Best Of

It's difficult not to laugh at Starmer's difficulties, even though they encapsulate many of the UK's woes.

Starmer is in the hot seat, but the truth is that neither major party was willing to be honest about the nations finances in the election a year ago.

I don't expect them to be any more honest next GE either, and neither will Reform be. It seems you can't get elected by telling the truth.

A party committed to ending the triple lock and indexing of other benefits, leaving it at the Chancellors discretion, and not making pledges over taxation would lose its deposit in every seat.

It would behoove (I felt the need to use that word, not used enough like “gruntled”) a political party such as the Tories to take a risk and start hammering out unpalatable truths now.

It might make them take a short term hit but if they point out the nasty necessities, the reality, the pain that the country needs to go through, and very very clearly the effects if Labour don’t do these things then over the next four years, as the things they have prohesised come true then they should get a fair hearing at an election where they say “we told you this would happen, we have wanrned you what the medicine is and at least you will have honesty with the pain but a long term fix”.

During the Truss/Sunak leadership election Rishi basically said if the gov does what Truss says then x,y and z will happen. The electorate voted for rainbows and unicorns and then exactly what Rishi said would happen happened.

When it came to her ouster I think most Tories looked at his prediction and realised they should just give the gig to the person who was correct.

Now he didn’t deliver great things but him and Hunt steadied the ship and put us on a path to slow recovery from a very bad place.

So now is the time to hammer home brutal honesty by the Tories about triple lock, benefits, welfare, etc and reap the benefits in four years.*

*I could be completely wrong.

It's difficult not to laugh at Starmer's difficulties, even though they encapsulate many of the UK's woes.

Starmer is in the hot seat, but the truth is that neither major party was willing to be honest about the nations finances in the election a year ago.

I don't expect them to be any more honest next GE either, and neither will Reform be. It seems you can't get elected by telling the truth.

A party committed to ending the triple lock and indexing of other benefits, leaving it at the Chancellors discretion, and not making pledges over taxation would lose its deposit in every seat.

It would behoove (I felt the need to use that word, not used enough like “gruntled”) a political party such as the Tories to take a risk and start hammering out unpalatable truths now.

It might make them take a short term hit but if they point out the nasty necessities, the reality, the pain that the country needs to go through, and very very clearly the effects if Labour don’t do these things then over the next four years, as the things they have prohesised come true then they should get a fair hearing at an election where they say “we told you this would happen, we have wanrned you what the medicine is and at least you will have honesty with the pain but a long term fix”.

During the Truss/Sunak leadership election Rishi basically said if the gov does what Truss says then x,y and z will happen. The electorate voted for rainbows and unicorns and then exactly what Rishi said would happen happened.

When it came to her ouster I think most Tories looked at his prediction and realised they should just give the gig to the person who was correct.

Now he didn’t deliver great things but him and Hunt steadied the ship and put us on a path to slow recovery from a very bad place.

So now is the time to hammer home brutal honesty by the Tories about triple lock, benefits, welfare, etc and reap the benefits in four years.*

*I could be completely wrong.

I think they'll go fairly hard on Welfare, immigration and 'stewardship of the economy' (they are already trying to present themselves as the ones with proper Welfare slashing ideas). I think they'll keep triple lock ending back as the 'jaw dropper' near the GE - 'forced to do it by Labour's mismanagement but look how serious we are about solving everything' and sugar coating it with something grey friendly that's less costly

Phillipson is a bit crabby and tetchy on LauraK this morning.

Pressure. Pushing down on me.

I'm not a fan, but she seems to be doing very well to me. Not sure she is saying anything but very calm, quick speaking, not a single 'um', corrected a mis-speak very quickly. Really good at thinking on her feet.

She is a good speaker other than it is far too fast.

The BBC national treasure Laura Kuennsberg hates all Labour scumbags, she'll get the better of her by hook or by crook.

And why has Kuennsberg added the half-witted Paddy O'Connell to her already unlistenable and moronic podcast?

The hate for Kuennsberg among left wing men is remarkable. I don't really pay her much attention but I've never seen a coherent explanation of what is so bad about her.

Phillipson is a bit crabby and tetchy on LauraK this morning.

Pressure. Pushing down on me.

I'm not a fan, but she seems to be doing very well to me. Not sure she is saying anything but very calm, quick speaking, not a single 'um', corrected a mis-speak very quickly. Really good at thinking on her feet.

She is a good speaker other than it is far too fast.

The BBC national treasure Laura Kuennsberg hates all Labour scumbags, she'll get the better of her by hook or by crook.

And why has Kuennsberg added the half-witted Paddy O'Connell to her already unlistenable and moronic podcast?

The hate for Kuennsberg among left wing men is remarkable. I don't really pay her much attention but I've never seen a coherent explanation of what is so bad about her.

She was pictured sat with Boris on that park bench and that means she is a secret Tory. Its evidence of her bias in the absence of actual evidence
Fiona Bruce is also apparently a secret Tory

Labour 's pre- election absurdity of essentially saying "no new taxes on working people" has come back to bite them.

Last week's word cloud on here where the only words visible were "Winter Fuel Allowance" demonstrate they can't go for the oldsters, and the utter catastrophe of a Labour Government appearing to take money off the most vulnerable in society looked disgusting. Selling a carefully crafted and focused package to stem the burgeoning welfare bill could have worked by politicians less inept than Starmer, Kendall and Reeves. We can't afford to put everyone on PIP if they occasionally feel sad.

You're not wrong of course.

The problem was coming into office (and there would have been discussions with senior civil servants in advance), it was clear everything that needed to be done couldn't be done on day one. Most would need complex legislation and take time to have an impact.

Labour thought they needed to hit the ground running and instead they just hit the ground. In truth, the theory of taking winter fuel allowance away from wealthy pensioners wasn't a bad one but the way the policy was presented was about as bad as it could have been. Had Reeves said, for example, we'll take WFA away from higher rate taxpayers, yes, there'd have been grumbling particularly from those at the cliff edge of the thresholds but overall that would have been muted and probably forgotten.

The big problem remains "the small boats" for which Starmer, like Badenoch and Farage, has no coherent, practical or affordable solution.

Two excellent posts today from Mr S.
Surely the Labour top brass (and the backroom policy wonks) must have felt that victory was at least possible by Christmas 2023 ..... and certainly by Easter 2024. We rather got the impression that the mindset was 'OMG we've won; what do we do now!"

Rather like Reform in the County Councils now.

If the LibDems had been in that position one could have understood it.

Labour 's pre- election absurdity of essentially saying "no new taxes on working people" has come back to bite them.

Last week's word cloud on here where the only words visible were "Winter Fuel Allowance" demonstrate they can't go for the oldsters, and the utter catastrophe of a Labour Government appearing to take money off the most vulnerable in society looked disgusting. Selling a carefully crafted and focused package to stem the burgeoning welfare bill could have worked by politicians less inept than Starmer, Kendall and Reeves. We can't afford to put everyone on PIP if they occasionally feel sad.

You're not wrong of course.

The problem was coming into office (and there would have been discussions with senior civil servants in advance), it was clear everything that needed to be done couldn't be done on day one. Most would need complex legislation and take time to have an impact.

Labour thought they needed to hit the ground running and instead they just hit the ground. In truth, the theory of taking winter fuel allowance away from wealthy pensioners wasn't a bad one but the way the policy was presented was about as bad as it could have been. Had Reeves said, for example, we'll take WFA away from higher rate taxpayers, yes, there'd have been grumbling particularly from those at the cliff edge of the thresholds but overall that would have been muted and probably forgotten.

The big problem remains "the small boats" for which Starmer, like Badenoch and Farage, has no coherent, practical or affordable solution.

FPT. Morris_Dancer said:

betting Post:

F1: backed Hulkenberg for points at 7.5 (boosted), with a hedge at 1.8.

https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/07/british-grand-prix-2025-pre-race.html

Given he starts 19th this might sound daft, and it might be. But he's scored from 16th, 13th, and 20th in recent races.

Hi Morris Dancer, Son No1 and his girlfriend are having an amazing long weekend at Silverstone, they also ended up really enjoying the Fat Boy Slim concert last night before the big race today. I had never watched an F1 GP race before I met Fitaloon, but I quickly became a fan of the sport afterwards through him. We watched the Damon Hill documentary last night and I highly recommend it, the 1993/94 F1 seasons were the first time I managed to get to watch them all live along with Fitaloon which made this documentary all the more poignant because at the time I was busy having Sons No1 and 2. Previously my weekend shift work as a nurse meant I rarely got to watch most of the races live during the Ayrton Senna/Nigel Mansell era.

I saw Mansell twice at Silverstone.
First time in '83 when he came fourth to Prost in the Lotus. And later in his dominant championship year when the Williams drove into the distance.

'83 was absolutely sweltering, the traffic was indescribable, and the atmosphere amazing.

I went to Silverstone once. Must have been early/mid 90s

I don't remember the year. I don't remember who won.

My abiding memory is how much better it was on TV than live...

The same is true of the Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield. In the pub with a pint beats the stadium, every time.

Any sport is better watched at home where you see far more of the game, especially with modern multi-camera set-ups. What you get at the ground is atmosphere and the feeling that you too are part of unfolding events, a small footnote in history. I was there!