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Good afternoon

My wife and I have just received £150 each WFP from this spineless Chancellor who hasn't a clue

Labour cannot cut benefits no matter their landslide win, seems likely they will lift the 2 child cap, and are looking at paying WASPIs

They are intoxicated by spending our grandchildren's future on today's giveaways in total dereliction of responsibility to address our economic crisis opening the door to Reform and Greens who are the last people who should be in charge

My wife is 86 today and we said how much we fear for the young and a terribly divided country far beyond our likely lifetime

It is all so sad

Happy birthday to Mrs Big_G!

We had a bit of a conversation earlier on how bleak or otherwise this all is in historic terms. My view is that compared to 1914, 1929, 1934, 1939, 1962, 1973, 1982, 2008 and 2020 it's actually no too bad.

So cheer up! Think how worried you'd be for your grandchildren were we posting in 1939.

You've hardly ever had it so good!

Has Farridge announced this yet ?

* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%

* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'

* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"

* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England

* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."

* Reform would also seek to cap the foreign aid Budget, which will be £13.6billion in 2025/26, to just £1billion a year
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1990515420416111082

First they came for the Migrants
And I spoke out
Because I bloody hate Migrants

Then they came for the EU Citizens
And I spoke out
Because I bloody hate EU Citizens

Then they came for the Jocks
And I spoke out
Because I bloody hate Jocks, their haggis and their bagpipes,

Then they came for the Welsh
And I spoke out
Because I bloody hate the Welsh, their singing and their unpronounceable place names

Then they came for the English
And I spoke out
Because I bloody hate the English, the Morris Dancing and weak beer

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
Which was great. Just me, Nigel and Tommy

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/18/ofcom-complaints-gb-news-defendants-foreign-sounding-names

GB News really is racist filth.

OfCom seems comfortable enough with it's wholly partisan content, which if it were any other broadcaster would be sanctioned by means of licence withdrawal with immediate effect.

Hang on - media is allowed to be partisan. The Guardian and the Telegraph espouse different world views.

Surely what you can't do is lie?

Broadcast media isn't. The OfCom charter insists on impartiality.

Yet, as you acknowledge yesterday ITV News has a left of centre bias and Channel 4 clearly does. The Last Leg recently featured Zack attack and was verging on the deferential in its coverage.

Good afternoon

My wife and I have just received £150 each WFP from this spineless Chancellor who hasn't a clue

Labour cannot cut benefits no matter their landslide win, seems likely they will lift the 2 child cap, and are looking at paying WASPIs

They are intoxicated by spending our grandchildren's future on today's giveaways in total dereliction of responsibility to address our economic crisis opening the door to Reform and Greens who are the last people who should be in charge

My wife is 86 today and we said how much we fear for the young and a terribly divided country far beyond our likely lifetime

It is all so sad

Happy birthday to Mrs Big_G!

We had a bit of a conversation earlier on how bleak or otherwise this all is in historic terms. My view is that compared to 1914, 1929, 1934, 1939, 1962, 1973, 1982, 2008 and 2020 it's actually no too bad.

So cheer up! Think how worried you'd be for your grandchildren were we posting in 1939.

Reeves to freeze thresholds for an additional couple of years to raise money.

I reckon she can get away with this.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/14/uk-borrowing-costs-up-after-markets-spooked-by-reeves-income-tax-u-turn

How do you handle pensioners?

Perhaps develop a spine and stand up and point out they don’t do too badly all things considered.

Not all of them are entitled whiners like the WASPI lot.

I think the issue is the admin nightmare which will ensue once the standard state pension is above the personal allowance.

The issue arises because DWP appear to have no way of deducting PAYE, so for those with no other income apart from the state pension all HMRC can do is issue tax demands, which will cause immense confusion for many pensioners. (For those with other income, HMRC can pass the PAYE collection onto the other income provide by weighting the recipient's tax code.)

Ah, right, that wasn’t made clear.

1. Perhaps they could simply collect the tax for people with private pensions through a reduced tax code ?

They do it to recoup tax owed, it’s happened to me.

2. Doesn’t do anything for the tax liability for those with no private pension.

3. Other than that I don’t know but they cannot have the working people penalised with limits not moving while pensioners avoid the freeze on the state pension.

I added numbers to simplify my response:

1. They do.
2. That's my point, that's the issue.
3. I agree, but no one's asked me to be CoE yet.

4. DWP, as I have moaned passim, are indeed incapable of PAYE deductions. Worse still,
5, Their way of calculating annual income isn't that of HMRC (except possibly actors and similar). It's arcane and irrational. The methodology they themselves give is *not* reliable.
6. Buggers can't even do P60s, which means that it's even more impossible to do PAYE on other income, or at least to check the figure given is correct.

Cannot the system be rationalised ?

I've been wondering for decades.