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Trump has banned dividends, stock buybacks and limited executive pay for US listed defence companies as he’s not happy with them.

They are too slow delivering equipment for the US and their allies.

Oh well, any defence Dividend Kings or Aristocrats will lose their crown.

https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/2008980600082891204?s=61

Executives of US defense contractors will no longer be allowed to make more than $5 million unless they build "new and modern production plants."

Labour backbenchers will be envious of this kind of approach.

Labour backbenchers, if they don't view private business as fundamentally a criminal enterprise, otherwise view them as an instrument of public policy and a cash cow.

The productive economy is there to have its pockets picked to reward the unproductive economy.

We have a labour business team made up,of people who’ve never run in, or worked in, a business. Just charities, NGOs and the like. Utterly useless.

We don't need no regulation.

We don't need no behaviour control.

Hey! Labour! ..leave our pubs alone!

I glanced at the earlier debate about alcohol limits, drinking, driving and pubs.

I'll be heretical - I can quite happily go into a pub, NOT have an alcoholic drink and enjoy myself. I certainly agree with those who assert the pub is a focal point for social life especially in rural communities - yes, and I enjoyed the hospitality of one in Waldron, albeit under unfortunaste circumstances, just before Christmas.

The ending of business rates relief for pubs is a disaster and rather like the Winter Fuel Allowance, the political presentation has been equally catastrophic. Had the relief been extended or an announcement it would be phased out over a three year period (perhaps) been part of the Budget, there'd have been grumblings I'm sure but I know enough about business to understand an immediate 110% increase in a key overhead isn't good news.

Subsidising the existence and maintenance of pubs when you are looking at a £150 billion deficit probably isn't a good idea but this is one of those times when the cost matters much less than the value. That being said, have the Conservatives, LDs, Reform or any other party opposed to the Reeves plan said whether they would re-introduce the Business Rates relief were they to become the Government and at what level?

The business rates changes are going to kill many businesses. They are simply not sustainable and I can see the exchequer actually losing money as so many businesses just shut up shop.

Tom Kerridge was on LBC talking about this. The rates on his pub in Marlow are going up from £50,000 a year to £124,000 a year.

How can any small business survive that sort of change?

I will happily die on the hill of lower and fewer taxes generating more tax revenue.

FPT
bondegezou said:

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The thing about international law is that it's very libertarian. (You'd think @BartholomewRoberts would like it!) The basic principle is that countries leave each other alone, and what happens in your country is your business (unless it gets absolutely extreme, e.g. genocide).

I said:
International law is a very mixed bag of things, some good, some less so. At its best it regulates relationships between countries to their mutual benefit (eg trade agreements), standardises equipment with consequential gains to users and provides non violent ways of resolving disputes. At its worse it makes what is happening in other countries such as the destruction of the Uyghurs, the Burmese slaughter of the Rohingyas and the appalling behaviour of the IDF none of our business or at least provides no effective mechanisms to stop the outrages.

Trump's abduction and kidnapping of Maduro and his wife, along with the massacre of his supposed guards, is completely contrary to any rules based system. I really don't see a problem with pointing out that this is very damaging to international law and the prospects of peaceful resolution of future issues. I don't think it is a problem pointing out that this is not how we think things should be done and that this was a very bad thing. That is entirely independent of the question of whether Maduro is a very bad man or not (which is not much of a question really). Personally, I don't think that this is that complicated and the idea that opposing such criminal behaviour on the part of the US is somehow supporting Maduro is really for the hard of thinking.

You have to remember there are departments of people in Whitehall whose only function is to try to work out how to ban certain “harms”.

They don’t care about pubs closing, it’s outside their remit.

At least on this thread so far, nobody has explained how many lives or crashes this proposal will save. I expect the answer is statistically insignificant.

exactly just the usual bollox and blame every death on someone having had a drink. The killjoys are never ever happy , they want people as miserable as tehy can make them.

We’ve even had a suggestion we should increase the price of supermarket alcohol to ‘help pubs’

Never any suggestion that the way to help pubs is to reduce the burdens on them. Doing that is a ‘subsidy’ and that is not on.

Sadly we are a nation with many joy sponges whose career depends on micro managing our lives.

Fuck off and leave us alone.