Best Of

This could be a thread header @TSE ???


Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico

When was the 1st time something happened that made you think this might not be the country you'd been raised to think & hope it was? Not just something you disagreed with, but that was of a nature, or created a reaction in others, that made you doubt?

https://x.com/andrew_lilico/status/2065476009655250990

Mr Blobby going to number one in 1993.

Along similar lines: Ultravox kept off No 1 by "Shaddap You Face".

Dark times.

It’s a cracking track. As was the goombay dance band with seven tears.

Vienna was a decent track too.

Has there ever been an issue that so passionately and completely unites PB.com as the lack of merit in the claim of the Waspi women?

I think it even surpasses, in its ability to generate boo-hisses, the SMO of Vladimir Putin.

I'll be that guy because somebody should. I actually think some WASPI woman do have a good, albeit narrower, claim.

There have been two main pension age increases affecting women. The first in the 1990s equalised pension age with men. It was phased in gradually and everyone had at least 15 years notice of the change. It equalised men and women, which is a good thing and everyone had plenty of notice.

The second change after 2010 saw pension age increase for both men and women from 65 to 67. The problems here were firstly the 60 to 65 transition hadn't completed and was in fact speeded up with the 65 to 67 transition layered on top. This would result in some women having to work 3 years longer than under the initial plan.

The second problem was that only 5 years was given for the change. The change was immediately challenged, ultimately leading to a cap of 18 months additional increase in retirement age. By this point the 5 years notice period was over, during which no-one was informed of the changes officially because it wasn't known what the changes were actually going to be. The result was women hit with a year of so of no pension with no effective notice.

So while the first change was text-book, the goverment badly botched the second one. They should have as a minimum restarted the 5 year clock. Given they didn't, it would be reasonable to compensate the relatively small numbers of women who lost out. It would also have been a relatively limited amount of money in total. Because of the politics of WASPI ,that wasn't going to happen and the ship has now sailed.

Has there ever been an issue that so passionately and completely unites PB.com as the lack of merit in the claim of the Waspi women?

I think it even surpasses, in its ability to generate boo-hisses, the SMO of Vladimir Putin.

It annoys me mainly because of equality. It was ludicrous that women got the state pension earlie4 than men, so equalising it had to be done. And then the nove was introduced with plenty of time to get used to the idea. To claim that they weren’t warned is ridiculous. Watch the news, read a paper, talk to a financial planner, or citizens advice. But I cannot accept sticking heads in the sand and then claiming it’s all so unfair.

I am 100 % for equality but it cuts both ways.

But how much does it annoy you? It's the PB intensity on the matter I find interesting.

I suppose that, by definition, people on PB are not unaware of what's going on around them politically, so when we come across a group of people who claim something was sprung on them without warning when we know it wasn't, it does lead to a certain impatience.

edit for typo

It’s either breakfasts for poor kids or stopping the Russkis shooting them.
At least Colonel Blimp was a sensitive, honourable man capable of change underneath the reactionary old fool, whereas this guy..

Lord Alan West: "Its all very well having nice spending for breakfast for children at school.. but if that means.. you have Russians stomping down your streets shooting the children who would have been having breakfast.."

Russians killing your kids. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?

https://x.com/saulstaniforth/status/2065301442752070026?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

Curious. Not that long ago it was the overseas-aid budget that was sucking the funding from Britain's defence requirements.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1156278/jacob-rees-mogg-iran-jeremy-hunt-boris-johnson-lbc-brexit-news-video

Rachel and Sir Keir slashed that in half, but now it's breakfast clubs that are the problem. What gives?

All of it is unnecessary, especially whilst we run a budget deficit and have to go cap in hand to the bond markets to fund spending.

Scrap overseas aid. Scrap taxpayer funded breakfasts. Scrap motability. Stop blocking roads in the same of sodding active travel. Come out of ECHR. Get rid of the laws that have left us vulnerable to being sued by activist lawyers. Insist that anyone who arrives here on a small boat gets processed elsewhere. Get rid of the laws that lead to lawsuits faced by Brum council and now big supermarkets.

The list of pet hates to fund defence continues to grow. About £30 billion per annum gets us to 3% of GDP.

Breakfast clubs: £0.3 billion, enables those raising future soldiers to get to work

Overseas aid: £10 billion, mainly stuff that keeps us safe like disease monitoring, humanitarian etc etc

Active travel: £0.2 billion, stops us being a nation of sedentary fatties unable to run 5K or pick up a rifle

Motability : £1 billion, already largely cut

Leave the ECHR: ?

Rwanda scheme: actually costs money

Net Zero CfD contracts: saved us £4 billion in costs during Ukraine invasion, versus £50 billion subsiding fossil fuels (would have saved us well over £20 billion if the whole grid was based on them).

Beaver reintroduction: £2.55

Triple lock: possibly nothing if inflation picks up

The King: £0.07 Billion

Have I missed anything? Happy to keep a log.

Chagos?