Numbers either don't add up. Or. The political choices necessary to make them add up don't. Fundamentals haven't changed no matter who sits in the big chair.
When was it supposed to be, before the markets panicked and forced it to be brought forward?
23 November. It is a very movable feast though. I can count at least 4 dates given.
I wonder if cancelling the Halloween date will, er, spook the markets?
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
Numbers either don't add up. Or. The political choices necessary to make them add up don't. Fundamentals haven't changed no matter who sits in the big chair.
When was it supposed to be, before the markets panicked and forced it to be brought forward?
23 November. It is a very movable feast though. I can count at least 4 dates given.
I wonder if cancelling the Halloween date will, er, spook the markets?
I doubt it - the "proper" date is towards the end of November, and the only reason they had to bring it forward was to deal with the Trussterfuck which has now been assuaged.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Income is overtaxed and capital is undertaxed.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'm not sure about this - "capital has already been taxed" is the common refrain.
But it has not been taxed enough
Everything is taxed too much. Yes there is a need to adjust where taxes are levied from but at the same time the overall tax burden is far too high. Truss was catastrophically wrong in the way she went about things but the underlying basic principle that the state is too large and we pay too much of overall in tax is absolutely right.
Its easy to say “the state is too big”. Its far harder to identify what it should stop spending on.
Not really.
I would scrap the automatic state pension and have it as a safety net just like other benefits. We should not be paying state pension to those who already have reasonable private pension provision or savings. I would increase the minimum wage to make it a proper living wage paid by employers so that the taxpayer is not subsidising companies who choose to pay their employees less than they need to live on. Associated with the above I would look at scrapping all benefits for anyone earning more than the average income.
That is just for starters. There are plenty more areas to look at.
Interesting. I could certainly see a time when the state pension becomes just a safety net/means tested.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I think we'll find out more about Rishi when the first scandal hits and we see his reaction to it.
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
What happens is that with more rich middle class people using them they get more funding.
This is the sort of fallacious nonsense - that pushy middle class parents automatically lead to much better state schools - that is truly believed on the Left, isn't it?
It's your equivalent of the dogmatic faith in grammar schools being the answer to all education problems on the right.
Have Labour yet demonstrated that it will be a net positive once they have paid the extra costs to educate children forced out of the independent sector into state schools?
I'd suggest that the policy is crude populism, which will undermine educational opportunities for many who don't fit the relatively boilerplate state model.
Nor am I convinced by the "The Conservatives crashed the economy" line. That doesn't stand up very well when we start making international comparisons with our peers. But it's not clear that anyone will be listening.
Yep, and it won't. What it will do is drive up house prices near very good state schools and create a new micro industry of private tutoring.
It will absolutely nothing for improving educational outcomes or increasing the tax take. It will also lead to reduced employment in the education sector.
Where I live, the new fashion among the moderately rich is sending your children to the Free School, for sixth form.
Private school has, by then, taught them how to learn. The school and teachers are reasonable. Topped up with £10k a year of tuition, of course.
So when they go for interviews for uni, they can blag up being state educated. The school gets ever higher A level results….
The families can afford much nicer ski holidays with the money saved.
What’s not to like?
Teachers, incidentally, are making a fortune in the tuition thing.
FWIW, I think two professionals or semiprofessionals can probably afford to send *one* child to private school for 13 years as a day pupil.
Let's say it's £15k per year and £1-2k "extras" then that's about £700 pcm each.
You'd have to sacrifice new cars on PCP or a slightly larger mortgage/home extension but, if you were both on 40k+, you could do it.
Problem comes with a second kid. I'd rather carry forward any inheritance and spend it now on that basis, to be honest.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Income is overtaxed and capital is undertaxed.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'm not sure about this - "capital has already been taxed" is the common refrain.
But it has not been taxed enough
Everything is taxed too much. Yes there is a need to adjust where taxes are levied from but at the same time the overall tax burden is far too high. Truss was catastrophically wrong in the way she went about things but the underlying basic principle that the state is too large and we pay too much of overall in tax is absolutely right.
Its easy to say “the state is too big”. Its far harder to identify what it should stop spending on.
Not really.
I would scrap the automatic state pension and have it as a safety net just like other benefits. We should not be paying state pension to those who already have reasonable private pension provision or savings. I would increase the minimum wage to make it a proper living wage paid by employers so that the taxpayer is not subsidising companies who choose to pay their employees less than they need to live on. Associated with the above I would look at scrapping all benefits for anyone earning more than the average income.
That is just for starters. There are plenty more areas to look at.
Interesting. I could certainly see a time when the state pension becomes just a safety net/means tested.
Problem is that DC pensions are not going to come close to the standards offered by DB pensions.
I hear the median pension pot for under 50s is under £50,000.
They're not going to be Tory voting pensioners like the Boomers.
Of course raising the pension age into the low 70s means an increasing number will simply drop in their traces.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
If you have a population growing faster than house building, the only surprise is that people are surprised by increasing prices.
Are there great swathes of the country where there's no building at all going on ?
Certainly not in Southern Hampshire, its been a building site for 10 years and will continue to be one for another 10
In east Berkshire where I grew up the house building is absolutely massive. Where I live now in Buckinghamshire there is quite a lot of building in villages but it is dwarfed by the huge new estates popping up around towns like Aylesbury.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I only remember the occasional small new development. House building just seemed to explode in the mid-noughties. There is no doubt in my mind that was driven by the massive increase in immigration.
I'll still make my point again that it is far better to find locations to build new communities designed in a sympathetic manner rather than destroying existing ones by making them far larger than was ever intended.
Organic growth of communities is EVUL, remember.
The joke is that NIMBYism is driven by the GiantEstateOfExecutiveShitboxes crap. If someone said they wanted to build another street of houses in the local vernacular on the edge of the village, you’d get much less resistance.
I don't buy that. I see no evidence of people demanding it be made easier to build streets at the edge of their village, build it elsewhere seems to be the demand made instead.
It doesn't matter much if its the local vernacular, or executive, or anything else, people will still object because it "ruins their view/is too crowded/has no services/roads are congested/affects my house price/newts live there" or whatever other crap they want to come up with.
To be honest, isn't that logical?
If your view or peace is ruined, together with construction noise for 2 years plus, then why would you welcome that given you get nothing in return?
It's not in their interests. You'd probably have to bunk 'em £5k each to meaningful reduce objections to new build, which of course would ruin the economics.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
If you have a population growing faster than house building, the only surprise is that people are surprised by increasing prices.
Are there great swathes of the country where there's no building at all going on ?
London's green belt; Lake District (though plenty is much of Cumbria); almost the whole of the landmass of Scotland; Hampstead Heath.
Lake District and much of Scotland has low demand for housing.
Are we saying the current "housing crisis" be solved at the cost of London green belt
No. We are separating facts and values. If you want values, IMHO Scotland is massively underpopulated, and has low demand for housing because no-one lives there and it would be better if they did. As it happens I live in England, but can see Scotland from my road.
This, like much underpopulation, is due to the distortions of history and power, being centred too much in the bit of western Europe that includes London, Paris and Berlin but excludes Scotland and north England.
BTW, most of the Green belt is ghastly and should be built on or properly rewilded.
So if Sir Keir asks about it at PMQs, Sunak just blocks it with "we have an urgent question on that in a few minutes"? And then the UQ doesn't get seen by the general public?
Starmer gets to ask questions with more relevance to the public - Labour get to use the UQ to probe at divisions within the Tories and to discredit Sunak in the eyes of lobby journalists. It's the perfect division of labour.
I'll be surprised if Starmer focuses mainly on Braverman at the first PMQs. It's the ground Sunak would want to fight on - ie. his choice to bring back a minister who is tough (in words if not deeds) on immigration. A more productive set of questions, taking the opportunity to define Sunak would be: 1. To bang on about Sunak trashing the levelling up agenda at the Tunbridge Wells Tories' garden party. 2. To tackle the claim that the economic mess is all Truss and Kwarteng's fault and nothing to do with me guvnor. i.e. make the case that markets wouldn't have been so easily spooked and mortgage rates wouldn't be rising so quickly if Sunak had left a sounder foundation after 2.5 years as Chancellor.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Income is overtaxed and capital is undertaxed.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'm not sure about this - "capital has already been taxed" is the common refrain.
But it has not been taxed enough
Everything is taxed too much. Yes there is a need to adjust where taxes are levied from but at the same time the overall tax burden is far too high. Truss was catastrophically wrong in the way she went about things but the underlying basic principle that the state is too large and we pay too much of overall in tax is absolutely right.
Its easy to say “the state is too big”. Its far harder to identify what it should stop spending on.
Not really.
I would scrap the automatic state pension and have it as a safety net just like other benefits. We should not be paying state pension to those who already have reasonable private pension provision or savings. I would increase the minimum wage to make it a proper living wage paid by employers so that the taxpayer is not subsidising companies who choose to pay their employees less than they need to live on. Associated with the above I would look at scrapping all benefits for anyone earning more than the average income.
That is just for starters. There are plenty more areas to look at.
Interesting. I could certainly see a time when the state pension becomes just a safety net/means tested.
If you means-test it you create all the problems with incentives that result from the universal credit taper rate, the allowance withdrawal taper, etc, but for pensions savings. It would destroy the incentive for most people to save for a pension.
Do what Bartholomew suggests and simply put pensioner taxes up instead. You get to a similar end point but with fewer discontinuities and perverse incentives.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I think we'll find out more about Rishi when the first scandal hits and we see his reaction to it.
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
The first scandal has already hit, within 24 hours, and its completely self-inflicted.
Second chances after a period on the backbenches are fair enough, but she was entirely justifiably sacked less than a week ago.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
If you have a population growing faster than house building, the only surprise is that people are surprised by increasing prices.
Are there great swathes of the country where there's no building at all going on ?
Certainly not in Southern Hampshire, its been a building site for 10 years and will continue to be one for another 10
In east Berkshire where I grew up the house building is absolutely massive. Where I live now in Buckinghamshire there is quite a lot of building in villages but it is dwarfed by the huge new estates popping up around towns like Aylesbury.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I only remember the occasional small new development. House building just seemed to explode in the mid-noughties. There is no doubt in my mind that was driven by the massive increase in immigration.
I'll still make my point again that it is far better to find locations to build new communities designed in a sympathetic manner rather than destroying existing ones by making them far larger than was ever intended.
Organic growth of communities is EVUL, remember.
The joke is that NIMBYism is driven by the GiantEstateOfExecutiveShitboxes crap. If someone said they wanted to build another street of houses in the local vernacular on the edge of the village, you’d get much less resistance.
I don't buy that. I see no evidence of people demanding it be made easier to build streets at the edge of their village, build it elsewhere seems to be the demand made instead.
It doesn't matter much if its the local vernacular, or executive, or anything else, people will still object because it "ruins their view/is too crowded/has no services/roads are congested/affects my house price/newts live there" or whatever other crap they want to come up with.
To be honest, isn't that logical?
If your view or peace is ruined, together with construction noise for 2 years plus, then why would you welcome that given you get nothing in return?
It's not in their interests. You'd probably have to bunk 'em £5k each to meaningful reduce objections to new build, which of course would ruin the economics.
Or tell them to mind their own business and they don't own the view and if they want to, they can buy it, but if they don't then someone else does and they need a place to live.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I think we'll find out more about Rishi when the first scandal hits and we see his reaction to it.
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
The first scandal has already hit, within 24 hours, and its completely self-inflicted.
Second chances after a period on the backbenches are fair enough, but she was entirely justifiably sacked less than a week ago.
Agree with this. It should be obvious that you can't reappoint someone to HS just a week after them resigning due to a misdemeanour. Going to cause Rishi a massive unnecessary headache.
Best bit of PMQs so far was the heckle during the question mentioning the time Sunak had fought the most recent leadership contest. Heckle: "which he lost".
One of Sunak's strengths is that he is not prepared to issue bare-faced lies from the dispatch box. This is, overall, a good thing for politics. Paradoxically, this makes things easier for Starmer, as he can ask questions which are hard to answer.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
What happens is that with more rich middle class people using them they get more funding.
This is the sort of fallacious nonsense - that pushy middle class parents automatically lead to much better state schools - that is truly believed on the Left, isn't it?
It's your equivalent of the dogmatic faith in grammar schools being the answer to all education problems on the right.
Have Labour yet demonstrated that it will be a net positive once they have paid the extra costs to educate children forced out of the independent sector into state schools?
I'd suggest that the policy is crude populism, which will undermine educational opportunities for many who don't fit the relatively boilerplate state model.
Nor am I convinced by the "The Conservatives crashed the economy" line. That doesn't stand up very well when we start making international comparisons with our peers. But it's not clear that anyone will be listening.
Yep, and it won't. What it will do is drive up house prices near very good state schools and create a new micro industry of private tutoring.
It will absolutely nothing for improving educational outcomes or increasing the tax take. It will also lead to reduced employment in the education sector.
Where I live, the new fashion among the moderately rich is sending your children to the Free School, for sixth form.
Private school has, by then, taught them how to learn. The school and teachers are reasonable. Topped up with £10k a year of tuition, of course.
So when they go for interviews for uni, they can blag up being state educated. The school gets ever higher A level results….
The families can afford much nicer ski holidays with the money saved.
What’s not to like?
Teachers, incidentally, are making a fortune in the tuition thing.
FWIW, I think two professionals or semiprofessionals can probably afford to send *one* child to private school for 13 years as a day pupil.
Let's say it's £15k per year and £1-2k "extras" then that's about £700 pcm each.
You'd have to sacrifice new cars on PCP or a slightly larger mortgage/home extension but, if you were both on 40k+, you could do it.
Problem comes with a second kid. I'd rather carry forward any inheritance and spend it now on that basis, to be honest.
It's just not necessary. If your kids are smart and work hard they will do well in all but the worst state secondary schools (and if you are middle class you will almost certainly not be in the catchment for the worst schools). They will probably be better at independent study, too - certainly my experience at uni. And they will be at ease with a broader cross section of society having gone to school with the 93% of kids who attend state schools rather than the 7% of mostly rich kids who didn't. None of us - my brother and sister and me - went to private school or had private tuition - and we went to Oxford, St Andrews and Cambridge for our undergraduate degrees. My wife and I could afford to send all three of our kids private but we just don't consider it money well spent. So far so good, our eldest got good GCSEs and is now at an excellent and highly academic state sixth form.
Things will only get worse for Sunak and the tories from here.
I'm afraid my goodwill evaporated yesterday on those dreadful Cabinet appointments. Braverman. Williamson. Seriously?
Yuck.
They need booting out of office for a lengthy time.
Not necessarily.
Given when the poll was sampled, it's got "yay, Truss has gone", but not "yay, Boris isn't coming back" or "yay, Sunak is going to be brilliant". So there's room for growth from here.
Having said that, "Boris isn't coming back" will disappoint some voters and there's an awfully big gap for Sunak's brilliance to close, even if he is better than his predecessors.
It'll just gradually get worse after a short term bounce.
The mess that's led to the end of cheap mortgages will only register when yours comes to an end. Many will feel that pain in 2023, more in 2024. Drip, drip, drip....
If they're very lucky, the war will have eased an energy bills being paid won't be any higher in April 2023 than they are now. But that's the best case.
And meanwhile, who's up for another round of austerity folks?
I think its entirely likely that energy bills will have fallen dramatically by April 2023
I think that its entirely likely that energy costs will have fallen dramatically by April 2023. However, given that energy costs are currently way in excess of actual bills, limited in the case of gas by the 7.5p per unit consumer price cap, I think it unlikely that costs will have fallen so far that we won't need a further price cap to avoid bills going up further in April. And remember, the pain of the rise to the current price cap has only just begun, people may be able to use up savings to cope for a month or two, but well into 2023 is another matter.
I was referring to the latest election result (SNP 64, Con 31, Lab 22, Grn 8, LD 4), not to the next one.
If forced to predict, I’d say that the Scottish Tories will just about manage to achieve 3rd place, on a shocking reduction in vote share, but it’ll be close. The Scottish Lib Dems are going to thoroughly hoover up the Unionist vote in the North East, Borders and perhaps even wealthier suburbs of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Unfortunately, from their point of view, the new boundaries are going to totally screw their chances of seat gains, but there’ll be a lot of shock SLD 2nd places.
The Yougov polling gives Sunak a 26% favourable rating in Scotland, actually higher than the 25% the SCons got in 2019
"71% of housewives in East Lancashire and 81% in Hertfordshire expressed an interest in the concept of exotic ice-creams. Only 8% in Hertfordshire and 14% in Lancashire expressed positive hostility, whilst 5% expressed latent hostility. In Hertfordshire, 96% of the 50% who formed 20% of consumer spending were in favour. 0.6% told us where we could put our exotic ice creams."
We ought to keep that and paste it in every time Mini Franco spouts his gobbledygook.
Indeed.
I know it's rather missing the point but I also find it quite amusing that 'exotic ice-creams' have become a major 'thing' many years after poor old Reggie Perrin disappeared for good.
Showing your age! 😄
That was a true cult classic. What on earth is it with “Only Fools and Horses”?? It was pretty shite at the time, only marginally improving during the later series, but it is getting hyped beyond belief. I’ve never re-watched it after the original broadcasts. Some theatre even has a bloody musical(?!) on it down at Haymarket. WTF.
A common feature of successful British sitcoms is the feeling of being trapped and held back by circumstances, with the humour coming from that desperation.
A common feature of Britain is the feeling of being trapped and held back by circumstances, with the political activism coming from that desperation.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
If you have a population growing faster than house building, the only surprise is that people are surprised by increasing prices.
Are there great swathes of the country where there's no building at all going on ?
Certainly not in Southern Hampshire, its been a building site for 10 years and will continue to be one for another 10
In east Berkshire where I grew up the house building is absolutely massive. Where I live now in Buckinghamshire there is quite a lot of building in villages but it is dwarfed by the huge new estates popping up around towns like Aylesbury.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I only remember the occasional small new development. House building just seemed to explode in the mid-noughties. There is no doubt in my mind that was driven by the massive increase in immigration.
I'll still make my point again that it is far better to find locations to build new communities designed in a sympathetic manner rather than destroying existing ones by making them far larger than was ever intended.
Organic growth of communities is EVUL, remember.
The joke is that NIMBYism is driven by the GiantEstateOfExecutiveShitboxes crap. If someone said they wanted to build another street of houses in the local vernacular on the edge of the village, you’d get much less resistance.
I don't buy that. I see no evidence of people demanding it be made easier to build streets at the edge of their village, build it elsewhere seems to be the demand made instead.
It doesn't matter much if its the local vernacular, or executive, or anything else, people will still object because it "ruins their view/is too crowded/has no services/roads are congested/affects my house price/newts live there" or whatever other crap they want to come up with.
To be honest, isn't that logical?
If your view or peace is ruined, together with construction noise for 2 years plus, then why would you welcome that given you get nothing in return?
It's not in their interests. You'd probably have to bunk 'em £5k each to meaningful reduce objections to new build, which of course would ruin the economics.
Or tell them to mind their own business and they don't own the view and if they want to, they can buy it, but if they don't then someone else does and they need a place to live.
Sure, you can do that, but then you can't expect them to just shut up about it - they'll still object and vote accordingly.
Watching this you have to ask WTAF Tory giffers were thinking when they went for bondage Liz. Rishi may well lose the next election, but he is a player and this is going to be great fun.
Just think how his bouncing jollity will go down as his government takes an axe to public services and welfare benefits!
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
Best bit of PMQs so far was the heckle during the question saying how Sunak had fought the most recent leadership contest. Heckle: "which he lost".
There's a line, isn't there? "How does it feel to be second choice to Liz Truss?"
Labour's achievement in this PMQs has been *not* to mention Truss, and focus on the team they are playing today. I feared that they would be all over the shop, fighting last week's battles. But (notwithstanding the potential for future backbench numpties asking daft questions) they have done well so far. Let the Tories remind us of Truss.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
If you have a population growing faster than house building, the only surprise is that people are surprised by increasing prices.
Are there great swathes of the country where there's no building at all going on ?
Certainly not in Southern Hampshire, its been a building site for 10 years and will continue to be one for another 10
In east Berkshire where I grew up the house building is absolutely massive. Where I live now in Buckinghamshire there is quite a lot of building in villages but it is dwarfed by the huge new estates popping up around towns like Aylesbury.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I only remember the occasional small new development. House building just seemed to explode in the mid-noughties. There is no doubt in my mind that was driven by the massive increase in immigration.
I'll still make my point again that it is far better to find locations to build new communities designed in a sympathetic manner rather than destroying existing ones by making them far larger than was ever intended.
Organic growth of communities is EVUL, remember.
The joke is that NIMBYism is driven by the GiantEstateOfExecutiveShitboxes crap. If someone said they wanted to build another street of houses in the local vernacular on the edge of the village, you’d get much less resistance.
I don't buy that. I see no evidence of people demanding it be made easier to build streets at the edge of their village, build it elsewhere seems to be the demand made instead.
It doesn't matter much if its the local vernacular, or executive, or anything else, people will still object because it "ruins their view/is too crowded/has no services/roads are congested/affects my house price/newts live there" or whatever other crap they want to come up with.
To be honest, isn't that logical?
If your view or peace is ruined, together with construction noise for 2 years plus, then why would you welcome that given you get nothing in return?
It's not in their interests. You'd probably have to bunk 'em £5k each to meaningful reduce objections to new build, which of course would ruin the economics.
Or tell them to mind their own business and they don't own the view and if they want to, they can buy it, but if they don't then someone else does and they need a place to live.
Sure, you can do that, but then you can't expect them to just shut up about it - they'll still object and vote accordingly.
Yes, you can't stop people from engaging in self-centred, antisocial behaviour.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I think we'll find out more about Rishi when the first scandal hits and we see his reaction to it.
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
The first scandal has already hit, within 24 hours, and its completely self-inflicted.
Second chances after a period on the backbenches are fair enough, but she was entirely justifiably sacked less than a week ago.
I meant since his appointment, although perhaps I was being a bit naughty drawing such a line.
She was probably sacked for having a stand up row with Truss. I though the email thing was very strange - I would guess it is all too common (if totally wrong) but we don't normally get to hear about it.
Admittedly, if she has breached the official secrets act then it could get more interesting.
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
Well, I thought Sunak was trying too hard to be a Boris Johnson tribute act, with all the boosterism, evasion and deflection, going on about Corbyn, snide comments about North London, and telling mistruths (no, Labour does not want unlimited immigration). Pretty disappointing.
What's great about yet another new PM is that they keep testing new potential candidates! Thank goodness the rotating slate of senior ministers don't actually haver any responsibilities or do anything.
No, wait...
Death Rigby claiming that Simon Case advised against appointing Braverman.
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I think we'll find out more about Rishi when the first scandal hits and we see his reaction to it.
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
The first scandal has already hit, within 24 hours, and its completely self-inflicted.
Second chances after a period on the backbenches are fair enough, but she was entirely justifiably sacked less than a week ago.
I meant since his appointment, although perhaps I was being a bit naughty drawing such a line.
She was probably sacked for having a stand up row with Truss. I though the email thing was very strange - I would guess it is all too common (if totally wrong) but we don't normally get to hear about it.
Admittedly, if she has breached the official secrets act then it could get more interesting.
It is since his appointment. Appointing her within a week of her being sacked, allegedly against Simon Case's advice, is a scandal and its entirely self-inflicted.
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
They have a route to prevent their annihilation. Labour get in with a small majority and tear themselves apart trying to balance the books. Tories back 5 years later to sort it out.
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
That would be baffling if it wasn't expected. Sunak didn't even address several of Starmer's questions; that gets him through PMQs, but absolutely confirms which lines are the ones to repeat (the refusal to deny that officials raised concerns about Braverman being a key element).
Looks like Ian Blackford could do with eating a bit more lettuce
Remember the rule: any event in the cosmos, be it positive, negative, neutral or immaterial, is "an insult to Scotland" and always "strengthens the case for independence".
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
But if it's Dan Hodges saying it, that could mean that the Tories aren't in a hole, it's Sunak's election to lose but Sunak was hopeless and Labour MPs will be releived.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
Labour are in no position to lecture on diversity, whether gender or race.
It's not like the Tories haven't given Labour enough ammunition with which to beat them around the head . Stupid politics by Labour, flagging up their hypocrisy.
Labour need to work on their knee-jerk reactions. They get too easily triggered.
They are in no position to lecture on diversity in sex, which is the protected characteristic, not gender. You'd think the party which introduced the Equality Act would know that.
On the Home Secretary position, is it possible that Mordaunt was offered it and turned it down?
Well, I thought Sunak was trying too hard to be a Boris Johnson tribute act, with all the boosterism, evasion and deflection, going on about Corbyn, snide comments about North London, and telling mistruths (no, Labour does not want unlimited immigration). Pretty disappointing.
I’d be fairer than that. Yes Sunak was poor at his first PMQs - but where you say evasive, that can actually be a good skilful performance, Starmer phrased a couple of questions on Braverman “did officials tell you don’t do it” that Sunak was wise not to attempt to answer. Numpty Truss for example would have answered yes.
Sunak had a sheet “if in trouble and can’t answer the question, reach for this instead”
Half way through his first PMQs Sunak looked down and he had used it all.
I’m surprised Sunak was so poor today, he has been excellent in the commons in the past. Nerves? That would explain the weird nervous grinning. Punch and Judy politics where you have to get shouty, not really his style?
Doesn’t change the fundamentals. Tory party still in a hole. Still Keir Starmer’s election to lose. But that was a massacre. Rishi Sunak was ready for Keir Starmer on every question. Labour MPs will be concerned.
But if it's Dan Hodges saying it, that could mean that the Tories aren't in a hole, it's Sunak's election to lose but Sunak was hopeless and Labour MPs will be releived.
Hodges talking bollocks. Rishi's answers on Braverman and non-doms was not great.
Grandparents looking after newborn. Wife resting at home.
What do I do?
I get the bus to Winchester, of course, to do some shopping for clothes and bedclothes for the house but.. also have a pint of Saxon Bronze, a lunchtime Gurkha curry and squeeze in a quick visit to Winchester's military museums before I'm back on duty at 5pm.
We currently export £29m/year of meat *total* to the US. The US consumes approximately zero lamb. And yet we are predicting ~£7m of Welsh Lamb exports per year. That's about a 25% increase in the export value! I find that hard to believe.
It's not that it isn't good to open that market, but it sounds like bobbins to me.
Well, I thought Sunak was trying too hard to be a Boris Johnson tribute act, with all the boosterism, evasion and deflection, going on about Corbyn, snide comments about North London, and telling mistruths (no, Labour does not want unlimited immigration). Pretty disappointing.
I’d be fairer than that. Yes Sunak was poor at his first PMQs - but where you say evasive, that can actually be a good skilful performance, Starmer phrased a couple of questions on Braverman “did officials tell you don’t do it” that Sunak was wise not to attempt to answer. Numpty Truss for example would have answered yes.
Sunak had a sheet “if in trouble and can’t answer the question, reach for this instead”
Half way through his first PMQs Sunak looked down and he had used it all.
I’m surprised Sunak was so poor today, he has been excellent in the commons in the past. Nerves? That would explain the weird nervous grinning. Punch and Judy politics where you have to get shouty, not really his style?
Yes. Sunak started by saying to Starmer 'let's have grown-up politics at PMQs', then rapidly descended into knockabout, irrelevant stuff and, as you say, Punch and Judy politics.
Rishi's response to Caroline Lucas looks as if fracking is over and Lucus smiled and clapped
Fracking? Over? But I have heard from various Tories out there and even on here that fracking isn't just wonderful, it will actually improve the environment...
Rishi's response to Caroline Lucas looks as if fracking is over and Lucus smiled and clapped
Fracking? Over? But I have heard from various Tories out there and even on here that fracking isn't just wonderful, it will actually improve the environment...
We currently export £29m/year of meat *total* to the US. The US consumes approximately zero lamb. And yet we are predicting ~£7m of Welsh Lamb exports per year. That's about a 25% increase in the export value! I find that hard to believe.
It's not that it isn't good to open that market, but it sounds like bobbins to me.
Hmm, new role for Truss, going to the States to open new lamb markets?
Starmer is excellent. Sunak is just Johnson revisited
Don't be ridiculous. One of the most politically stupid and partisan posts I have ever seen on here
No.I think Roger summed it up pretty well there.
Just like Boris, Sunak came armed, with a sheet “if in trouble and can’t answer the question, reach for this instead”
Half way through his first PMQs Sunak looked down and he had used it all.
But Boris did evasive non answers far better than Sunak did. It was just too patently obvious Sunak wasn’t answering questions just shouting back yah boo stuff not remotely like what was asked.
I think Starmer choose the wrong topics for his questions. The mention by Sunak of mistakes yesterday was an invitation for Starmer to tie Sunak to the record of the litany of mistakes by all the Tory governments over the last twelve years.
A really poor performance by Sunak. The serious tone of yesterday was a fake. He’s like an ageing music hall comedian dragging out his predecessor’s old jokes and looking wounded when the only people who laugh are the rest of the cast.
I was dreading Stephen Kinnock's intervention as he rose and started out - but actually, that was one of the more effective contributions from the Labour benches.
I don't think Sunak's "of course they told me not to appoint Braverman" deflection will work. The question will keep coming back, someone will leak, and he will be forced to accept that he appointed her above the heads of the civil service.
Comments
No, wait...
How ridiculous that his first full day of Premiership is being dominated by re-appointing someone who was rightly sacked at the weekend.
Still, only 2 more Prime Ministers to Christmas!
I don't think we can determine much from the probable result of horse trading that got him into position.
Let's say it's £15k per year and £1-2k "extras" then that's about £700 pcm each.
You'd have to sacrifice new cars on PCP or a slightly larger mortgage/home extension but, if you were both on 40k+, you could do it.
Problem comes with a second kid. I'd rather carry forward any inheritance and spend it now on that basis, to be honest.
I hear the median pension pot for under 50s is under £50,000.
They're not going to be Tory voting pensioners like the Boomers.
Of course raising the pension age into the low 70s means an increasing number will simply drop in their traces.
If your view or peace is ruined, together with construction noise for 2 years plus, then why would you welcome that given you get nothing in return?
It's not in their interests. You'd probably have to bunk 'em £5k each to meaningful reduce objections to new build, which of course would ruin the economics.
This, like much underpopulation, is due to the distortions of history and power, being centred too much in the bit of western Europe that includes London, Paris and Berlin but excludes Scotland and north England.
BTW, most of the Green belt is ghastly and should be built on or properly rewilded.
Do what Bartholomew suggests and simply put pensioner taxes up instead. You get to a similar end point but with fewer discontinuities and perverse incentives.
Second chances after a period on the backbenches are fair enough, but she was entirely justifiably sacked less than a week ago.
Massive.
But his answers are student politics. And his bouncy hot air will create a lot of problems for him.
Starmer a good tone; Rishi only just this side of smarmy but perhaps understandable given the apparent support behind him.
Awesome.
Incomprehensible why she was brought back within a week. Inexcusable.
Starmer is doing well today. Sunak is doing OK, but he's made so many mistakes before and Starmer is hitting the open goals before him.
None of us - my brother and sister and me - went to private school or had private tuition - and we went to Oxford, St Andrews and Cambridge for our undergraduate degrees. My wife and I could afford to send all three of our kids private but we just don't consider it money well spent. So far so good, our eldest got good GCSEs and is now at an excellent and highly academic state sixth form.
Fixed.
Just think how his bouncing jollity will go down as his government takes an axe to public services and welfare benefits!
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1585228576432934912
But you can stop pandering to them.
And where does Starmer get his half swallowed a shuttlecock/half gawky anoraky trainspotter voice from?
God, it's odd.
She was probably sacked for having a stand up row with Truss. I though the email thing was very strange - I would guess it is all too common (if totally wrong) but we don't normally get to hear about it.
Admittedly, if she has breached the official secrets act then it could get more interesting.
On the Home Secretary position, is it possible that Mordaunt was offered it and turned it down?
Sunak had a sheet “if in trouble and can’t answer the question, reach for this instead”
Half way through his first PMQs Sunak looked down and he had used it all.
I’m surprised Sunak was so poor today, he has been excellent in the commons in the past. Nerves? That would explain the weird nervous grinning. Punch and Judy politics where you have to get shouty, not really his style?
Grandparents looking after newborn. Wife resting at home.
What do I do?
I get the bus to Winchester, of course, to do some shopping for clothes and bedclothes for the house but.. also have a pint of Saxon Bronze, a lunchtime Gurkha curry and squeeze in a quick visit to Winchester's military museums before I'm back on duty at 5pm.
Hey, don't judge me.
We currently export £29m/year of meat *total* to the US. The US consumes approximately zero lamb. And yet we are predicting ~£7m of Welsh Lamb exports per year. That's about a 25% increase in the export value! I find that hard to believe.
It's not that it isn't good to open that market, but it sounds like bobbins to me.
Just like Boris, Sunak came armed, with a sheet “if in trouble and can’t answer the question, reach for this instead”
Half way through his first PMQs Sunak looked down and he had used it all.
But Boris did evasive non answers far better than Sunak did. It was just too patently obvious Sunak wasn’t answering questions just shouting back yah boo stuff not remotely like what was asked.
A really poor performance by Sunak. The serious tone of yesterday was a fake. He’s like an ageing music hall comedian dragging out his predecessor’s old jokes and looking wounded when the only people who laugh are the rest of the cast.
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1585230089322909700
It doesn’t matter what he thinks. It doesn’t matter what we think. What matters is what Conservative MPs think - and I suspect they’ll be happy…
Indeed today's PMQ was, if one can say, quite enjoyable for the first time in months