufficient number of niche businesses to utilise the broad spectrum of products. But on the flipside, the niche industries can't survive due to the low forest cover not providing sufficient supply. Then add to that the obsession with health and safety tick-boxing instead of proper training, general lack of productivity and a climate which is great for growing fairly poor quality timber quickly, but is also awful for harvesting (mud, mud and more mud) and you've got an industry that's only ever going to swing from boom to bust. Here in Sweden, forestry is relatively boring. It's pine, spruce and birch, with a smattering of other forestry species. One site isn't so different to another, but there is a niche for every product. With 70% forest cover, and slow grown, mechanically harvestable timber, it's easy to manage for the long term, knowing that you'll have the products you need at an economic rate for the foreseeable future. There is a lot of market manipulation in the UK by the big players too, pushing the price up and down artificially. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that roadside spruce this summer was worth almost £50/t less than last summer. No one can adequately plan for that. It puts people under. I will enjoy my boring Scandinavian forestry work. I only brought a small battery chainsaw with me from the UK and I'm quite happy that that is all I need

I've had a quite a lot of experience running cutters and started out as a hardwood cutter myself. It's a minefield, truly. I much prefer working with harvesters as with one exception the only reliable, decent, flexible cutters I knew were in Northumberland and Morayshire, which isn't exactly useful for Devon. Make no mistake, 90% of chainsaw operatives are not going to make the grade. They are either talented and lazy, or talentless and enthusiastic, or worst of all, talentless and lazy. The very good ones normally end up progressing of the saws to run their own teams and very good quality, experienced cutters are left over once the shite is filtered out. The contrast between the best and worst is as stark as to say that you can lose a lot of money on a bad cutter at £80/day and make a lot off a good cutter paying them £250 a day. Production rates can vary 5 fold within the same block, depending on who's cutting. My recommendation is try to find a way of price controlling. Production rate work is difficult to get with hand cutters now, as they are so scarce. So try to use harvesters instead. Another issue I feel is that there are too many tree surgeons and not enough forestry cutters. Tree surgeons generally don't transition well into forestry as it's a completely different job, requiring much higher production, effort and far more accurate felling. You're felling the timber to sell the product, a fact sometimes lost on those recently having made that transition. For me, I generally always paid £200 a day to my cutters. Most of the guys I used were great and were well worth it. Some took the piss and I never used them again. Either way, I am very glad that I never have to work on hand felled sites again. I'll only be working behind small harvesters, which is a much, much more pleasant gig.

Hmmm, hard to know what the best course of action is. At the moment, to use the analogy that the UK economy/welfare state/public services are a company, and each successive PM that's being brought in is another CEO tasked with bringing it back from the brink of bankruptcy. It's not that the leaders are in themselves awful (with the exception of Truss, I suppose), but that the trajectory is already set and very difficult to avoid. How much is 12 years of Tory rule and how much is the prevailing socioeconomic pressures of the global economy? Probably pretty even, I'd guess. The UK is in a worse position as a result of Brexit than it otherwise would have been. It's not to say that with Covid and the war in Ukraine that it wouldn't still be struggling, but Brexit has added a lot of fuel to that fire, and also locked the door that would have allowed many people to escape the inferno.... And the responsibility for Brexit falls firmly with the Tories. It's difficult to find anyone that can point to an upside. Even the most ardent Brexiteers seem begrudgedly resolute in their commitment to the notion, without offering any benefits. But it's happened and the situation definitely needs to be improved. The UK is heading towards economic oblivion at the moment. The soaring interest rates are going to collapse the property market, put millions into negative equity and result in scores of people having their homes repossessed. The UK has the lowest level of unemployment for decades, yet the highest level of job vacancies in recent memory. Productivity remains the elephant in the room, with the UK scoring very badly compared to it's European counterparts. The welfare state and healthcare is totally unfit for purpose. How can a supposedly developed country allow ambulance to queue for hours outside hospitals? Social services cannot be put in place to support patients leaving hospital, so they can't leave and beds cannot be freed up. I'm only scratching the surface, but against this backdrop, I think it'd be tough for any Tory leader to make a success of it now. The Conservatives have had 12 years in charge. They've not done a good job and whoever is chosen to succeed Truss is always going to be fighting against that legacy. It's time for a change and I honestly believe Kier Starmer is a much better choice.

Always a classic!