Best Of

As the government are coming up with some radical ideas, here’s another one.

Don’t let senior public servants under investigation retire to avoid scrutiny.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgmrg71r0eo

The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.

Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.

Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.

I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!

An acquaintance of mine was 'offered' early retirement just as an inquiry into his management of his department was concluding. Sensibly, he took it.

Labour very unpopular. What more is there to say?

Will getting rid of SKS improve things.

Can anything improve things for them or, like the Tories after Truss, are they just done.

One of the things that contributed to the feeling of chaos in the last parliament was the constant changing of PM. Labour offered calmer waters, changing PM themselves would be yet another way of failing to live up to their promises

There is no point changing leader at the moment. There is still further bad news to come even if they are bold enough to make tougher decisions like yesterdays across the board including on tax.

I think it would be reasonable to change leaders in search of an electoral boost in the second half of 2027 giving the new leader 12-18 months.

That's how I'm betting. Lay a 26 exit at odds-on and back 27/28 at much better prices. It's good to remember how "he or she is toast" is often overstated. Eg Badenoch. She was toast after the Locals and wouldn't last the year. Nope. She has. You could (and I did) lay that at 1.4 or something ridiculous. Ditto next year. She was a cert to go and now she isn't - the market now thinks she's safer in post than Starmer. This change in sentiment has happened in just a few weeks.

It's the difference between events and fundamentals. Weather and climate, noise and signal, actions and character.

Short term is more visible, and frankly more interesting. But the long term is way more important.

It is a bit like that, yes. In this case the weather is 'Starmer is bound to be out next year' and the climate is 'Labour can't win a second term with a deeply unpopular leader'. The latter is the fundamental. The former is just one of several ways it can manifest. It's totally possible but it shouldn't be as short as 1.85.

I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.

I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.

She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.

Very combative.

Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on
X

She likely will need Tory and
Reform votes to get it through

Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.

Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.

I think the policy covers that. The headline is that refugees don’t get settled status for 20 years, but if they’re on an employment path, i.e. they are working, then they get it sooner. AIUI.

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

Foreign nationals may be more likely to have children, but in average they use the NHS much less. Also, they pay taxes! They are already paying for the NHS twice over.

What does he think will happen to Brits living in the EU and his proposal to unilaterally remove the benefits will cause an implosion in EU UK relations. Reform are clueless and a danger to this country .

Au contraire.

Reform know exactly what they are doing. It's utterly dishonest government, but excellent politics.

That's why they're so dangerous.

Good morning everyone.

Our Tesla correspondent's report rant about the 3p per mile tax for EVs.

Nice objective report on the Telegraph. Essentially "This is from the Telegraph, so half of it may be bollocks."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Fv39zGyAc

No no, it was a rant. And a bit clickbaity. Successfully so.

Provoked the desired response from the kind of people who are reading the Telegraph/Mail and watching GBeebies/TalkTory and are OUTRAGED that Tesco have banned Christmas trees.

I am depressed at the moment. But having good fun calling out performative wazzockry.

Also check out Emergency Podcast where we tore into "British Culture" and I unveiled my war against wazzocks
https://youtu.be/VkvpriRHc8s

Wha?

Ah ...

"Tesco told the Daily Mail: 'We are at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year.'

It said it is called an 'evergreen tree' to make it clear the type of Christmas tree inside the box."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15299775/Britons-rage-woke-Tescos-decision-rename-Christmas-trees-evergreen-trees.html

"Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, was vocal about her thoughts on social media, writing on X: 'Wretched ridiculous nonsense, call it what it is, it's a Christmas tree. There, I said it out loud. I'm fed up with all this woke stupidity.'"

Call this out for what it is. She knows the truth, but expects that people listening to her are stupid. So she and all the rest of the grifters openly lie.

What has been genuinely entertaining is that the first picture of the "Evergreen Tree" boxes was heavily cropped. To exclude the "Merry Christmas" pallet wrap they were stood in. And the range of other types of tree - glitter, snow covered, lit etc.

To listen to her, all chocolate bars should be called "Chocolate". Because calling out the variations is a plot to impose Sharia law or something.

Best post? The utter wazzock foaming on about a surbey claiming the majority of Brits will shun turkey for Christmas Dinner and eat another meat. "Brits have eaten Turkey for Christmas for 2,000 years" he claimed.

Wait till he hears about the ones who won't eat meat at all.

They will call for the eating of vegetarians. That will teach them to be fussy!

That would be a bad idea. Vegetarians have no taste.

Not even Aberdeen or wagyu ones?

Not even ones trying to curry favour.

Vegetarians - what's their beef?

Venison?

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

Foreign nationals may be more likely to have children, but in average they use the NHS much less. Also, they pay taxes! They are already paying for the NHS twice over.

I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.

I'm younger than you but wonder about this also.
It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.

The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.

I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.

Plato, IIRC