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First Spring Statement polling has just 13% thinking they will benefit – politicalbetting.com

I never know what to make of instant polling like the above from YouGov. Clearly it will take some time before the details of what Sunak announced this afternoon sink in and mostly what the sample responded is based on media responses.
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Amounts remain the same; geographical restrictions will apply. Residential properties in Lisbon, Porto, or along the coast won’t qualify
https://getgoldenvisa.com/portugal-golden-visa-changes
https://twitter.com/TheCriticMag/status/1506675686320316417
I really can’t believe this package does next to nothing for those getting hardest hit by rising prices - those who are disabled and not working just got told they are on their own (after losing £1000 income in the Autumn)
https://twitter.com/torstenbell/status/1506631735089500167?s=21
Absolutely no way he increases them by 8% next year.
(Might not be quite as high as 8% - it's the average from Oct 21 - Sep 22)
Simply appalling judgment and failure to recognize how people are struggling/will struggle and making it even more attractive to have unearned rather than earned income.
Shocking.
It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though - Sunak did absolutely nothing to stop the both economically and socially lunatic benefit cut last year, even before the worst of all this.
The evidence looks very much to be, that beneath all the polished charm, he simply doesn't care.
https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1506687451695357953
Are there no workhouses?
Would be nice to have more Northern Ireland polling. I still think the DUP will get about 20% although can't quite see them coming 1st (and I don't see DUP+UUP+TUV below 40%) but I can see them underperforming in seats and can see nationalist parties and Alliance having more efficient seat distribution than the Unionist parties.
I think he has blown it big time.
In a Sunak vs Starmer election I couldn't vote for either.
I'm really struggling to see how the UK (and wider west other than the US) exits the current disaster of high inflation and not high enough wage growth. At least in the UK we've got wage growth of just below inflation, I fear for countries across Europe where wage growth is 2-3% per year vs 7-9% inflation. People there are really going to suffer and no one has any answers for them.
I also think the government needs to take a look at index linked gilts, it may be time to wind down selling them and slowly replacing the existing stock with standard coupon gilts. The reason our debt interest bill is so excruciating is because around 30% of total gilt stock is inflation linked, there's really been no need for the government to take this penalty and it's another one of those instruments that exists to protect pension incomes by funnelling tax receipts from working age people to pension funds who hold index linked gilts.
As ever the UK as a society seems as though it exists to serve the over 60s, fucking over everyone else in the process.
Filling up before 6pm. Numpty
But they are stunningly poor figures nonetheless.
https://twitter.com/BBCSimonJack/status/1506671189544034305
They will soon be living in Scotland where they already have accommodation sorted and all of the group can stay together. @itvnews https://twitter.com/PeterAdamSmith/status/1506688985753694214/photo/1
Interestingly, our constituency is becoming increasingly marginal. Though with the LD, not Labour.
(I know you probably mean yearly)
The Tories will be looking to restore the old Elizabethan beggars and vagrancy laws.
I don't think there has been an outlook as dire as this since the seventies.
Sick man of Europe redux.
This is effectively why I left.
I mean, the direct reason was a job offer.
But the underlying situation looked exceedingly grim.
Why don’t you vote on who you think will improve the lot of the country?
And, if you’re very old and deluded, scared of the woke, and get your news from Farage-adjacent media —- it might just sound persuasive.
The effects of similar economic shocks, combined with post-Thatcherite levels of inequality, are not going to be great.
Even though I love Italy, the idea of living there is a disaster, what's happening here in terms of hollowing out working age incomes to protect oldies is happening all across the continent at an even worse rate. Macron can't even get the bloody pension age up from 62 to 65 without riots in the streets, old age spending in the UK is bad at around 20% of GDP, across the continent that number is hitting 25% already and rising fast leaving almost no room for investment in services or infrastructure.
I'm starting to think that maybe we should have just let COVID rip, it would have solved the care, healthcare and pensions cost crisis within a year and we would have saved £400bn in furlough and other expenses.
Enjoy life in the Land of the Free. (Apart from the healthcare.)
We have had a global plague, now we have a terrible war( (and the plague is still rumbling on, with perhaps famine to come?)
I'm not defending this government but the global economy has just been served two enormous cauldrons of shit to eat, so everything will have the savour of shit for quite a while
The usual suspects - northwestern Europe beyond the UK, and possibly countries like Canada , too.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1506687830067757059
But I am far less pessimistic about Europe than you seem to be.
Not Italy, of course, but Italy is in an even worse state than the UK.
I think, were I a “middle income” earning household (say, £100k?) with two kids…I would be content to move to most of Northern Europe.
Even the Balts and Czech are looking OK these days.
I’m trying to balance everything up in my thinking here - quality of life, taxation, public services, and the chance for my kids to live a normal lifestyle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrTrpwzVt4g
What a daft question.
*Decreases with car use
Did you see West Side Story btw?
I think it’s a terrible shame it bombed at the box office.
i.e. the Taliban have suspended the reopening.
"Putin is killing his OWN men with Stalin-style ‘execution squads’
"VLADIMIR Putin is reportedly using "execution squads" to kill defectors in a desperate effort to hold back the number of Russian soldiers fleeing from the invasion of Ukraine."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1585099/Putin-russia-ukraine-invasion-stalin-soldiers-surrender-conscripts
Utterly shameful.
By economic war do you mean sanctions and rising energy costs?
I think much of Europe has been caught napping - save France, perhaps - on energy costs.
This includes the UK of course.
I still think that Western Europe (apart from Italy!) is likely to outperform the UK over the next several years.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1506686575282999301?s=20&t=UKwVvHgjfwRwTr_Z28jmLQ
For this period of my life, (40s, two kids), it’s massively more advantageous for me to be here.
The idea is to try to retire in my early 50s.