Best Of

Not only did the Ukrainians hit the oil terminal in Novorossiysk (the explosion there was massive), and air defences there, but they also hit the Saratov oil refinery again and a fuel depot near the Engels airbase.

Meanwhile the Russians hit nearly a dozen apartment blocks in Kyiv.

Russia must lose and be seen to lose.

Yes, the contrast between the targets of the two sides was quite stark yesterday.

On the front lines the action is in the town of Pokrovsk, with the Russians sending tens of thousands of men there in the last few days, most of whom meet an unfortunate fate.

FPT:
Oil pipeline terminal in Novorossiysk, with a bit of a smoking problem.

https://x.com/tendar/status/1989110149127238095
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1989196881931694280
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1989121637367836967

Also a military facility in the same city, probably air defences and ammunition.

https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1989146396256334302
https://x.com/tendar/status/1989124320598073606

The Russians, meanwhile, well they’re bombing apartment blocks in Kyiv.

https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1989122025143824804

Russia has fought a very stupid war.

Three and a half years after Operation Barbarossa started, the Red Army was closing on Berlin.

Three and a half years after the SMO began, Russia has advanced 20 miles into the Donbass.

Our government seems to be conducting budget negotiations via opinion polls.
The absolute antithesis of leadership.

Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates
https://x.com/FT/status/1989100368467272006

But if you’re lowering the thresholds at which people start paying (as is mooted by some articles), that’s still an income tax rise. They’re just presenting it as non manifesto breaching because it doesn’t affect the rate (nobody will be impressed with that justification but that’s what they’re going for presumably). That said, surely they won’t cut the personal allowance?

I do fear we’re back to the drawing board of lots of weird taxes around the edges of everything. This won’t collect the money she expects, and I am not convinced the markets will buy it.

Window tax likely to make a comeback?

Maybe a giant holibobs tax.

Huge taxes on cats and dogs. Mahoosive on horses.

Fishing rod tax. Enormous taxes on having a garden.

I'm sure they will have thought of some more creative ways to piss off the voters by Budget Day.

Their focus group polling on raising income tax must have been terrifying. Something they can't remotely recover from in this term. But they aren't smart enough to find a way round it to raise the funding they need.

They really are making it up as they go along. Government by opinion poll and newspaper reactions to kite-flying.

Fun to watch from a distance, but people are making real-world decisions based on the rumours - many of whom will be joining myself in expatville in the near future, at great detriment to the government’s finances.

It's absurd that politicians have trapped themselves into a world where the principal tax rates can never be increased. The whole logic of a tax rate is that the tax is broadly based , and the headline rate goes up or down according to policy and the state of national finances, so that the cost of increases (or the benefit of reductions) is appropriately and widely spread.

That 'politics' apparently prevents flexing the rates of the broadly-based taxes and hence the government needs to gather up a whole load of 'special' tax changes focused on a whole series of minority interests is sub-optimal both for national governance and - almost certainly - in terms of its political impact, as those groups singled out to pay more will surely howl in protest.

The politicians who have trapped themselves here are Starmer and Reeves.

They were stupid to give the pledge in the way it was in the first instance, they were stupid to double down on it when they got into power (focussing instead on WFA), they were stupid to raise employers NI and claim no technical breach, and they were stupid not to leave themselves enough headroom so that they’ve got more problems to fix in their second budget when their political power is weaker.

Textbook on how not to run a government.

Our government seems to be conducting budget negotiations via opinion polls.
The absolute antithesis of leadership.

Starmer and Reeves ditch Budget plan to increase income tax rates
https://x.com/FT/status/1989100368467272006

But if you’re lowering the thresholds at which people start paying (as is mooted by some articles), that’s still an income tax rise. They’re just presenting it as non manifesto breaching because it doesn’t affect the rate (nobody will be impressed with that justification but that’s what they’re going for presumably). That said, surely they won’t cut the personal allowance?

I do fear we’re back to the drawing board of lots of weird taxes around the edges of everything. This won’t collect the money she expects, and I am not convinced the markets will buy it.

Window tax likely to make a comeback?

Maybe a giant holibobs tax.

Huge taxes on cats and dogs. Mahoosive on horses.

Fishing rod tax. Enormous taxes on having a garden.

I'm sure they will have thought of some more creative ways to piss off the voters by Budget Day.

Their focus group polling on raising income tax must have been terrifying. Something they can't remotely recover from in this term. But they aren't smart enough to find a way round it to raise the funding they need.

They really are making it up as they go along. Government by opinion poll and newspaper reactions to kite-flying.

Fun to watch from a distance, but people are making real-world decisions based on the rumours - many of whom will be joining myself in expatville in the near future, at great detriment to the government’s finances.

It's absurd that politicians have trapped themselves into a world where the principal tax rates can never be increased. The whole logic of a tax rate is that the tax is broadly based , and the headline rate goes up or down according to policy and the state of national finances, so that the cost of increases (or the benefit of reductions) is appropriately and widely spread.

That 'politics' apparently prevents flexing the rates of the broadly-based taxes and hence the government needs to gather up a whole load of 'special' tax changes focused on a whole series of minority interests is sub-optimal both for national governance and - almost certainly - in terms of its political impact, as those groups singled out to pay more will surely howl in protest.

After droning on about doing the right thing for the country v the politically expedient thing it looks like it will be the latter .

If Reeves and Starmer were so worried about the political damage breaking a manifesto commitment would be then they should have not suggested they were going to do that . Now it just looks like they’re flailing around without a clue and will instead raise a range of other taxes and then hope for the best .

Messing around with thresholds looks like a sleight of hand . I’ve never known a budget where so many kites have been flown .

Labour backbenchers are living in cloud cuckoo land now being marshalled by Powell who will just say anything to ingratiate herself with them and the general public hoping to be in the right place if Starmer goes .

Unless Starmer and Reeves are incredibly lucky then this all looks like ending in tears . Where exactly is growth going to come from ?

People who don’t want a Reform government like myself just look on in horror .

If you have a majority of 170 you should carry out the policies you believe in. I can't believe they've caved in.

The trouble is that they have a sinking feeling, common amongst the even-slightly-reallistic left since the collapse of the Cold War, that the policies they believe in with their hearts, don't actually work and in fact make most things much worse. While there is no support in their party for policies that do work.

So they are left with either shameless, dishonest centrist opportunism, a la Blair, or technocratic managerialism, as Starmer has tried and failed dismally. Neither really work when you don't have a golden Thatcherite economic legacy to squander.

It was obvious that the Starmer government would end up this way, but I've been very surprised by the size and speed of the collapse.

The Labour business model is broken. It piles too much support for the public sector onto the shoulders of the private sector and then onto the voters.

What “works”, and has what worked as long as I can remember, is liberal democracy, combined with well regulated capital markets, consumer protection, a social safety net, respect for human rights and civil liberties, government support and investment in areas of potential market failure like healthcare, transportation and education, and the rule of law.

That’s not a left or right thing. It’s a civilisation thing.

And what has broken down is the loss of a sense of community; of being part of a larger whole. It’s rent maximisation from property owners; pensioners resisting any cuts; campaigners always demanding more spending on their pet projects. The WASPI women are a good example. Yes the administration was flawed. No that doesn’t mean you get billions in compensation

No one recognises that the whole has got to work for everyone anymore

After droning on about doing the right thing for the country v the politically expedient thing it looks like it will be the latter .

If Reeves and Starmer were so worried about the political damage breaking a manifesto commitment would be then they should have not suggested they were going to do that . Now it just looks like they’re flailing around without a clue and will instead raise a range of other taxes and then hope for the best .

Messing around with thresholds looks like a sleight of hand . I’ve never known a budget where so many kites have been flown .

Labour backbenchers are living in cloud cuckoo land now being marshalled by Powell who will just say anything to ingratiate herself with them and the general public hoping to be in the right place if Starmer goes .

Unless Starmer and Reeves are incredibly lucky then this all looks like ending in tears . Where exactly is growth going to come from ?

People who don’t want a Reform government like myself just look on in horror .

If you have a majority of 170 you should carry out the policies you believe in. I can't believe they've caved in.

The trouble is that they have a sinking feeling, common amongst the even-slightly-reallistic left since the collapse of the Cold War, that the policies they believe in with their hearts, don't actually work and in fact make most things much worse. While there is no support in their party for policies that do work.

So they are left with either shameless, dishonest centrist opportunism, a la Blair, or technocratic managerialism, as Starmer has tried and failed dismally. Neither really work when you don't have a golden Thatcherite economic legacy to squander.

It was obvious that the Starmer government would end up this way, but I've been very surprised by the size and speed of the collapse.

The Labour business model is broken. It piles too much support for the public sector onto the shoulders of the private sector and then onto the voters.

What “works”, and has what worked as long as I can remember, is liberal democracy, combined with well regulated capital markets, consumer protection, a social safety net, respect for human rights and civil liberties, government support and investment in areas of potential market failure like healthcare, transportation and education, and the rule of law.

That’s not a left or right thing. It’s a civilisation thing.

After droning on about doing the right thing for the country v the politically expedient thing it looks like it will be the latter .

If Reeves and Starmer were so worried about the political damage breaking a manifesto commitment would be then they should have not suggested they were going to do that . Now it just looks like they’re flailing around without a clue and will instead raise a range of other taxes and then hope for the best .

Messing around with thresholds looks like a sleight of hand . I’ve never known a budget where so many kites have been flown .

Labour backbenchers are living in cloud cuckoo land now being marshalled by Powell who will just say anything to ingratiate herself with them and the general public hoping to be in the right place if Starmer goes .

Unless Starmer and Reeves are incredibly lucky then this all looks like ending in tears . Where exactly is growth going to come from ?

People who don’t want a Reform government like myself just look on in horror .

If you have a majority of 170 you should carry out the policies you believe in. I can't believe they've caved in.

The trouble is that they have a sinking feeling, common amongst the even-slightly-reallistic left since the collapse of the Cold War, that the policies they believe in with their hearts, don't actually work and in fact make most things much worse. While there is no support in their party for policies that do work.

So they are left with either shameless, dishonest centrist opportunism, a la Blair, or technocratic managerialism, as Starmer has tried and failed dismally. Neither really work when you don't have a golden Thatcherite economic legacy to squander.

It was obvious that the Starmer government would end up this way, but I've been very surprised by the size and speed of the collapse.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/sara-sharif-case-workers-safeguarding-review-3pwtj7wfh

The headline summarises it - "chances to prevent murder ‘lost to racial sensitivities’".

An appalling case. No-one did what they ought because they feared causing offence or being branded as racist. And so a young girl - Sara Sharif - was brutally abused and killed. 96 separate injuries on her body. Her back had been broken 10 times. Unimaginable suffering in a short life.

25 years ago - 25 years - similar reasons ("cultural reasons" they were called - the murderers then were black Africans not people from Pakistan) led to no-one taking action to prevent the abuse and murder of a young girl of a similar age - Victoria Climbie. Her murder led to a public inquiry and lots of new legislation.

Yet here we are - despite all that - reading the same horrific story and wondering when in God's name those charged with caring for our children realise that putting children with men who are known to be violent is a fucking stupid idea and that worrying about being called racist simply should not be a consideration when a child's safety is at stake and that if abusing a child is part of a "culture" (and not a pathetic excuse for violence and cruelty) then we should be calling that culture what it is - barbaric - and refusing to accept it as a defence or excuse for barbarism instead of running scared of its sensitivities.