Best Of

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

Damning findings from UK

72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful"
68% "traditional parties don't care about me"
68% "country in decline"
68% "mainstream media want money not truth"
67% "experts don't understand me"
65% "society is broken

-Ipsos MORI"

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1934603108987883863

Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.

Something will give, sooner or later.

Our democracy will probably be what gives.

The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.

Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.

I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.

Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.

Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.

All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.

We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.

Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.

It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.

A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.

You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions

For some time, I have been wondering whether most of Jeffrey Epstein's victims did not have fathers in their lives. That seems likely to me, but I have seen no direct evidence on that possibility.

This excellent header reminds me that I have the same question about the victims in this scandal. Is there any publicly available data on the victims that would answer that question?

(When I was growing up, there was story often told -- and it probably did happen in the US occasionally -- about a first date: The boy comes in and has a talk with the girl's father, while waiting for the girl. Not coincidentally, the father was cleaning his hand gun, while waiting for the boy.)

In one case the step-father (I believe) received a visit from the police.

And was told that if he didn’t stop reporting {thing we can’t talk about} repeatedly, then the police would accuse him (the step-father) of being racist.

The council would then use the anti-social neighbour laws to throw him and the rest of his family out of their council house. With no obligation to house them elsewhere.

I want to see anyone who behaved like this held to account.

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

Damning findings from UK

72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful"
68% "traditional parties don't care about me"
68% "country in decline"
68% "mainstream media want money not truth"
67% "experts don't understand me"
65% "society is broken

-Ipsos MORI"

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1934603108987883863

Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.

Something will give, sooner or later.

Our democracy will probably be what gives.

The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.

Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.

I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.

Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.

Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.

All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.

We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.

Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.

It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.

A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.

You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions

Early retirement is a choice.

It is for most people (although some people have do so so through ill health) but you do your financial planning based on what you entitled to. I front-end loaded what I took from my occupational pension based on the idea I am going to get another £900 a month in 6-7 years time. You can't just suddenly take that away from people

The whole point is that we need to start stopping the "entitlement" culture. You've literally said it there. People feel entitled to retire early because the state doesn't penalise them properly for doing so. It should.

Without wishing to trigger you further, if you ever find yourself in need of state support one of the best places to check is a site called 'EntitledTo'. The reason it is called that is there are various statutory entitlements available which have been agreed by MP's of all hues, over any number of Parliaments going back to Winston Churchill (who was pro-state entitlements) and earlier.

So there is a serious risk to your health continuing to worry about something you will never change as these have been in place since before WW1.

Chill

Powerful header!

Does anyone have a rough estimate of what compensation might cost?
I'd guess it would be well into the £billions if there are tens of thousands affected. Proving who had been failed by the police vs. there simply being a lack of evidence to proceed would probably be tricky I'd guess.
Still, if they were failed by the state so egregiously they should be entitled to compensation.

I wonder if rather than the usual, wait 20 years for a chance at a large settlement when the chancellor gets round to it, we should have more of a:

Everyone plausibly affected gets a monthly amount, non-refundable and it stops only when state has
properly investigated and decided no further compensation is due. Or indeed an extra payment needs to be made.
That would help victims in the meantime, help government to budget the cost and also maybe incentivise govt to hurry up a bit.

No idea. But since NI and Scotland are still going ahead with their schemes it should be possible to find out.

I think this one area where we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. What the victims deserve is some help to put their lives back on track - financial compensation plus other therapeutic help, removal of convictions for drunkenness etc.,. and that help is needed now - not in a decade.

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

Damning findings from UK

72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful"
68% "traditional parties don't care about me"
68% "country in decline"
68% "mainstream media want money not truth"
67% "experts don't understand me"
65% "society is broken

-Ipsos MORI"

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1934603108987883863

Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.

Something will give, sooner or later.

Our democracy will probably be what gives.

The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.

Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.

I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.

Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.

Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.

All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.

We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.

Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.

It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.

And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.

No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.

I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.

You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.

Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?

Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".

Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)

I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.

Thank you for the as always measured response.

There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.

We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.

I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.

As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).

It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.

I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.

Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.

Have you sat through a PIP assessment or capacity for work interview?

I have. Several ESA, a DLA and two PIPs.

And I can safely say that "by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes" is utter bollocks in my experience.

Former Real Madrid and Wales star Gareth Bale is part of a US-based consortium's attempt to take over League One club Plymouth Argyle.

Is there any league football club not owned by the Americans, Arabs or Bitcoiners these days? I don't think the Yanks are doing it because they want to sportswash.

Spurs is up for sale at £4-4.5bn according to recent reports and they're likely to achieve that asking price. Investors can see how much money the Glazers have been able to fleece from Man United (£1.25bn paid in dividends to the family) and the value of Liverpool has almost 10x since FSG took over. Buying a smaller club and building it into a Premier League level team is a one way bet. You can bet that the Aston Villa owners will be looking to sell within the next 5-7 years after a £1-2bn value gain is banked.

Football at EPL level is a business and US investors are brilliant at getting maximum value out of British businesses.

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

Damning findings from UK

72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful"
68% "traditional parties don't care about me"
68% "country in decline"
68% "mainstream media want money not truth"
67% "experts don't understand me"
65% "society is broken

-Ipsos MORI"

https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1934603108987883863

Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.

Something will give, sooner or later.

Our democracy will probably be what gives.

The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.

Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.

I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.

Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.

Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.

All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.

We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.

Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.

It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.

A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.

You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions

Early retirement is a choice.

It is for most people (although some people have do so so through ill health) but you do your financial planning based on what you entitled to. I front-end loaded what I took from my occupational pension based on the idea I am going to get another £900 a month in 6-7 years time. You can't just suddenly take that away from people

The whole point is that we need to start stopping the "entitlement" culture. You've literally said it there. People feel entitled to retire early because the state doesn't penalise them properly for doing so. It should.

...and the relatively small (by international standards) State Pension...

Be a little wary of the international comparisons. In many countries government workers such as teachers get an enlarged state pension rather than a second, separate pension. Makes the stats hard to compile.