Best Of

I see that Nottingham, London and Birmingham are taking, or planning to take, unofficial flags down.

Does anyone have a wider knowledge?

They have to take them down. Otherwise they are inviting everyone and anyone to hijack the public realm with their own pet causes. If people want to plaster their own property with England flags that's their prerogative, but they can't do it on public property.

The local council took down the Welsh flags over the Little Orme for them to be replaced with larger Welsh and Union Jacks flags higher up and social media telling the council 'You take them down, we will put them back up' !!!!

Shame people are willing to waste council taxpayers money on these silly displays of nationalism (often organised by far right activists, who know exactly what they are doing).

Hardly far right with the Welsh Flag being flown

It depends on why it has been put up on a day other than match day. If it is used like some people use the flag of St George as a symbol that "foreigners" aren't welcome it could be.

Personally, I quite like the England and UK flags. It just feels nice to have my flag flown. This must be what gay people feel like in June and August. Hurray, some people don't despise me.
Only in the UK do we get hot and bothered about people flying national flags. Go to Greece, for example: the Greek flag is everywhere.

There is nothing wrong with a flag. The problem arises when the flag is displayed as a threat rather than a celebration.

And how do you discern that when looking at said flag?

If a flag of St George is taped to a lamp post in Sparkhill I am guessing it is a threat. If it is hanging outside Buck House it is probably a celebration.

That said I am making a subjective analysis so in both cases I may be wrong.

Why is the flag of England a threat to England?

It is sometimes flown as a warning to me. Keep off our turf Taffy!

Well not really! On my occasional visits to Wales I don't interpret the Welsh flag as 'stay away Sice'.

Even though that is essentially the point of the red dragon (which, according to my hazily remembered mythology, fought with the white dragon of the Saxons in the skies above Oxford.) I don't think that's why the Welsh fly it. It's flown because it's a rather nice flag and a symbol of liking being Welsh.

Conference season ends and I believe the unexpected happened

Kemi Badenoch delivered the best speech, rolled out an array of policies, and stamp duty the 'rabbit out of the hat'

She energised her supporters and have given them something to sell on the doorstep

And she did what I prayed she would, sent out a positive [conservative] message and barely mentioned Starmer or Farage

Labour and Farage fell into the trap of hurling insults at each other to the detriment of both

The added bonus is Jenrick is the biggest loser

I do not know how the polls will react, but today was a start on the long road to relevance

Rabbit out of a hat, or bollocks out of her arse?

Pound shop Liz Truss.

No Kemi identified welfare and spending cuts to fund her tax cut

It wasn't just welfare but cuts in climate change subsidies and increasing north sea production with associated tax income, as well as welcoming back millionaires, entrepreneurs, and wealth creators

She also will scrap IHT on farmers and abolish vat on private school fees

Add in banning doctor strikes

This is conservative policies and is a direct challenge to Labour and Reform

This is pennies BigG. No spending cuts plan is credible without some sort of control on pensioner benefits and health spending. They are are growing so quickly - from a very high base - that any other cut or even steady economic growth is completely overwhelmed by them. Literally by design in the case of the triple lock.

Labour haven't set out a plan either but let's not pretend the Conservative plan is fiscally prudent. DavidL's take on this is correct.

Google tells me that the number of UK civil servants has increased since 2016 by 132,000 and that the median salary is £34k.

That would imply a saving of £4.5bn under the Tory plan.

Not commenting on whether it is feasible or not but it’s not “pennies”

True - but I think the fact the median salary is so low suggests what kinds of roles those civil servants are doing - particularly when you consider how London dominated the civil service is.

If you could cut 130,000 people out of Whitehall or it's equivalent in Scotland, Wales then fair enough. But I think the stats show that increase is primarily agencies like HMRC and DWP. Basically call centres, which would mean a reduced service. AI might be the answer to that but it's not a magic button you can press.

It said that the range was £24 - 84k (from memory - haven’t checked).

The only way to plausibly cuts costs is to stop doing stuff. Governments need to cut verticals rather than horizontally. (Equally I am sure that there are the sort of grinding efficiencies - 1, 2, 3 percent a year - that the private sector makes which government agencies never seem to be able to find)

And that's why, at the moment, this is Potemkin Policy. Tell us which Civil Servants are going to be axed, and what's going to happen to the work they were doing, and it gets interesting. "It won't be done by the state" is a legitimate answer.

Otherwise, Kemi is doing the fun bit without doing the hard work first. Maggie wouldn't have approved.

PB Tories are normally pragmatic people, questioning the symmetry of a Labour or Lib Dem tax cut or spending pledge. "The books don't balance" they will cry.

Yet a welcome Tory £12b tax cut paid by fantasy wastage savings get a free ride.

Fortunately the Tories are not in Government. I am sure if they were the gilt markets might baulk.

They are not “fantasy wastage savings”.

They have said that they will reduce civil service numbers back to 2016 levels. That’s pretty specific - of course they haven’t identified “Me Mexican” or “Ms Pete” as being at risk of being made redundant - but it’s not just a number made up by some spreadsheet jockey.

You had fourteen years in Government. Fourteen years to identify and implement swingeing service cuts to pay for massive tax cuts. You failed. During that 14 years, service provision levels crashed at the same time the tax burden increased.

Posters have quoted Reform fantasy savings in Kent, savings so magnificent that Council tax increases could be suspended, until they found out there were few savings to be made and Council taxes were raised by 5%.

A nice speech offering the Moon on a stick is one thing, shoehorning the contents of that speech into reality is quite another.

Your party and the cheerleaders on here are profoundly unserious.

In 2009-10 the uk government spent £739 billion. In 2025-6 they are budgeted to spend £1,335 billion.

According to the Bank of England, £739 billion in 2009/10 is equivalent to £1,077 billion today.

So in real terms the government is spending £258 billion more than the Brown government (which was not known for fiscal rectitude).

The only “profoundly unserious” people on here are those who claim that every penny of that is wisely spent and absolutely no savings are possible

Where did I say Government money is wisely spent? Central and local government are profligate. I can give you one of manifold examples of each. From central government we have the PPE scandal and from local government we have the £63m invisible Garden Bridge over the Thames.

Those savings Badenoch has claimed to have in mind I would question; why was the saving not implemented up to July 2024?

One area ripe for reform across government is procurement. That doesn't necessarily mean siding less, but rather getting value for what we do spend.

Government is way too gullible compared with the private sector.

I buy 16 x paracetamol for 37 pence a pack in Lidl. The NHS spends several pounds for 16 x paracetamol.

Answer? Tell people paracetamol is no longer available on prescription and delist.

Prescription wastage is also a national scandal. Once a medicine has been prescribed and becomes unwanted,even if it is unused and in date there is a cost to dispose.

Paracetamol is the only pain killer I am permitted to take and like you buy them on my weekly Asda order [max 2 packets]

I could get them prescribed but just do not think it is right to do so, especially at that cost

My late father was having them in 500s from the pharmacy. I put a stop to that. The dispensary cost alone would have been astronomical.

He had deliveries each week from Lloyds Pharmacy. If he needed an item once they would restock it weekly. I disposed of probably several hundred pounds worth of weapons grade Deoralite.

When he passed I kept the unspent Nitromin for my own self-diagnosed angina. Waste not want not.

My sister much the same but ultimately her cancer required tramadol

The amount of paracetamol I returned to the chemist was extraordinary

Same with my dad. I could have retired if I'd sold his unspent Tramadol on eBay rather than returning it to Lloyds Chemists.

Now that was an expensive, dangerous narcotic and he had a house full of it. And just try cancelling. To quote the Small Faces it was "all or nothing".

My working assumption on all this flag business is:
- Union Flag the right way up = more patriotic than racist
- Union Flag the wrong way up = more racist than patriotic

Ultimately the people who are putting them up are doing so to make people not born here or born here but to parents from overseas feel uncomfortable. You can be fine with that or not, I am not. Even if some of them look good.

My assumption is that people putting them up are doing so in order to make 'those in charge' - (e.g. local councils, government ... I don't think any more thinking than that has gone into it) feel uncomfortable. Since they so clearly do. I don't think people born overseas feel uncomfortable at flags. I don't feel uncomfortable at other countries' flags when I go abroad.
But I'm guessing rather.

Say what you like about Trump he does seem to have pulled off this Gaza peace deal with reports he is flying to Israel on Sunday

I don't think Trump has pulled off this peace deal. I think the people who wrote it + US diplomats + changing circumstances have made it become possible. Trump has helped in that process.

It could and should have happened a long time ago. The ceasefire and hostage release, I mean. A genuine lasting peace deal is something else. If that is in due course achieved, fantastic, and Trump will for once merit praise and plaudits.

Indeed, I've been saying for years this war should end with the surrender of Hamas, their disarmament and removal from office and the release of all hostages.

Many people here have been opposing demanding the surrender of Hamas, calling demanding that "unrealistic" or "genocide" and other such bullshit.

Much bloodshed could have been avoided if Hamas had surrendered and released the hostages sooner, but kudos to Israel for not accepting a ceasefire before they did. Good job.

And no mythical "genocide".

A lot of people here have egg on their face.

That's as dumb and offensive as somebody equally fanatical on the other side of this cursed conflict calling October 7th a 'good job'.

Oh cut the crap.

Hamas chose this war, and they lost it. Good riddance.

Hopefully the future can be better without them.

Bibi funded Hamas to prevent a two state solution. Some say by up to a billion dollars. Real estate in Doha is not cheap. As part of the deal Hamas grandees get to keep their gated homes and condo penthouses.

It's a funny old game Saint.

Indeed, and Bibi should be in a prison cell. I've said so repeatedly.

Funding Hamas was the wrong thing to do.
Fighting them was the right thing to do.

Say what you like about Trump he does seem to have pulled off this Gaza peace deal with reports he is flying to Israel on Sunday

I don't think Trump has pulled off this peace deal. I think the people who wrote it + US diplomats + changing circumstances have made it become possible. Trump has helped in that process.

It could and should have happened a long time ago. The ceasefire and hostage release, I mean. A genuine lasting peace deal is something else. If that is in due course achieved, fantastic, and Trump will for once merit praise and plaudits.

Indeed, I've been saying for years this war should end with the surrender of Hamas, their disarmament and removal from office and the release of all hostages.

Many people here have been opposing demanding the surrender of Hamas, calling demanding that "unrealistic" or "genocide" and other such bullshit.

Much bloodshed could have been avoided if Hamas had surrendered and released the hostages sooner, but kudos to Israel for not accepting a ceasefire before they did. Good job.

And no mythical "genocide".

A lot of people here have egg on their face.

People weren't calling the demand on Hamas to surrender "genocide". They are calling the stuff that looks like a genocide a genocide.

Here's the case South Africa brought before the ICJ: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf It makes no mention of the demad on Hamas to surrender.

The indiscriminate death of millions is a genocide, that has not happened.

The defeat of an enemy at war is not.

That is not a standard definition of genocide, no.

You're right, the extermination (or attempted extermination) of a group is.

That hasn't happened, instead a war has been fought, a war triggered by Hamas.

If Israel had wanted to do a genocide, then millions could have died. They didn't. It was never that, it was a war.

A war Hamas chose.

A war Hamas lost.

Conference season ends and I believe the unexpected happened

Kemi Badenoch delivered the best speech, rolled out an array of policies, and stamp duty the 'rabbit out of the hat'

She energised her supporters and have given them something to sell on the doorstep

And she did what I prayed she would, sent out a positive [conservative] message and barely mentioned Starmer or Farage

Labour and Farage fell into the trap of hurling insults at each other to the detriment of both

The added bonus is Jenrick is the biggest loser

I do not know how the polls will react, but today was a start on the long road to relevance

Rabbit out of a hat, or bollocks out of her arse?

Pound shop Liz Truss.

No Kemi identified welfare and spending cuts to fund her tax cut

It wasn't just welfare but cuts in climate change subsidies and increasing north sea production with associated tax income, as well as welcoming back millionaires, entrepreneurs, and wealth creators

She also will scrap IHT on farmers and abolish vat on private school fees

Add in banning doctor strikes

This is conservative policies and is a direct challenge to Labour and Reform

This is pennies BigG. No spending cuts plan is credible without some sort of control on pensioner benefits and health spending. They are are growing so quickly - from a very high base - that any other cut or even steady economic growth is completely overwhelmed by them. Literally by design in the case of the triple lock.

Labour haven't set out a plan either but let's not pretend the Conservative plan is fiscally prudent. DavidL's take on this is correct.

Google tells me that the number of UK civil servants has increased since 2016 by 132,000 and that the median salary is £34k.

That would imply a saving of £4.5bn under the Tory plan.

Not commenting on whether it is feasible or not but it’s not “pennies”

True - but I think the fact the median salary is so low suggests what kinds of roles those civil servants are doing - particularly when you consider how London dominated the civil service is.

If you could cut 130,000 people out of Whitehall or it's equivalent in Scotland, Wales then fair enough. But I think the stats show that increase is primarily agencies like HMRC and DWP. Basically call centres, which would mean a reduced service. AI might be the answer to that but it's not a magic button you can press.

It said that the range was £24 - 84k (from memory - haven’t checked).

The only way to plausibly cuts costs is to stop doing stuff. Governments need to cut verticals rather than horizontally. (Equally I am sure that there are the sort of grinding efficiencies - 1, 2, 3 percent a year - that the private sector makes which government agencies never seem to be able to find)

And that's why, at the moment, this is Potemkin Policy. Tell us which Civil Servants are going to be axed, and what's going to happen to the work they were doing, and it gets interesting. "It won't be done by the state" is a legitimate answer.

Otherwise, Kemi is doing the fun bit without doing the hard work first. Maggie wouldn't have approved.

PB Tories are normally pragmatic people, questioning the symmetry of a Labour or Lib Dem tax cut or spending pledge. "The books don't balance" they will cry.

Yet a welcome Tory £12b tax cut paid by fantasy wastage savings get a free ride.

Fortunately the Tories are not in Government. I am sure if they were the gilt markets might baulk.

They are not “fantasy wastage savings”.

They have said that they will reduce civil service numbers back to 2016 levels. That’s pretty specific - of course they haven’t identified “Me Mexican” or “Ms Pete” as being at risk of being made redundant - but it’s not just a number made up by some spreadsheet jockey.

You had fourteen years in Government. Fourteen years to identify and implement swingeing service cuts to pay for massive tax cuts. You failed. During that 14 years, service provision levels crashed at the same time the tax burden increased.

Posters have quoted Reform fantasy savings in Kent, savings so magnificent that Council tax increases could be suspended, until they found out there were few savings to be made and Council taxes were raised by 5%.

A nice speech offering the Moon on a stick is one thing, shoehorning the contents of that speech into reality is quite another.

Your party and the cheerleaders on here are profoundly unserious.

In 2009-10 the uk government spent £739 billion. In 2025-6 they are budgeted to spend £1,335 billion.

According to the Bank of England, £739 billion in 2009/10 is equivalent to £1,077 billion today.

So in real terms the government is spending £258 billion more than the Brown government (which was not known for fiscal rectitude).

The only “profoundly unserious” people on here are those who claim that every penny of that is wisely spent and absolutely no savings are possible

Where did I say Government money is wisely spent? Central and local government are profligate. I can give you one of manifold examples of each. From central government we have the PPE scandal and from local government we have the £63m invisible Garden Bridge over the Thames.

Those savings Badenoch has claimed to have in mind I would question; why was the saving not implemented up to July 2024?

One area ripe for reform across government is procurement. That doesn't necessarily mean siding less, but rather getting value for what we do spend.

Government is way too gullible compared with the private sector.

I buy 16 x paracetamol for 37 pence a pack in Lidl. The NHS spends several pounds for 16 x paracetamol.

Answer? Tell people paracetamol is no longer available on prescription and delist.

Prescription wastage is also a national scandal. Once a medicine has been prescribed and becomes unwanted,even if it is unused and in date there is a cost to dispose.

I think I'd look seriously at who is exempt from prescription charges. For instance, wealthy pensioners really could be paying. I generally seem to be the only person actually paying for prescriptions at the pharmacy.

Getting your prescriptions free means that a patient has no penalty for not using them. De-prescribing is something we should do a lot more of.

About 10% of prescriptions in England are paid for.

When Scotland abolished prescription charges the admin savings were greater than the loss of prescription income.

Having only 10% of prescriptions paid for seems like a system designed to maximise administration costs above either the "nice to have" of free prescriptions for everyone or the revenue that charging everyone for them would obtain.

Say what you like about Trump he does seem to have pulled off this Gaza peace deal with reports he is flying to Israel on Sunday

Sort of by default. Don't forget this is the Blair deal Biden offered to Netanyahu eighteen months ago. Netanyahu rejected it out of hand.

In a nutshell Qatar donated Trump ( not the Administration- but Mr Donald J. Trump) a few hundred million dollar aircraft. Doha was the bombed by Israel. The Emir of Qatar was furious. Emir Al Thani expressed his outrage to Trump (keep up, Al Thani has just gifted Trump an new airliner) so Trump became angry too. To cut a long story short Netanyahu became Trump's bitch and has to jump to his every command. Peace in the Middle East is the outcome. Who says bribing a president with expensive gifts is a waste of time and money?

Everybody is cheering but the Israelis haven't accepted it yet!

Hamas have made no commitment to lay down their arms either. All those nitwits with their WWII unconditional surrender bollox analogies must feel a bit silly.

Nice straw grasping, but Hamas laying down their arms is in the 20 point plan that has been accepted by Hamas. Hamas surrendering power over Gaza is also there.

Now if Hamas don't follow through, then of course war may sadly need to resume, rather than have a lasting peace, but we should all hope Hamas follow through on their surrender. If they don't, that'll be there choice just as every step of this has been, but at least the hostages will be free.

Realistically though, Hamas know they have been defeated. Good.

Conference season ends and I believe the unexpected happened

Kemi Badenoch delivered the best speech, rolled out an array of policies, and stamp duty the 'rabbit out of the hat'

She energised her supporters and have given them something to sell on the doorstep

And she did what I prayed she would, sent out a positive [conservative] message and barely mentioned Starmer or Farage

Labour and Farage fell into the trap of hurling insults at each other to the detriment of both

The added bonus is Jenrick is the biggest loser

I do not know how the polls will react, but today was a start on the long road to relevance

Rabbit out of a hat, or bollocks out of her arse?

Pound shop Liz Truss.

No Kemi identified welfare and spending cuts to fund her tax cut

It wasn't just welfare but cuts in climate change subsidies and increasing north sea production with associated tax income, as well as welcoming back millionaires, entrepreneurs, and wealth creators

She also will scrap IHT on farmers and abolish vat on private school fees

Add in banning doctor strikes

This is conservative policies and is a direct challenge to Labour and Reform

This is pennies BigG. No spending cuts plan is credible without some sort of control on pensioner benefits and health spending. They are are growing so quickly - from a very high base - that any other cut or even steady economic growth is completely overwhelmed by them. Literally by design in the case of the triple lock.

Labour haven't set out a plan either but let's not pretend the Conservative plan is fiscally prudent. DavidL's take on this is correct.

Google tells me that the number of UK civil servants has increased since 2016 by 132,000 and that the median salary is £34k.

That would imply a saving of £4.5bn under the Tory plan.

Not commenting on whether it is feasible or not but it’s not “pennies”

True - but I think the fact the median salary is so low suggests what kinds of roles those civil servants are doing - particularly when you consider how London dominated the civil service is.

If you could cut 130,000 people out of Whitehall or it's equivalent in Scotland, Wales then fair enough. But I think the stats show that increase is primarily agencies like HMRC and DWP. Basically call centres, which would mean a reduced service. AI might be the answer to that but it's not a magic button you can press.

It said that the range was £24 - 84k (from memory - haven’t checked).

The only way to plausibly cuts costs is to stop doing stuff. Governments need to cut verticals rather than horizontally. (Equally I am sure that there are the sort of grinding efficiencies - 1, 2, 3 percent a year - that the private sector makes which government agencies never seem to be able to find)

And that's why, at the moment, this is Potemkin Policy. Tell us which Civil Servants are going to be axed, and what's going to happen to the work they were doing, and it gets interesting. "It won't be done by the state" is a legitimate answer.

Otherwise, Kemi is doing the fun bit without doing the hard work first. Maggie wouldn't have approved.

PB Tories are normally pragmatic people, questioning the symmetry of a Labour or Lib Dem tax cut or spending pledge. "The books don't balance" they will cry.

Yet a welcome Tory £12b tax cut paid by fantasy wastage savings get a free ride.

Fortunately the Tories are not in Government. I am sure if they were the gilt markets might baulk.

They are not “fantasy wastage savings”.

They have said that they will reduce civil service numbers back to 2016 levels. That’s pretty specific - of course they haven’t identified “Me Mexican” or “Ms Pete” as being at risk of being made redundant - but it’s not just a number made up by some spreadsheet jockey.

You had fourteen years in Government. Fourteen years to identify and implement swingeing service cuts to pay for massive tax cuts. You failed. During that 14 years, service provision levels crashed at the same time the tax burden increased.

Posters have quoted Reform fantasy savings in Kent, savings so magnificent that Council tax increases could be suspended, until they found out there were few savings to be made and Council taxes were raised by 5%.

A nice speech offering the Moon on a stick is one thing, shoehorning the contents of that speech into reality is quite another.

Your party and the cheerleaders on here are profoundly unserious.

In 2009-10 the uk government spent £739 billion. In 2025-6 they are budgeted to spend £1,335 billion.

According to the Bank of England, £739 billion in 2009/10 is equivalent to £1,077 billion today.

So in real terms the government is spending £258 billion more than the Brown government (which was not known for fiscal rectitude).

The only “profoundly unserious” people on here are those who claim that every penny of that is wisely spent and absolutely no savings are possible

Where did I say Government money is wisely spent? Central and local government are profligate. I can give you one of manifold examples of each. From central government we have the PPE scandal and from local government we have the £63m invisible Garden Bridge over the Thames.

Those savings Badenoch has claimed to have in mind I would question; why was the saving not implemented up to July 2024?

One area ripe for reform across government is procurement. That doesn't necessarily mean siding less, but rather getting value for what we do spend.

Government is way too gullible compared with the private sector.

I buy 16 x paracetamol for 37 pence a pack in Lidl. The NHS spends several pounds for 16 x paracetamol.

Answer? Tell people paracetamol is no longer available on prescription and delist.

Prescription wastage is also a national scandal. Once a medicine has been prescribed and becomes unwanted,even if it is unused and in date there is a cost to dispose.

Paracetamol is the only pain killer I am permitted to take and like you buy them on my weekly Asda order [max 2 packets]

I could get them prescribed but just do not think it is right to do so, especially at that cost

My late father was having them in 500s from the pharmacy. I put a stop to that. The dispensary cost alone would have been astronomical.

He had deliveries each week from Lloyds Pharmacy. If he needed an item once they would restock it weekly. I disposed of probably several hundred pounds worth of weapons grade Deoralite.

When he passed I kept the unspent Nitromin for my own self-diagnosed angina. Waste not want not.

My sister much the same but ultimately her cancer required tramadol

The amount of paracetamol I returned to the chemist was extraordinary

Same with my dad. I could have retired if I'd sold his unspent Tramadol on eBay rather than returning it to Lloyds Chemists.

Now that was an expensive, dangerous narcotic and he had a house full of it. And just try cancelling. To quote the Small Faces it was "all or nothing".

Far too often patients just tick everything on the form, and equally far too often surgery 'medication reviews' are just an automatic renewal on the computer.

Conference season ends and I believe the unexpected happened

Kemi Badenoch delivered the best speech, rolled out an array of policies, and stamp duty the 'rabbit out of the hat'

She energised her supporters and have given them something to sell on the doorstep

And she did what I prayed she would, sent out a positive [conservative] message and barely mentioned Starmer or Farage

Labour and Farage fell into the trap of hurling insults at each other to the detriment of both

The added bonus is Jenrick is the biggest loser

I do not know how the polls will react, but today was a start on the long road to relevance

Rabbit out of a hat, or bollocks out of her arse?

Pound shop Liz Truss.

No Kemi identified welfare and spending cuts to fund her tax cut

It wasn't just welfare but cuts in climate change subsidies and increasing north sea production with associated tax income, as well as welcoming back millionaires, entrepreneurs, and wealth creators

She also will scrap IHT on farmers and abolish vat on private school fees

Add in banning doctor strikes

This is conservative policies and is a direct challenge to Labour and Reform

This is pennies BigG. No spending cuts plan is credible without some sort of control on pensioner benefits and health spending. They are are growing so quickly - from a very high base - that any other cut or even steady economic growth is completely overwhelmed by them. Literally by design in the case of the triple lock.

Labour haven't set out a plan either but let's not pretend the Conservative plan is fiscally prudent. DavidL's take on this is correct.

Google tells me that the number of UK civil servants has increased since 2016 by 132,000 and that the median salary is £34k.

That would imply a saving of £4.5bn under the Tory plan.

Not commenting on whether it is feasible or not but it’s not “pennies”

True - but I think the fact the median salary is so low suggests what kinds of roles those civil servants are doing - particularly when you consider how London dominated the civil service is.

If you could cut 130,000 people out of Whitehall or it's equivalent in Scotland, Wales then fair enough. But I think the stats show that increase is primarily agencies like HMRC and DWP. Basically call centres, which would mean a reduced service. AI might be the answer to that but it's not a magic button you can press.

It said that the range was £24 - 84k (from memory - haven’t checked).

The only way to plausibly cuts costs is to stop doing stuff. Governments need to cut verticals rather than horizontally. (Equally I am sure that there are the sort of grinding efficiencies - 1, 2, 3 percent a year - that the private sector makes which government agencies never seem to be able to find)

And that's why, at the moment, this is Potemkin Policy. Tell us which Civil Servants are going to be axed, and what's going to happen to the work they were doing, and it gets interesting. "It won't be done by the state" is a legitimate answer.

Otherwise, Kemi is doing the fun bit without doing the hard work first. Maggie wouldn't have approved.

PB Tories are normally pragmatic people, questioning the symmetry of a Labour or Lib Dem tax cut or spending pledge. "The books don't balance" they will cry.

Yet a welcome Tory £12b tax cut paid by fantasy wastage savings get a free ride.

Fortunately the Tories are not in Government. I am sure if they were the gilt markets might baulk.

They are not “fantasy wastage savings”.

They have said that they will reduce civil service numbers back to 2016 levels. That’s pretty specific - of course they haven’t identified “Me Mexican” or “Ms Pete” as being at risk of being made redundant - but it’s not just a number made up by some spreadsheet jockey.

You had fourteen years in Government. Fourteen years to identify and implement swingeing service cuts to pay for massive tax cuts. You failed. During that 14 years, service provision levels crashed at the same time the tax burden increased.

Posters have quoted Reform fantasy savings in Kent, savings so magnificent that Council tax increases could be suspended, until they found out there were few savings to be made and Council taxes were raised by 5%.

A nice speech offering the Moon on a stick is one thing, shoehorning the contents of that speech into reality is quite another.

Your party and the cheerleaders on here are profoundly unserious.

In 2009-10 the uk government spent £739 billion. In 2025-6 they are budgeted to spend £1,335 billion.

According to the Bank of England, £739 billion in 2009/10 is equivalent to £1,077 billion today.

So in real terms the government is spending £258 billion more than the Brown government (which was not known for fiscal rectitude).

The only “profoundly unserious” people on here are those who claim that every penny of that is wisely spent and absolutely no savings are possible

Where did I say Government money is wisely spent? Central and local government are profligate. I can give you one of manifold examples of each. From central government we have the PPE scandal and from local government we have the £63m invisible Garden Bridge over the Thames.

Those savings Badenoch has claimed to have in mind I would question; why was the saving not implemented up to July 2024?

One area ripe for reform across government is procurement. That doesn't necessarily mean siding less, but rather getting value for what we do spend.

Government is way too gullible compared with the private sector.

I buy 16 x paracetamol for 37 pence a pack in Lidl. The NHS spends several pounds for 16 x paracetamol.

Answer? Tell people paracetamol is no longer available on prescription and delist.

Prescription wastage is also a national scandal. Once a medicine has been prescribed and becomes unwanted,even if it is unused and in date there is a cost to dispose.

There are a thousand examples along those lines, large and small, from PPI contracts, to Ajax, to HS2, to the CCS boondoggle.

No one is going to save tens of billions on current spending during the course of a parliament by reforming the way public purchasing is done. But implemented well across government, it could save many tens of billions over a couple of decades.