Best Of

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.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

It's not universally bad. We've had some good projects in Scotland. Queensferry Crossing came in under budget and on time. Small stuff, incremental stuff, tends to go ok.

I think you've fallen for the trap of thinking in terms of billions, not millions. The odd town bypass, new tram routes, a few million on cycle lanes, rail electrification, phone masts, a public health investment. That can add up to billions, but you've diversified across projects so that one disaster doesn't cause the whole investment to collapse.

Yes lots of small projects can add up to a decent gain, yet it's the big projects that will move the needle. The problem we have is the government treats it like something like HS2 as a 5x 55 point unrelated tickets instead of an epic with 150x 3 point tickets.

One of my best mates was previously on the project and he was sitting around being paid £650 per day to do nothing because there just wasn't anything for him to do but they'd contracted him from a set date to a set date but that work was so badly delayed that for the whole 3 months of the contract he got paid to be "on call" and then once work finally did commence they had to call him and his crew back at an even higher rate. That's about 25 electricians of varying skill level on day rates because they declined to do the fixed price deal he offered as it was "too restrictive" due to him setting a specific time to start and finish, requiring the site to be handed in a certain way and all materials etc... to be delivered to a tight schedule and completing the project over 4.5 months. In the end it took them 3 months of doing nothing, then another 6 months of actual work and the overall cost was 2.5x what he offered in the fixed price contract.

I have no doubt that this small example isn't the only one where inept public sector project managers and consultants who don't know what they're doing end up pissing public money into the wind because there's zero repercussions.

That’s nuts, and you know that exactly the same scenario would have played out for every single other trade on the project. Thousands of people people each paid hundreds of pounds a day to do nothing productive.

That - on a massive scale - is what I saw and experienced all day every day during my time in 'investment banking'. And not a government or public sector employee in sight.

The difference being that investment banking inefficiencies are a problem for the bank management and shareholders, as opposed to taxpayers being forcibly relieved of their money under penalty of imprisonment.

Except it is a drag on everyone else and in 08/09 led to an enormous direct call on public money.

That was Gordon Brown’s fault from the beginning to the end. Many banks should have been allowed to fail, with insured deposits and safe mortgages kept in some sort of a government bank that could have been floated later.

Oh for heaven's sake. Are you for real?

What is the problem with banks failing? If they are not allied to fail, they should not be allowed to make profit. Profit is the reward for risk.

The problem in 2008/09 wasn't banks failing but the public order impact of a run on the banks absent a depositor guarantee. Had Northern Rock failed and people lost money, we'd have seen queues and potential public disorder outside other banks and if you want a quick road to authoritarianism, make your middle classes paupers.

RBS was close to failure - imagine the ATMs not working and card payments being declined.

Every large organisation needs to have some kind of "Will" to make clear what should happen in the event of insolvency. I fear we've not learned that lesson from the GFC but banks now know the lender of last resort will bail them out whatever the cost.

The issue is that all banks deeply entwined with each other. And the insolvency of one, if it causes depositors not to be able to withdraw money or for companies to pay staff, can mean the insolvency of others.

All the 'living wills' in the world doesn't solve the problem of interconnectness.

In 2008/09, that interdependency meant credit was effectively frozen as banks stopped lending to each other and that only worsened the situation.

By 2010, the only organisations investing in investment property were pension funds and local councils and those among the latter who got in early got some really good rental returns for a while.

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.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

It's not universally bad. We've had some good projects in Scotland. Queensferry Crossing came in under budget and on time. Small stuff, incremental stuff, tends to go ok.

I think you've fallen for the trap of thinking in terms of billions, not millions. The odd town bypass, new tram routes, a few million on cycle lanes, rail electrification, phone masts, a public health investment. That can add up to billions, but you've diversified across projects so that one disaster doesn't cause the whole investment to collapse.

Yes lots of small projects can add up to a decent gain, yet it's the big projects that will move the needle. The problem we have is the government treats it like something like HS2 as a 5x 55 point unrelated tickets instead of an epic with 150x 3 point tickets.

One of my best mates was previously on the project and he was sitting around being paid £650 per day to do nothing because there just wasn't anything for him to do but they'd contracted him from a set date to a set date but that work was so badly delayed that for the whole 3 months of the contract he got paid to be "on call" and then once work finally did commence they had to call him and his crew back at an even higher rate. That's about 25 electricians of varying skill level on day rates because they declined to do the fixed price deal he offered as it was "too restrictive" due to him setting a specific time to start and finish, requiring the site to be handed in a certain way and all materials etc... to be delivered to a tight schedule and completing the project over 4.5 months. In the end it took them 3 months of doing nothing, then another 6 months of actual work and the overall cost was 2.5x what he offered in the fixed price contract.

I have no doubt that this small example isn't the only one where inept public sector project managers and consultants who don't know what they're doing end up pissing public money into the wind because there's zero repercussions.

That’s nuts, and you know that exactly the same scenario would have played out for every single other trade on the project. Thousands of people people each paid hundreds of pounds a day to do nothing productive.

That - on a massive scale - is what I saw and experienced all day every day during my time in 'investment banking'. And not a government or public sector employee in sight.

The difference being that investment banking inefficiencies are a problem for the bank management and shareholders, as opposed to taxpayers being forcibly relieved of their money under penalty of imprisonment.

Except it is a drag on everyone else and in 08/09 led to an enormous direct call on public money.

That was Gordon Brown’s fault from the beginning to the end. Many banks should have been allowed to fail, with insured deposits and safe mortgages kept in some sort of a government bank that could have been floated later.

Oh for heaven's sake. Are you for real?

What is the problem with banks failing? If they are not allied to fail, they should not be allowed to make profit. Profit is the reward for risk.

The problem in 2008/09 wasn't banks failing but the public order impact of a run on the banks absent a depositor guarantee. Had Northern Rock failed and people lost money, we'd have seen queues and potential public disorder outside other banks and if you want a quick road to authoritarianism, make your middle classes paupers.

RBS was close to failure - imagine the ATMs not working and card payments being declined.

Every large organisation needs to have some kind of "Will" to make clear what should happen in the event of insolvency. I fear we've not learned that lesson from the GFC but banks now know the lender of last resort will bail them out whatever the cost.

The issue is that all banks deeply entwined with each other. And the insolvency of one, if it causes depositors not to be able to withdraw money or for companies to pay staff, can mean the insolvency of others.

All the 'living wills' in the world doesn't solve the problem of interconnectness.

.

Photo Quiz meets Interior Deco Update:

Why is it better to put this on a wall rather than some random art by someone else (*waves at @TOPPING*)?

What makes this special? Why have I put it on the wall in my revamping new living room?



Answers on an antique parchment

Are you the one on the left or the one on the right?

This is a tricky one. Here's the long answer (@Sunil_Prasannan was on the right road)

So I have a long association with Gobekli Tepe. I first went, on my own shilling, on the off chance, as a youngish hungry freelancer in 2006 to write one of the first major articles on the whole place, back when it was basically unknown. The article went viral and halfway made me as a writer

I went out again in 2023 and - because by then I was well known to them - the main archaeologists showed me all the incredible new sites. Especially Karahan Tepe. Etc. These collective sites are now known as the Tas Tepeler

But then on day 3 as we were driving around Necmul the head Turkish boffin of the whole Tas Tepeler said “sod it Leon I'm going to show you something new, we only found this three months ago”. So we abruply diverted to this tiny village in the desert which had obvious Tepe like pillars propping up farm walls, it was like driving to Stonehenge and en route finding a Wiltshire village using megaliths as door frames (only much much older). And then Necmul led me past some chickens to a small stone door and at the doorway he said “the villagers found this when they were emptying a barn a few weeks ago, and they called us in”

Inside that barn was that rock frieze, perhaps 12,000 years old. With the classic Gobekli animals in profile - the horned bull - a man dying maybe - a leopard - and then the fascinating figure of a small strange man holding his penis, with the iconic chevrons on his chest - all motifs used across the Tas Tepeler. In other words, what I was seeing was pretty much final, conclusive proof that Gobekli Tepe and the tas Tepeler actually represent an entire buried 13,000 year old civilisation, which we completely do not understand and might have had writing and was highly sophisticated. Possibly as advanced as the Egyptians but 8000 years earlier. We have no idea how and why and who and what

And Necmul told me, as we stood in that barn, "only a few people have ever seen this. A handful of us archaeologists, one or two academics, now you - this is the first time it’s been revealed since the Ice Age”

The boy was a son of a local farmer who wandered in. And stood by the frieze because he was having fun and we decided he was was good for scale as we took photos

That is why this unique photo, by me, hangs on my wall, instead of any "art" by someone else

To add to the poignancy, the flat I live in now was bought entirely from the earnings from my original thriller based on my first visit to Gobekli Tepe. If these alien-Nephilim with six fingers hadn't build a mad now-buried civilisation, I wouldn't have this flat. Funny how things turn out. I wonder if that was a motivation for them. "In 13,000 years time some English dude will be able to buy a flat, because we have six fingers and we're building underground cities during the Ice Age"

You should really get someone to pitch you to Joe Rogan as a podcast interview. He’s totally obsessed by stuff like Gobekli Tepe.

He also said that Candace Owens allegations about Ms Macron actually being a man* were obviously true, because otherwise she (Owens) would have been sued. I think he said her six part expose was one of the most impressive things he'd ever watched.

* And that's only the tip of the bonkersness of the Owens claims.

Isn’t Candace Owens now getting sued by Macron?

Yes.

My point is that Rogan is a really bright and interesting guy, who ends up being a net negative for the world, because he's happy to spread the kind of shit that is clearly completely bat shit crazy.

As Rogan says himself, he’s a stupid comedian, but inquisitive and honest in his own thoughts.

As I’ve said before, it’s way better to have the likes of Rogan and Jordon Peterson be role models to young men, than the likes of Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes.

I'd rather drink piss than eat shit, but fortunately that are many other alternatives to doing either.

Okay, so who should be the role models to young men?

Joe Root.

Photo Quiz meets Interior Deco Update:

Why is it better to put this on a wall rather than some random art by someone else (*waves at @TOPPING*)?

What makes this special? Why have I put it on the wall in my revamping new living room?



Answers on an antique parchment

Are you the one on the left or the one on the right?

This is a tricky one. Here's the long answer (@Sunil_Prasannan was on the right road)

So I have a long association with Gobekli Tepe. I first went, on my own shilling, on the off chance, as a youngish hungry freelancer in 2006 to write one of the first major articles on the whole place, back when it was basically unknown. The article went viral and halfway made me as a writer

I went out again in 2023 and - because by then I was well known to them - the main archaeologists showed me all the incredible new sites. Especially Karahan Tepe. Etc. These collective sites are now known as the Tas Tepeler

But then on day 3 as we were driving around Necmul the head Turkish boffin of the whole Tas Tepeler said “sod it Leon I'm going to show you something new, we only found this three months ago”. So we abruply diverted to this tiny village in the desert which had obvious Tepe like pillars propping up farm walls, it was like driving to Stonehenge and en route finding a Wiltshire village using megaliths as door frames (only much much older). And then Necmul led me past some chickens to a small stone door and at the doorway he said “the villagers found this when they were emptying a barn a few weeks ago, and they called us in”

Inside that barn was that rock frieze, perhaps 12,000 years old. With the classic Gobekli animals in profile - the horned bull - a man dying maybe - a leopard - and then the fascinating figure of a small strange man holding his penis, with the iconic chevrons on his chest - all motifs used across the Tas Tepeler. In other words, what I was seeing was pretty much final, conclusive proof that Gobekli Tepe and the tas Tepeler actually represent an entire buried 13,000 year old civilisation, which we completely do not understand and might have had writing and was highly sophisticated. Possibly as advanced as the Egyptians but 8000 years earlier. We have no idea how and why and who and what

And Necmul told me, as we stood in that barn, "only a few people have ever seen this. A handful of us archaeologists, one or two academics, now you - this is the first time it’s been revealed since the Ice Age”

The boy was a son of a local farmer who wandered in. And stood by the frieze because he was having fun and we decided he was was good for scale as we took photos

That is why this unique photo, by me, hangs on my wall, instead of any "art" by someone else

To add to the poignancy, the flat I live in now was bought entirely from the earnings from my original thriller based on my first visit to Gobekli Tepe. If these alien-Nephilim with six fingers hadn't build a mad now-buried civilisation, I wouldn't have this flat. Funny how things turn out. I wonder if that was a motivation for them. "In 13,000 years time some English dude will be able to buy a flat, because we have six fingers and we're building underground cities during the Ice Age"

You should really get someone to pitch you to Joe Rogan as a podcast interview. He’s totally obsessed by stuff like Gobekli Tepe.

He also said that Candace Owens allegations about Ms Macron actually being a man* were obviously true, because otherwise she (Owens) would have been sued. I think he said her six part expose was one of the most impressive things he'd ever watched.

* And that's only the tip of the bonkersness of the Owens claims.

Isn’t Candace Owens now getting sued by Macron?

Yes

“CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH
YOU MAY REGRET IT
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH
YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT”

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.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

It's not universally bad. We've had some good projects in Scotland. Queensferry Crossing came in under budget and on time. Small stuff, incremental stuff, tends to go ok.

I think you've fallen for the trap of thinking in terms of billions, not millions. The odd town bypass, new tram routes, a few million on cycle lanes, rail electrification, phone masts, a public health investment. That can add up to billions, but you've diversified across projects so that one disaster doesn't cause the whole investment to collapse.

Even with small projects, the process state still rears it’s ugly head.

Not very far from where I live the council decided to use some government money to build a cycle/pedestrian bridge over the river between two sites that are due for extensive redevelopment in the future. Cue outrage from local nimbies over the trauma caused by the need to cut down twelve trees. Twelve self-seeded trees that would grow back afterwards. So far we’ve had one judicial review, another in the works & the entire project has roughly doubled in cost due to all the delays.

The Aarhus Convention is a plague upon the nation.

Where I live, the council planted some fast growing trees. About 15 years back.

These tore up the pavement, when they got big. Because the pavements are narrow, in places, this makes it impossible to use prams, wheelchairs or walking frames. Literally you can’t get through the gap between the tree and people’s garden walls, except by scrambling over tree roots erupting from the pavement.

The sane thing to do is chop the trees down and replace. They have all the cultural value of a pine tree in one of those Swedish forest grown for wood pulp.

But no.

So the old people and mothers walk in the actual road, with the cars.

Indeed, the notion of boulevard style living in the suburbs, predicated on having trees in streets, is deeply flawed.

The roots of a tree grow twice as far as the height of the tree so can quickly undermine the nearby pavements and eventually the houses themselves. In addition, the canopy can obstruct not only buses but as I've seen in streets near me, it can actually reduce light going into people's houses.

The trees need to be properly looked after and routinely cut back but the roots remain a big problem until and unless the tree is removed. A number have in fact been taken down in Newham because of the subsidence issues they were causing.