Best Of

We should probably wait for the details of the Erasmus deal first before jumping to sneer about it.

The old deal *was* greatly to the benefit of the EU, although the flip-side I suppose was the influx of smart, talented young Europeans into the British workforce.

We're probably going to end up paying £3bn per year or something mad like that with this lot in charge of negotiations.

Also residents of the Isle of Wight need to pay attention. They could end up being in France before they know it.

I thought you were in favour of small boat returns?

Nope. I am in favour of abolishing the right to asylum. We can then give asylum to anyone we choose, such as Ukrainians or Hong Kong Chinese but are under no obligation to accept anyone who has been unlucky enough to be born in some hell hole or thinks they can have a better life here. It needs to become our choice and when it does nearly all of the current chaos of never ending applications, appeals and lack of enforcement of hard won decisions comes to an end.

Per Telegraph:
"Benefit claimants could receive free television licences under sweeping BBC reforms being considered by Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary."
So the actual license payer will not just be stumping up for Trump's amour propre

Why not just give everyone a free TV licence?

That's the 'fund from general taxation' option. Then like schools, hospitals etc it's free at the point of delivery.

The BBC themselves want a digital tax. On ISPs.

Because that way the tax will be hidden from the public. Whose bills for internet connections will go up, of course.

Then all the BBC has to do is ask for more free money every year.

As someone who uses zero BBC services I would object vehemently to such a tax unless it was strictly to fund a limited set of core BBC services; news reporting, public service program making, etc. If the beeb want to continue making soap operas and game shows they should sell subscriptions or advertising to fund them.

Carry on. Object vehemently. Should I object vehemently to university subsidies as I use zero university services? Or adult social services which we fortunately don't use?

Taxation doesn't work like that.

Nothing to stop you objecting though.

Universities and social services benefit the country as a whole. BBC game shows do not.

Per Telegraph:
"Benefit claimants could receive free television licences under sweeping BBC reforms being considered by Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary."
So the actual license payer will not just be stumping up for Trump's amour propre

Why not just give everyone a free TV licence?

That's the 'fund from general taxation' option. Then like schools, hospitals etc it's free at the point of delivery.

The BBC themselves want a digital tax. On ISPs.

Because that way the tax will be hidden from the public. Whose bills for internet connections will go up, of course.

Then all the BBC has to do is ask for more free money every year.

As someone who uses zero BBC services I would object vehemently to such a tax unless it was strictly to fund a limited set of core BBC services; news reporting, public service program making, etc. If the beeb want to continue making soap operas and game shows they should sell subscriptions or advertising to fund them.

@PippaCrerar

EXCL: An agreement to rejoin Erasmus – the EU’s student exchange programme – set to be announced on Wednesday as part of UK government’s drive towards closer relations with Brussels.

https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/2000992877443231788?s=20

Is this where we give the EU what they want and they fuck us up the ass.

SKS would pay full price for a Dominos pizza

Brexit was just a spiteful destruction of opportunity voted for by people who'd had their time and had no plan for the aftermath.
It's been left to the people who voted against it to make the best of the mess left behind, turns out that means trying to recover the benefits at greater cost as was said at the time.
Suck it up.

Standard drivel.

Brexit opened doors. Doors can allow you to leave the house, have fun, get a job, or meet the love of your life. Or you can stand at the threshold in the stiff breeze rooted to the spot, reminiscing about how great it was when the door was closed.

I thought it was like having a baby? Certainly it seems to lend itself to fanciful analogy in lieu of any mundane workaday benefits.

Fanciful or otherwise, you do seem to have had difficulty understanding it. Let me be more prosaic. With some obvious 'workaday', exceptions like the absence of membership fees (not exactly chump change when Reeves' hasn't got two pennies to bless herself with), Brexit restored a fairly large arsenal of competencies to the UK Government. Competencies only become benefits if one decides to use them. And deciding not to use them at all was not an outcome that anyone, from the most ardent Brexit supporter to the most passionate remainer, predicted.

Ah I see. So we're just waiting for the right government to come along and it's lift off. Right you are. That's good. It has the benefit of being repeatable forever more.

Brexit is like Communism. It only appears to have failed because it has never been tried properly.

Back to his lawyerly brilliance:

“Every time I go to pull a lever, there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arms-length bodies that mean the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be"

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2000594550599864781

If only he was the PM with a large majority, who might be in a position to actually do something about the regulatory and bureaucratic overload?

Having a large majority doesn't free you from public law obligations around due process, consultation, taking full account of objections and so on.

Now, you could loosen some of those constraints - but that in itself is a project that detracts from your main agenda. Further, rather like the filibuster in the US, a sensible politician realises majorities come and go, and reducing friction for yourself today does so for your opponent tomorrow.

It does. Parliament has unlimited power. Starmer could have legislated away those constraints on day 1 if he was prepared and wanted to.