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Ryder Cup
at 08:58 29 Sep 2025

To put it mildly the US fans didn't win many friends with their boorish behaviour.
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NHS guidance on first cousin marriage
at 08:55 29 Sep 2025

The recent thread on Halal meat in schools raised the question of whether Governments are making too many concessions to minority demands that may be opposed by the majority native population. Now there is controversy about NHS guidance suggesting that there are advantages in first cousin marriage.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/nhs-supports-first-cousin-marriages-14302319

This comes despite 2013 research evidence from Bradford University which found higher levels of birth defects (6.1% compared with 2.4% in non-consanguineous marriages in the study) affecting couples who are first cousins, presumably leading to higher costs falling on the NHS and social care.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-23183102

https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f4374

It could be argued that the NHS guidance comes from the NHS's Genomics Education Programme rather than the top, but many will say this is misguided.

[Post edited 29 Sep 9:02]
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Are Plaid going to win the Senedd vote next year ?
at 15:37 27 Sep 2025

Plaid would just be more of the same, just as woke and detached from fiscal realities. I do not see Reform as a long-term solution, at least not in their present from, but I shall vote for them in order to encourage the others. We cannot keep going as we are and nothing will concentrate minds in Cardiff Bay and Westminster like the shock of Reform as the largest party in the Senedd.
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Swansea City v Millwall : Match day thread
at 14:31 27 Sep 2025

Some good football from us in some passages of play, but we eased up again after going ahead and let Millwall back into the game. They had a couple of very good chances. Having said that the ref did us absolutely no favours with three very controversial decisions. I think at least one should have gone our way.
[Post edited 27 Sep 14:33]
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Energy debt
at 10:21 27 Sep 2025

I was surprised to see this claim. On checking, I found different answers in different places.

This report dated at Q4 2024 says we are the most expensive in Europe:

https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q4-2024/why-are-britains-power-prices-the

AI says we are 2nd only to the Czech Republic.

This website backs that up but with 2022 figures.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/09/08/soaring-energy-prices-how-does-the

Another one that states it uses 2024 figures is closer to your suggestion, with Italy, Denmark, Switzerland all more expensive than us.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-electricity-by-countr

The comparison may be more complicated than we might assume, with for example industrial and residential prices being different.
[Post edited 27 Sep 12:04]
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Halal meat
at 08:08 27 Sep 2025

If this is correct then one wonders if the menu at the link reflects the school's creative attempt to defuse parental disquiet by making people think there is a non-halal option when this isn't the case with meat dishes.
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Starmer
at 12:36 26 Sep 2025

Opinions vary. Just because somebody is a professor doesn't mean they are right.
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Starmer
at 11:23 26 Sep 2025

That is the view of an accountant rather than an economist.

1. Bond yields in a particular country are largely dependant on investors' assessment of the state of the economy of that country, When governments of different countries issue bonds for sale some must pay a higher interest return than others to attracts buyers. It is no accident that France and the UK are having to pay a higher rate of interest than say Denmark.

2. It is not only the bond yield that is relevant, but the size of the national debt in relation to GDP. Once the debt exceeds 100% of annual GDP the size of interest payments rises alarmingly and before long corrective action and austerity follow. To say "Don't worry about bond yields and increase public spending" ignores that we are already on the primrose path close to the 100% mark.

3. To say that our bond yields are high because investors are instead moving money to the FTSE is a parochial view. Investors come from all over the world and have many investment choices open to them. They may wish to hold bonds rather than just stocks within a balanced portfolio, and will be looking at bonds issued by other governments as well as UK bonds.
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Halal meat
at 09:46 26 Sep 2025

Interesting menus. So either Kelly Small's information was incorrect/superseded or all meat in Swansea schools is indeed halal but some is not labelled as such. It seems hard to get to the bottom of this. Are there any other requirements that might affect the labelling of halal meals besides type of meat?
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Balance between net contributors and net recipients
at 09:38 26 Sep 2025

This is emerging as one of the UK's biggest problems. We've known for a while that the proportion of households that receive more in benefits and services than they pay in tax was inching up, but since COVID it is well over half, which looks unsustainable.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/more-than-half-of-uk-population-live-in-ho
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Halal meat
at 20:13 25 Sep 2025

But we have established that there is no choice in Swansea schools; all meat is halal.
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Digital ID cards Starmer’s latest harebrained scheme
at 20:11 25 Sep 2025

I've said several times on the forum that juridification - the expansion of law into other domains like politics - is one of the big problems of our age. If politicians can translate policies into law, and especially international law, they can ensure that their favoured approach is very difficult for later governments to undo,
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Halal meat
at 20:02 25 Sep 2025

Indeed so, and it will be interesting to see if people remember decisions like this when the Senedd elections come around in May. Of course, Plaid are just as woke as Welsh Labour.
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Halal meat
at 19:57 25 Sep 2025

But what if persons of a particular religious persuasion objected that it was against their beliefs to be forced to consume meat from animals that had been slaughtered inhumanely? Clearly, we do not have the resources to cater for too many religious factions, and it would seem to make sense to go with the preferences of the majority population, possibly with one alternative. The current policy would seem to support the argument that the wishes of the majority population are not paramount.
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Halal meat
at 19:25 25 Sep 2025

Here is the video evidence.

https://www.24vids.com/video/all-swansea-school-meals-halalappearing-before-a-se

It seems that Cowbridge led the way with this policy and most or perhaps all of Wales followed.
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Starmer
at 19:20 25 Sep 2025

As usual Trampie has lost the plot. It is the borrowing that will be a huge problem as the bond markets jack up gilt yields and the UK has to pay higher interest on the national debt.
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Starmer
at 17:45 25 Sep 2025

Burnham seems to be firmly in the spend and borrow camp. He said that he would “turn the country around” by raising council tax on expensive homes in the South East, borrow £40 billion to build council houses, and reduce income tax to 10% for lower earners while raising the top rate to 50%. Most tellingly, he said there was no need to be "in hock to the bond markets". As others have said, this sounds like Liz Truss Mk 2.
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Immigrants
at 22:20 24 Sep 2025

The Government would probably say this is done to meet our treaty obligations to provide healthcare for asylum seekers. Actually though, some EU countries such as Germany require irregular immigrants to be in the country for a certain period of time before they are eligible for certain dental and other treatments, so once again I think this is due to the UK's "expansionist" interpretation of what it is required to do.

https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2681?utm_medium=internal&utm_source=tre
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Immigrants
at 13:56 24 Sep 2025

I posted a link a while ago that calculated how many average tax payers (based on their total tax paid) it took to fund the ongoing costs of one illegal immigrant. I've forgotten how many now but think it was about 10.
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Immigrants
at 09:17 24 Sep 2025

Legal immigration is too high and is the bigger long-term problem, but the illegal entries get publicity because of the risks they pose (many resultant deaths and sexual assaults now over the last 5 years or so) and the manifest unfairness when asylum seekers are treated better than other disadvantaged groups. There is a story of some hard-to-swallow episode almost every week. Here is the latest one.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/fury-as-home-office-contractor-spends-344-0
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