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I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.

Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.

A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.

Will that not just push the online bookies even further offshore than they are now? You’re not going to stop people taking phones to the races.

France does it this way, I think. And there's a lot to like about racing there.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

She has not 'crashed the economy'.

Neither, in that sense, did Truss.

Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.

This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.

EDIT: Construction is already in recession.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

Truss was removed after 6 weeks

Reeves is hurting the economy far more with bond rates higher than in that six weeks of Truss, and Reeves actions have decimated business, enterprise, wealth creation and as for growth. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And whats more she has been 'hooked' yet unfortunately

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

She has not 'crashed the economy'.

Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".

There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.

Reform gain in Cannock Chase with 50%ish to Lab 23ish Con 12ish Grn 10
Ukip got 5 votes and beat TUSC who got....... 1!

Hednesford Green Heath (Cannock Chase) Council By-Election Result:

➡️ RFM: 51.5% (+31.8)
🌹 LAB: 22.6% (-18.6)
🌳 CON: 12.4% (-13.1)
🌍 GRN: 9.9% (-0.3)
🙋 Ind: 3.0% (New)
💷 UKIP: 0.5% (New)
🧑‍🔧 TUSC: 0.1% (New)

No Ind (-3.5) as previous.

Reform GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2024.

I was travelling round this ward this afternoon and predicted Reform would get over 50%. Almost tailer-made territory for them. Interesting fact is that the ward almost reaches 1,000 feet since it's next to Cannock Chase itself.

Why tailor-made? White working class?

I went there a couple of years ago and it seemed moderately prosperous, not down at heel post industrial Red Wall, but maybe I got the wrong impression

About as upper-working class and white as you can get. Not poor at all, but not wealthy either. A lot of bungalows which is usually a sign of Reform strength.

Interesting!

It would be genuinel;y fascinating to map British voting patterns to domestic architecture. Someone should do it. I had no idea "bungalows = Reform"

I'm interested - as politicos don't we do analysis by housing type like breathing? It's an indicator of demographics, though it varies by area and over time.

I used housing type and estate period as indicators, alongside placards, when I was doing "cycle around" Ashfield reports before the election iirc.

The people in an 80s estate in the noughties will be different from who they are now. Ditto 1930s when afaik we started building bungalows in quantity, 1930s/1940s (when there were many posh, but many prefabs), 1950s (not sure), 1960s/1970s bungalow estates (when mass bungalow building largely halted due to land pressures), ranch-style detached, or park homes, or the holiday chalet style traveller communities build.

And the same goes for Council Estates by decade, and Housing Association, with breaks determined by when allocation policy changed, they were sold off, and policy and economic shifts since, with an increasing social inertia with age and time as house-moving reduced.

Have we found a gap in @Leon's omniscience ?

Bungalows are favoured by older people, like the Coles, because, by definition, they don't have stairs and the toilet is on the ground floor.
It's when stair-climbing gets difficult that the advantage presses home.

And you'll never see a Reform placard outside my home while I'm alive! See my earlier post.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.

Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.

A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.

Morning all

Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.

I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").

In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).

That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.

Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.

Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.

Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge

I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26

Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them

Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.

However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.

They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.

Welsh love-spoons are quite long and carefully crafted. That might be a pointer.

Years ago my wife presented me with the largest Welsh love spoon you could imagine and, on giving it to me, said this recognises how excellent you are at stirring things up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.

Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises

Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment

Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.