Best Of

A couple of difficulties with a Corbyn candidacy from the Devolution Bill (assuming it passes, which is a pretty safe bet with a large Labour majority):

1. The Mayor of London will no longer be able to be a sitting MP. That's fine for Corbyn standing, but he'd need to resign his seat to take the job if elected. Corbyn loves being an MP - it's all he's ever known and it's his world. It also makes it hard for him to "lead" his party - he cannot be his party's PM designate or whatever as Mayor of London (and for the same reason, Farage wouldn't stand).

2. The electoral system is returning to supplementary vote (which the original tweet seems to miss with reference to "a four-way split"). Extreme candidates are less well-placed on second preferences.

I think there are other problems with a Corbyn run. He's never shown any real interest in or views on municipal government - get him onto workers rights for Bolivian tin miners or whatever, and he won't shut up... electriification of the SL4 route and the pros and cons of floating bus stops, not so much. Contrast Ken Livingstone back in the day - similarly left wing but authentically interested in London. It's also quite a constrained role that requires compromise and deals with government - it just doesn't come with an ability to implement radical left ideas.

Whilst it could be a trading bet - if Corbyn's party does reasonably well in local elections in May, presumably his odds will come in. But I really don't see him running or winning if he does.

Some hyper local news. Depressingly I’m pretty sure we’ll see copy cat events in the near future.

https://x.com/thecourieruk/status/1961452543868797030?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

I can't read the article, but here's another agnle:

"THE man who filmed a viral incident in Dundee in which a schoolgirl allegedly brandished a knife and axe has spoken out amid a rush of far-right misinformation."

""A 12-year-old girl has been charged with being in possession of offensive weapons. She will be referred to the relevant authorities and our enquiries are ongoing."

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25424288.dundee-migrant-centre-far-right-misinformation-row-speaks/

It's a good job we don't have a far-right poster who tells us all to seek out the true story, but who is too frit to tell us the story himself....

I am old enough to remember when right wingers would clutch their pearls at teenagers carrying bladed weapons.

'Would you support or oppose requiring landlords to pay National Insurance on rental income?

Support: 48%
Oppose: 27%'

60% of Labour and 56% of LDs in favour.

48% of Reform voters opposed and 30% in favour, 42% of Tory voters opposed and 36% in favour
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1961451968502673874

I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.

However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was

"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".

Because this, in effect, is what would happen.

I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care

And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?

It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.

Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.

If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you

This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.

The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week.
However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.

So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.

NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).

You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.

If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead

Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.

NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.

I would have predicted this tendency .. but nothing like these numbers.

I will see if I can write about this, but the split is really major among young Dems vs young Republicans. The divide declines heavily with age.

For voters under 30 re: "would you cut family off for opposing political views"...

GOP: 77-23 "No"
Dems: 74-26 "Yes"
https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1961458072729334197

I don't find that surprising. GOP voters (if they still are despite Trump) are colluding with something rather horrible. If I were a Dem over there (easy to imagine) and under 30 (a bigger stretch) I'd probably be answering yes to that.

I still think it's wrong - family have a right to their opinions, and they're still family. I'd be surprised if a family member cut me off for being left-wing, and I wouldn't be bothered if they were Reform voters - actual neo-Nazis would be difficult, but unlikely.

For that matter, we all chat more or less amicably here without being in the same family. It's not that hard!

Yes. I wouldn't really. But Trumpism would test that. Me v somebody who's into Donald Trump isn't normal political disagreement, it's more than that. I judge support for Trump to be indicative of stupidity or bad character. It's a special case. Normally I'm quite chilled on this political stuff. Some of the nicest people in my life (now and in the past) have been Tories or even Liberal Democrats. But Trumpites, no. Can't stretch to that.

I wouldn't rule out being friends with a MAGA type as a matter of principle, but equally I can't imagine anyone I am actually friends with being that much of a twat.

I have a friend who was pro Trump back when he beat HRC but has wised up since. And that was a big relief because he is a good friend.

Good to hear. At this point if you're supporting Trump you have to be either stupid or malign. Like I say, I wouldn't drop anyone on principle over this but I just can't imagine anyone I'm actually friends with buying into this stuff. There are probably people who I'm friendly with as opposed to actual friends who might see Trump as the "lesser of two evils" because they're against the liberal left. I'm not going to stop speaking to them. But I can't imagine someone in that camp being a real friend. Trumpism isn't really a political philosophy in my opinion, it's more a statement about someone's entire personality. It suggests something fundamentally off about them - that they can tolerate the cruelty, the bullying, the lying, the ignorance, the vulgarity, the utter absence of anything decent and human and kind. I just don't see myself gelling with someone like that. And I have had friends who are conservative Republicans in the past, who were not like that at all.

None of main childhood vaccine uptake targets reached in England - as MMR uptake hits 15-year low
The uptake target for all childhood vaccines is 95% - but one of the main pre-school boosters has been administered to just over 80% of five-year-olds.
https://news.sky.com/story/none-of-main-childhood-vaccine-uptake-targets-reached-in-england-as-mmr-uptake-hits-15-year-low-13419867

I guess this means no sneering at America.

It would be interesting to know which areas of the country are most responsible for the drop in vaccination, assuming it isn't uniform.

Based on the anecdotes of my father’s ex-colleagues there’s a London factor and a white working class factor across the UK.

Antivax sentiment has increased since the pandemic, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, it’s much worse than the Andrew Wakefield bullshit.

Doctors are getting regularly abused when they suggest to some parents that their kids need their vaccines.

London factor?

A mixture of some recent arrivals and some very middle class people who won’t allow poisons to be injected into them or their kids, the sort that believe in homeopathy.

I knew a man very well who died of Covid, because of his refusal to be "injected with poisons". He was a law graduate, from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and I found it hard to fathom such stupidity.

I had a friend, fairly intelligent, had a wonderful wife and three kids, was convinced Covid was a hoax and the vaccine was going to control/kill us all.

Got into a row with his friends and family, some of whom had friends/family who died from Covid.

Told his wife he would divorce her and would never see his kids if they got vaccinated.

Well he’s divorced now, hasn’t seen his kids in four years, I’d like to blame social media, but it wasn’t that, he was just convinced by his own arguments.

He went from earning a six figure salary, to being unemployed and living in a small one bedroom flat.

From what I hear he was sacked from his job for being abusive to the vaccinated.

I thought you said he was fairly intelligent.

Intelligence and self radicalising into weird conspiracy theories can go together.

Knew a chap who had a PhD in Art History. Urbane, polite. Went full MAGA + QANON

I have a friend who did a Masters in Egyptology. But she couldn't find work. So now she's studying for a PhD to teach others.
I'm beginning to suspect the entire subject is an elaborate pyramid scheme.

Judge Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election wing of 2029.

You heard it here first!

She’d be the worse judge since Roland Freisler.

The disturbing thing about Freisler - and other Nazi jurists - is that they were all highly qualified. He had a doctorate in law, from a good university. Which in turn, made it very easy for many of them to move seamlessly back into civilian life at the war's end.

Remember that bit in Conspiracy, when Klopfer asks how many lawyers are present, and more than half raise their hands.

About 20 years ago I read an interview with a documentary maker and he was planning on doing a dramatisation of the People’s Court after the July 20th plot but decided not to because when they read the transcripts they thought the audience would assume scenes like this were an exaggeration.

At one point, Freisler yelled at Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, who was trying to hold up his trousers after being purposely given old, oversized and beltless clothing: "You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?"

You get the dissonance nicely shown in some of the Philip Kerr cycle of novels about Bernie Gunther - especially during Gunther's service on the Eastern Front. The contrast with the respect for the law and what was happening ...

As a young man, one quote that had a profound impact on me and made me a Conservative and makes me recoil from the modern day Tory party is this one, Mrs Thatcher would be disgusted at the modern day Tory party.

‘The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law.’