peterms

Glad they cleared that up.

I think the neeps and tatties are there as veg which would be easily available and cheap in a climate not greatly suited to a wide variety of produce, and as haggis was very much cheap peasant food, they went together very practically. Haggis can be dry, so I can see why people would have a sauce with it - though HP works well.

You're a wrong 'un, Tony, there's no getting round it.

Just whisky to drink. I'm not sure the whisky sauce thing is traditional - I think it may be a marketing thing that hotels introduced. But I'm not keen on the haggis, neeps, tatties thing - I find it a bit bland and boring. It's popular, though.

We will be about 20 for dinner, including a vegan, one or two vegetarians, some keen meat-eaters, and someone who can't eat dairy. The standard roast dinner doesn't suit that too well, and also the number means that we would struggle for oven space, and the timings for things competing for oven space would be an issue, and the logistics of getting everyone served are difficult. So we often do something more like a mezze spread. More can be done in advance so it takes the pressure off, it's easy to accommodate all the preferences, there's less problem finding oven space and gas rings all at the same time, and people can pick at what they want when they want, which makes it all a bit more relaxed and informal. It also means that people can prep something at home and bring it to the gathering, which again makes things easier for whoever is hosting. This year we'll be at the sister-in-law's, so she will do something and I and others will bring things. I'll probably make some breads like pita, foccaccia and flatbread with za'ataar, some dips and fresh and cooked salads, and get a jamon to carve, so all that is a pretty substantial start. After that, maybe some things like piri piri chicken or chicken wings in garlic and tahini, though we've also had duck with pomengranate sauce, roast pork belly with fennel seeds, turkey breast in coriander and white wine - not all at the one do. Also things like stuffed squid, and last year I did fish fingers, which was an Ottolenghi treatment involving lime, chili, coconut and breadcrumbs. Also things like patatas bravas or spicy roast potatoes or sweet potato gratin, some kind of rice dish, and more salads. So the vegan/veggie/no dairy people have a good selection, and the meat eaters are also ok. We just sit round a very big table for a very long time, and get away from the idea of everyone having the same thing to eat at the same moment. Works for us.

Yes, it's the standard term. Haggis, neeps and tatties for Burns Supper. With whisky.

There's another point here, which is that say 30 or 40 years ago, someone in the top 5% income earners would probably perceive themselves as better off and more comfortable relative to others than he clearly does. The days when, to use his examples, doctors and lawyers were seen as being above almost everyone else, living pleasant and comfortable lifestyles. One income earner in the household often providing a good standard of living. In part, it is the astronomical extremes of wealth that now exist that have changed that. People like him, objectively among the top earners, feel they aren't up there, and are resentful about it. It's hard to feel sorry for him, especially since he comes across as he does, and yet he has some kind of a point. Perhaps he should instead be asking why he doesn't feel better off, since he's earning more than almost everyone else. He might even support a wealth tax, especially if it meant switching some taxation from income to wealth.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here, which the programme format and presenter don't seem well placed to clear up (at least from that clip, I've not seen the rest). His perception that he's not in the top 5% seems not just about income, but also about wealth, and his perception that there's more than 1 in 20 who are better off than him, speaking more broadly than simply income - he refers for example to people who don't work at all because they are so rich. He may well be right on him not being in the top 5% in that respect, I don't know. But the discussion is more narrowly about income tax for the top 5% earners. It's not helped by his clear unwillingness to listen to anything that doesn't fit what he's worked himself up to say, and to be fair he's not the brightest spark, but there's an important point lurking there about wealth vs income, and how best to tackle extreme inequalities in each.

I wonder if she has pondered the irony of erasing a protest against an apartheid state, in order to pursue her campaign in support of another apartheid state. I expect not.

Is there some way to undo my post, and what it gave rise to? I suppose you'll make a meal out of "gave rise to" now. Utter bastards.

I misread that as canal appeal, and I thought, oh that's nice, Anne is organising some kind of cleanup or litterpicking event for our historic waterways. Time for some reading glasses.

Yes, I can't speak for what Dem intended by his post, just commenting on the general point.

Don't worry about "plunging the nation into debt". The FT recently ran a piece about the global problem of the shortage of safe assets, ie government bonds, ie public "debt". The things you need to worry about are private debt, with so many people having so much debt and so little room for manoeuvre when we hit the next set of problems, and also proposals like the illiterate madness from the Libdems about creating a government surplus, in other words taking money out of the economy and pushing more people even further into debt. A large programme of investment is exactly what is needed. If that is geared at tackling climate change, and building homes to let people rent at affordable prices and not go further into personal debt to give landlords even more unearned income, even better. And if the new government decides to issue more bonds as a consequence, I should think the pension funds and other institutional investors will be very happy to buy them.

By making a mistake. It's quite possible to believe something that is false and to make a claim on that basis (this thread contains multiple examples). Lying is making a claim you know to be false.

"Free at the point of use" is the specific phrase that has been used in Labour policy documents for literally decades for various services. A simple web search for the phrase plus "labour" will show you many examples.

Do you really think that anyone understands this to mean "without any cost" rather than "free to the user at the point of use"? Imagining that these things depend wholly on unpaid volunteers, no energy use, and on infrastructure that somehow materialises without in any way being resourced? Is anyone at all really liable to think that?

Perhaps they think he can draw on his Scottish heritage and in-depth understanding of the issues facing Scottish businesses, as he did here.

Gove flailing around on C4 news, trying to defend the "fact check" nonsense as not misleading. They filmed him in a farmyard, presumably to have an appropriate backdrop of bullshit.

Everything's relative, man.

NEF modelled the proposals about NI changes which were being put forward by candidates for the tory leadership a few months ago. It sounds like the current proposal is the first of the dot points below.

Man in hole asks for bigger shovel.

Oborne has broken with the central points of his professional and political life because he believed them to be wrong. He gave up a (presumably) well paid job on the Torygraph because he found them morally lacking. He has now attacked his profession, with copious evidence, because it is shallow and false. There are very few people who have taken such a stand at such personal cost. One of the very few tories I admire.

These are people who will have made an effort to be there, probably nominated by a party, and whose heckling will be planned. They will only get one shot at it, they won't be allowed to sit there all night having a go. This is the issue they chose to go on. It's worth noting it was a very small number of people doing this.