Best Of

Rightwinger Sanae Takaichi elected by the ruling LDP to be the new PM of Japan

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pmy7m72lo

Twas ever thus - wrong kind of woman?

She’s against gay marriage and doesn’t think women should be allowed to keep their maiden names on marriage, IIRC. You can imagine why some people might oppose her stances.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married.

It really doesn't seem complicated to me.

Also gay people have always been allowed to get married. Just not, previously, to people they loved.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?

Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes

If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it

I hate cliff edges as a matter of principle, there should be no maximum that leads to being forced out.

However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.

If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?

Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes

If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.

Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.

Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.

Personally I would cut off child
benefit at £100k or above household income.

I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it

While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.

What a twit I am. They already do that.

In the age of computers, having cliff edges in the taxation system is ridiculous.

The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.

Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.

Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.

Personally I would cut off child
benefit at £100k or above household income.

I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it

The postwar social safety net including universal healthcare set out by the Attlee Government is a failed project in every way shape or form. The Conservative Government between 2010 and 2024 crashed the project to write-off status. Whether this was cock-up (Boris Johnson handing out cash and benefits like confetti) or conspiracy ( because they hated the hand put society) is debatable.

Nope.

The postwar plan was 100% based on rapid economic growth *and* demographics (lots of workers who remember to do the right thing and die before collecting benefits).

Everything to be paid out of current taxation.

A move to savings accounts for pensions was mooted in the 90s - reflected comprehensively on the Left.

Even then, with the vanishing of rapid growth (the rising tide reached the inherent level), less workers and the old refusing to die, it’s not dead.

Someone told the story, yesterday, of a relative who has been on a government pension (updated, indexed etc) longer than he worked in the job. Which was his whole working life up to retirement.

Which isn’t a bad thing, morally. It’s just that the fundamental premises behind the system do not work with such outcomes.

Another factor is the inability to cut our cloth according to the measure of what we have. Some little time ago, we had the story of two children in care. Due to special needs etc, a house was being purchase for their use and those of their 24/7 careers. The cost was estimated at £250,000 per child, per year. For life.

Now, I would say that is probably an improvement over the infamous Romanian orphanages. The problem is affordability.

We need to learn how to do functional without gold plating. Because if we say “Gold plated or nothing” - we may well get nothing.

OT. It so happens that my sister and her vast family are members of the Heaton Park synagogue in Prestwich where the killing took place. They were there yesterday but thankfully undamaged. Indeed the last time I visited that synagogue was for the wedding of one of her children about five years ago.

I'm really not interested in getting into this anti semitism discussion particularly when it is as full of ignorance as it so often is on here when the leading racists take the stage.

But how is it after the wanton killings of newsmen babies small children photo journalists doctors nurses and at least 60,000 non combatents we know no details whatsoever about the life stories of any of them yet we are told out of respect for the synagogue attack all demonstations against the Gazan genocide should stop. Just don't offend Jews?

Does Netanyahu answer for anything? He is a proven liar and a butcher yet not a word from the Board of Deputies against him except that trying to charge him with genocide is an outrage.

British Jews opinion of Netanyahu is strongly negative*:

"95% of adult British Jews have an opinion on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most widely known leader among those examined. Four in five Jews hold an unfavourable opinion of him, with 65% saying they “strongly disapprove” and 15% saying they “somewhat” disapprove of him."

https://www.jpr.org.uk/reports/what-do-jews-uk-think-about-israel-and-its-leaders-and-how-has-changed-october-7

You wouldn't know that if you just read the output of the Board of Deputies, or for that matter PB, or indeed British Jihadists.

* the poll is from 2024, but things have only got worse since.

He has collected letters from every MP who likes him.

Next week he hopes to make it to double figures.

From the header-linked story:-

Sources said up to 12 letters of no confidence had already been written, but are yet to be submitted to Bob Blackman. He is chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee and would normally file letters until the threshold for challenge had been reached. By holding on to the letters, the allies of Jenrick remain in greater control of any potential challenge.

Recent rule changes now require a move by 30 per cent of the Parliamentary party or 36 letters of no-confidence. They would then hold a ballot.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/tories-plotting-replace-badenoch-jenrick-3955742

30% is quite a high bar, requiring almost everyone who is sceptical of a leader to act. It's a very non trivial barrier to surmount, compared with the travails of getting only 15% of letters in.

I wonder if the additional hurdle makes Badenoch a lot safer than we might suppose and brings the Conservatives quite a lot closer to Labour in terms of leader safety.

Clear betting implications here.

It'd be comically fitting if Jenrick manages to topple Badenoch, then Cleverly wins a leadership contest.