Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
Labour has two structural advantages when it comes to growth: 1. It is not wedded to a sovereignty-first Brexit so will not go to war with itself over a closer trading relationship with the EU that might involve giving up some sovereignty. 2. It is not so electorally reliant on an elderly, home owning demographic, so has more space on multiple issues relating to housing and infrastructure. Neither makes growth magically appear, but both make it more likely.
And yet Labour has backed the triple lock and opposed liberalisation of planning. Starmer has also repeatedly ruled out a closer relationship with the EU.
You're projecting your own wishes onto the party. In reality they will keep the triple lock, bitterly oppose planning reform, shovel money to the public sector and cut investment to pay for it. Also tax rises, to rates that stifle wealth creation. When Liz Truss was the alternative it was still the least worst option, now it isn't.
All true. If they get a decent maj their polling will tell them half the anti-planners and pensioners have come over to their side and they'll be desperate to keep them.
The solution for the triple lock costing is to maintain the triple lock, but put NI on pensions/put in place means testing/tax rates for higher earning pensioners.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is attempting to block book the entire 4 star Novotel in Ipswich for dinghy people. For months, is the implication
The optics of this for HMG are implausibly bad. I imagine a large chunk of financially hard pressed Brits would love to spend the winter in a 4 star Novotel. With everything provided - from food to heating
Yet Albanians come first? AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
This story is a political Chernobyl
If you have a solution please share it.
Put them on planes, fly them back. Don't even bother with a process, Albania is a safe country.
I agree, but if you don't bother with a process then hordes of left-wing lawyers will appeal it to death.
Law needs to be changed first.
Too late, they'll be back in Albania by then.
Why stop at Albanians? If we're going down the without due process route then I'm sure if we polled the UK, or sought counsel from various groups there would be many others we could send back to where they came from.
If they've arrived here illegally from a safe country, sure. You want to overcomplicate it to try and make a point, yet this isn't complicated. Thousands of illegal immigrants are arriving from a safe country where they are citizens, sending them back isn't controversial. We do it with visa overstayers all the time.
I just said that if you are not going to bother with process then that frees up a lot of wiggle room to send others back from where they came from.
You want to send them back without process. I don't. But what if I want to exile you without process. Who gets to choose who's right. Nigel Farage?
The voters of the UK don't want to send anyone back without process so it's a question of be careful what you wish for if you think it will stop at Albanians.
Not sure even why we're having this conversation and you know it but it does pass the time I suppose.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
Labour has two structural advantages when it comes to growth: 1. It is not wedded to a sovereignty-first Brexit so will not go to war with itself over a closer trading relationship with the EU that might involve giving up some sovereignty. 2. It is not so electorally reliant on an elderly, home owning demographic, so has more space on multiple issues relating to housing and infrastructure. Neither makes growth magically appear, but both make it more likely.
And yet Labour has backed the triple lock and opposed liberalisation of planning. Starmer has also repeatedly ruled out a closer relationship with the EU.
You're projecting your own wishes onto the party. In reality they will keep the triple lock, bitterly oppose planning reform, shovel money to the public sector and cut investment to pay for it. Also tax rises, to rates that stifle wealth creation. When Liz Truss was the alternative it was still the least worst option, now it isn't.
Being accused of projecting by someone who is projecting is amusing! I didn’t mention the triple lock. Neither side will get rid of that, unfortunately.
No, this is the grim reality. Labour are going to win and there's little to no upside. They will be just as divided as the Tories and they'll be putting taxes up while cutting investment to give the public sector huge spending increases.
The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is attempting to block book the entire 4 star Novotel in Ipswich for dinghy people. For months, is the implication
The optics of this for HMG are implausibly bad. I imagine a large chunk of financially hard pressed Brits would love to spend the winter in a 4 star Novotel. With everything provided - from food to heating
Yet Albanians come first? AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
This story is a political Chernobyl
If you have a solution please share it.
Put them on planes, fly them back. Don't even bother with a process, Albania is a safe country.
I agree, but if you don't bother with a process then hordes of left-wing lawyers will appeal it to death.
Law needs to be changed first.
Too late, they'll be back in Albania by then.
Why stop at Albanians? If we're going down the without due process route then I'm sure if we polled the UK, or sought counsel from various groups there would be many others we could send back to where they came from.
The Albanian logic loop is fascinating
Channel crossers are bad Most of them are Albanian Therefore Albanians are bad Therefore channel crossers are bad because they are ALBANIANS!!!
I think it's clear from the discussion on here this morning that Labour have no better answers other than wishful thinking.
As soon as attention turns to them and their programme for office this will be sniffed out - the public aren't stupid.
That's why I'm not betting on a Labour majority right now.
Be careful on this one. It looks like your heart is ruling your head here.
I would not bet on a Labour majority, simply because Scotland makes it so much tougher to achieve. That said, I would not bet on the Tories being in power after the next GE either. It’s likely to be quite a messy result.
I agree. I think it will be close and messy. There are many reasons to doubt a Labour majority, but the current debate on immigration is not one of them.
The government is presiding over a total mess of their making. The opposition is right to challenge them. It's their job. The fact the government then has no solution and turns around and says 'well what would you do' is a sign of the government's weakness, not Labours.
You see this sort of thing when governments get tired and heading to opposition.
The more tired governments get the more important it is for opposition parties to lay out their policies to attract support, and as Labour have no answer to one of the most pressing problems of the day then why should they expect to sit back and gain support
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
London is a global city with a population more than the entire North West, Manchester isn't.
The South East has a higher home ownership level than the North West as well as London, London has the lowest home ownership rate in the UK, it is completely different to the rest of the South East
What the actual fudge?
I also said that Chorley is the same region as Manchester, so by definition Chorley then is a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Liverpool is also in the North West, so does that make Liverpool a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Guildford, Woking, South Downs, London and Chelmsford are all in the South East of England, just as Macclesfield, Chorley, Liverpool, Manchester and Preston are all in the North West of England.
The South East does not have a higher home ownership level than the North West, because London is in the South East and is not completely different to the South East that is is completely within, any more than Manchester is completely different to the North West.
No, they aren't but London is a global city as I said with a bigger population than the ENTIRE north west so has to be considered on its OWN terms.
London is NOT in the South East, it is its own region. It is London where the home ownership problem is significant, not in the wider South East
London is a global city yes, which is why its commuter belt extends across the South East to places like Guildford, Woking etc.
The wider South East is a commuter belt for London, and a place for people working in London to live, it is not remotely divorced from London and hasn't ever been.
Nope, there are 12 regions in the UK, London, SE, East, SW, WM, EM, NE, NW, Yorks and Humber, Scotland, Wales and NI. London and SE are NOT the same region. London is its own classified region with its own Mayor and its own Assembly
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
Labour has two structural advantages when it comes to growth: 1. It is not wedded to a sovereignty-first Brexit so will not go to war with itself over a closer trading relationship with the EU that might involve giving up some sovereignty. 2. It is not so electorally reliant on an elderly, home owning demographic, so has more space on multiple issues relating to housing and infrastructure. Neither makes growth magically appear, but both make it more likely.
And yet Labour has backed the triple lock and opposed liberalisation of planning. Starmer has also repeatedly ruled out a closer relationship with the EU.
You're projecting your own wishes onto the party. In reality they will keep the triple lock, bitterly oppose planning reform, shovel money to the public sector and cut investment to pay for it. Also tax rises, to rates that stifle wealth creation. When Liz Truss was the alternative it was still the least worst option, now it isn't.
Being accused of projecting by someone who is projecting is amusing! I didn’t mention the triple lock. Neither side will get rid of that, unfortunately.
No, this is the grim reality. Labour are going to win and there's little to no upside. They will be just as divided as the Tories and they'll be putting taxes up while cutting investment to give the public sector huge spending increases.
The upside is it will give the Tories some well deserved time and space on the backbenches to sort themselves out and get serious again.
If we're going to have incontinent Labour levels of tax and spend I'd rather it be done by Labour with a Tory opposition, than by the Tories with a Labour opposition calling for even more fiscal incontinence.
Labour hasn't got a monopoly on wishful thinking. If they can come up with a list of modestly helpful, actionable policies and project a degree of honesty and competence then I think they can get a majority.
I think it's clear from the discussion on here this morning that Labour have no better answers other than wishful thinking.
As soon as attention turns to them and their programme for office this will be sniffed out - the public aren't stupid.
That's why I'm not betting on a Labour majority right now.
Be careful on this one. It looks like your heart is ruling your head here.
I would not bet on a Labour majority, simply because Scotland makes it so much tougher to achieve. That said, I would not bet on the Tories being in power after the next GE either. It’s likely to be quite a messy result.
I agree. I think it will be close and messy. There are many reasons to doubt a Labour majority, but the current debate on immigration is not one of them.
The government is presiding over a total mess of their making. The opposition is right to challenge them. It's their job. The fact the government then has no solution and turns around and says 'well what would you do' is a sign of the government's weakness, not Labours.
You see this sort of thing when governments get tired and heading to opposition.
The more tired governments get the more important it is for opposition parties to lay out their policies to attract support, and as Labour have no answer to one of the most pressing problems of the day then why should they expect to sit back and gain support
It's a trap for any opposition to prematurely set out its programme. We are two years from a general election. Cameron didn't. Blair didn't. The government would dearly love Labour to show its hand. It would grab the things it likes (e.g. energy payments and windfall taxes) and hammer away at what it didn't. Basically anything to deflect from its own record and the current mess.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
If we had freedom of movement, anywhere in the EU....
The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is attempting to block book the entire 4 star Novotel in Ipswich for dinghy people. For months, is the implication
The optics of this for HMG are implausibly bad. I imagine a large chunk of financially hard pressed Brits would love to spend the winter in a 4 star Novotel. With everything provided - from food to heating
Yet Albanians come first? AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
This story is a political Chernobyl
If you have a solution please share it.
Put them on planes, fly them back. Don't even bother with a process, Albania is a safe country.
I agree, but if you don't bother with a process then hordes of left-wing lawyers will appeal it to death.
Law needs to be changed first.
Too late, they'll be back in Albania by then.
Why stop at Albanians? If we're going down the without due process route then I'm sure if we polled the UK, or sought counsel from various groups there would be many others we could send back to where they came from.
If they've arrived here illegally from a safe country, sure. You want to overcomplicate it to try and make a point, yet this isn't complicated. Thousands of illegal immigrants are arriving from a safe country where they are citizens, sending them back isn't controversial. We do it with visa overstayers all the time.
We don't do it very much, all the time
In the year ending March 2022, there were 3,231 enforced returns, 55% fewer than in 2019 pre-pandemic (7,198). The vast majority of enforced returns in the latest year were of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) and 51% were EU nationals.
All solutions - send them home, send them to Rwanda - involve catching ALL of them. You have to realise the ones in detention centres are the failures: a successful crossing involves disembarking on Dover beach and everyone running like hell in different directions.
The best test for perimeter security, is drugs in high security prisons. If you can't solve that problem how the hell do you protect a whole coastline, without a wartime-level mobilisation?
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
Labour has two structural advantages when it comes to growth: 1. It is not wedded to a sovereignty-first Brexit so will not go to war with itself over a closer trading relationship with the EU that might involve giving up some sovereignty. 2. It is not so electorally reliant on an elderly, home owning demographic, so has more space on multiple issues relating to housing and infrastructure. Neither makes growth magically appear, but both make it more likely.
And yet Labour has backed the triple lock and opposed liberalisation of planning. Starmer has also repeatedly ruled out a closer relationship with the EU.
You're projecting your own wishes onto the party. In reality they will keep the triple lock, bitterly oppose planning reform, shovel money to the public sector and cut investment to pay for it. Also tax rises, to rates that stifle wealth creation. When Liz Truss was the alternative it was still the least worst option, now it isn't.
Being accused of projecting by someone who is projecting is amusing! I didn’t mention the triple lock. Neither side will get rid of that, unfortunately.
No, this is the grim reality. Labour are going to win and there's little to no upside. They will be just as divided as the Tories and they'll be putting taxes up while cutting investment to give the public sector huge spending increases.
The upside is it will give the Tories some well deserved time and space on the backbenches to sort themselves out and get serious again.
If we're going to have incontinent Labour levels of tax and spend I'd rather it be done by Labour with a Tory opposition, than by the Tories with a Labour opposition calling for even more fiscal incontinence.
yes there is no point in a tory government at this point - they have not acted like one for years anyway with the highest tax take for generations
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
America, same as always. Some will go to Switzerland. We're going to Lugano next week, Jen's first overseas trip. I think in 4-5 years we'll be there permanently. Though unrelated to Labour being in government.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
There's a level of rich at which that is a non-question because you already have seven houses on three continents, so "moving" is just a paperwork exercise.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the seriously rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere
Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
It looks to me like Rishi/Hunt will take the politically least risky decisions possible in this - more windfall tax/extend fiscal drag etc.
Don't expect fireworks on 17th November. They won't want anything that creates an exciting headline.
Thresholds reportedly to be frozen until 2028 (not that they’re likely to be in government that long). That would add up over time to a very large middle income tax rise.
It also passes on the problem to (potentially) the next Labour government.
True of so many problems that the last 5 Conservative Prime Ministers have failed to address.
It is going to be a cleaning of the Augean stables for Starmer.
I give it about 18 months until you're whining about his administration on here too and taking excitedly about the Lib Dems instead.
I am happy to moan about him already, and often do! I do not support Labour.
They are too statist for my liking, too centralising and too illiberal.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the seriously rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere
Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Land and property is notoriously hard to move...
Unless you're from Essex then you can move part of the Thames out of the South East apparently ...
To re-state a question I asked earlier why have UK gas prices spiked again?
Probably because there's very little storage, and an LNG cargo has been diverted to Rotterdam.
Really? Something like that and they spike? No sort of clever market people with 9 screens and coffee addiction peering into the future and getting a sense of something they don’t like? Just one walky-talks conversation “Sorry Biffur, all full, try Rotterdam.”
Would it be unduly expensive to use tankers as storage and pay to keep a few moored in Milford Haven through the winter?
It’s a good question. The answer as you sugggest, with these tankers worth their weight in gold right now, it could be too expensive to moor one down like that.
I think the issue is that if they are moored then they are not off getting your next load so you are just creating a bigger problem down the line
Basically - once again - the government (along with most other people) forgot that one of their primary roles is structural resilience
LNG vessels are not great looking term stores of natural gas, because - while they are well insulated - they have no way to actually cool the gas. An LNG vessel will therefore see its gas warming and expanding and ultimately returning to a gaseous state.
LNG Returning to a gaseous state would be cool to watch though…
Depends how quickly it does it
I've forgotten my O level physics. As the temperature rises to the LNG boiling point, presumably the ship would just burst under the pressure of boiled off gas?
I assume there are safety valves that would release first?
Yep they will have vent valves but of course that would lose them the cargo (though better than exploding).
The carriers have to keep their cargo at around -160 degrees C. Gaseous natural gas has 625x the volume of LNG and the biggest carriers hold around 250,000 cubic metres of LNG. So you can see that if the temperature rises it gets to be a problem very, very quickly.
I assume this is similar to liquid nitrogen (which I have a lot of experience with). Liquid transitioning to gas takes heat, so keeps the remaining liquid cold. As long as the pressure release valves work there is no issue, other than economics (and the climate issues of releasing it).
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is attempting to block book the entire 4 star Novotel in Ipswich for dinghy people. For months, is the implication
The optics of this for HMG are implausibly bad. I imagine a large chunk of financially hard pressed Brits would love to spend the winter in a 4 star Novotel. With everything provided - from food to heating
Yet Albanians come first? AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
This story is a political Chernobyl
If you have a solution please share it.
Put them on planes, fly them back. Don't even bother with a process, Albania is a safe country.
What do you do with refugees/immigrants/asylum-seekers who refuse to say where they came from?
Also ship them to Albania. No process, just get on with it.
Um, ok.
Albania is obviously not going to take them so what next, just throw them overboard?
Labour hasn't got a monopoly on wishful thinking. If they can come up with a list of modestly helpful, actionable policies and project a degree of honesty and competence then I think they can get a majority.
I wonder if that is where Britain has been going wrong recently.
All of us looking for the big dramatic gesture solution when the answer that works best is to slowly chip away with some modest improvements today, followed by some more tomorrow and the next day.
God knows how you win an election on that basis, though.
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
I was listening to the British History Podcast the other day (excellent, BTW), and it posed a question: why did the major late Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have counties form around their capitals, but Mercia did not? Northumbria had York and Yorkshire/Northumbria,; Kent had Canterbury and Kent, Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire.
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Fine. But don't expect to keep your UK citizenship without paying UK taxes.
The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is attempting to block book the entire 4 star Novotel in Ipswich for dinghy people. For months, is the implication
The optics of this for HMG are implausibly bad. I imagine a large chunk of financially hard pressed Brits would love to spend the winter in a 4 star Novotel. With everything provided - from food to heating
Yet Albanians come first? AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM
This story is a political Chernobyl
If you have a solution please share it.
Put them on planes, fly them back. Don't even bother with a process, Albania is a safe country.
I agree, but if you don't bother with a process then hordes of left-wing lawyers will appeal it to death.
Law needs to be changed first.
Too late, they'll be back in Albania by then.
Why stop at Albanians? If we're going down the without due process route then I'm sure if we polled the UK, or sought counsel from various groups there would be many others we could send back to where they came from.
If they've arrived here illegally from a safe country, sure. You want to overcomplicate it to try and make a point, yet this isn't complicated. Thousands of illegal immigrants are arriving from a safe country where they are citizens, sending them back isn't controversial. We do it with visa overstayers all the time.
We don't do it very much, all the time
In the year ending March 2022, there were 3,231 enforced returns, 55% fewer than in 2019 pre-pandemic (7,198). The vast majority of enforced returns in the latest year were of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) and 51% were EU nationals.
All solutions - send them home, send them to Rwanda - involve catching ALL of them. You have to realise the ones in detention centres are the failures: a successful crossing involves disembarking on Dover beach and everyone running like hell in different directions.
The best test for perimeter security, is drugs in high security prisons. If you can't solve that problem how the hell do you protect a whole coastline, without a wartime-level mobilisation?
Sadly this sets out the problem. If an unknown and unknowable number of people are already illegally here then it would take the solutions of a fascist state to sort it out.
On official figures (published yesterday) 1 in 6 people in England and Wales were born abroad. That fact plus the truth that we are not acting as Germany 1936 suggests that we are not a racist hell hole.
If the government has a plan (which I doubt) it appears to be to run things so uselessly that people prefer to try their luck somewhere else. In fact this works (other countries take far more asylum seekers than we do, but no-one wants to know this) but it won't do for Farage and co.
FWIW and reluctantly, as we already have 1 in 6 E and W citizens born abroad, and a massive labour shortage, I think the least worst solution is to make the best of a bad job and use their work and skills as well as possible while retaining the right to export criminals and nuisances.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
There's a level of rich at which that is a non-question because you already have seven houses on three continents, so "moving" is just a paperwork exercise.
And by a stroke of luck one of them's our PM. I'm sure he'll sort this out to all our advantages.
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
I was listening to the British History Podcast the other day (excellent, BTW), and it posed a question: why did the major late Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have counties form around their capitals, but Mercia did not? Northumbria had York and Yorkshire/Northumbria,; Kent had Canterbury and Kent, Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire.
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
Winchester isn't in Wiltshire. The original county town of Winchester's county was Southampton as the name implies.
Edit - on your substantive point, Tamworth wasn't the capital of Mercia by the time counties were being formed, and it was actually quite small, poor and in disputed territory between the Danes and the Saxons. There was a county later formed around the new capital of Gloucester.
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
I was listening to the British History Podcast the other day (excellent, BTW), and it posed a question: why did the major late Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have counties form around their capitals, but Mercia did not? Northumbria had York and Yorkshire/Northumbria,; Kent had Canterbury and Kent, Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire.
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
There's a level of rich at which that is a non-question because you already have seven houses on three continents, so "moving" is just a paperwork exercise.
True indeed but wherever they live they won't be able to avoid paying property taxes on their UK property.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
...if your love of money is so over-powering.
You don't make that kind of money without loving the stuff. If you inherit it it probably comes with enough in the way of estates to keep you here.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
I expect Labour to offer something similar to 1997. Pledging to stick within an overall flattish envelope aligned roughly to the Conservatives , whilst differentiating by promoting key policies for working families that may include targeted tax cuts and spending. These will be paid for by targeting tax and spending changes elsewhere.
The recipe worked well before, no reason it can’t do so again.
Good morning
I was pleasantly surprised to hear Wes Streeting saying that ministers cannot keep just throwing ever increasing amounts of money at the NHS without significant changes to modernise the system
While I have frequently railed against aspects of the way the NHS is organised (GPs....) I would ask whether a major reorganisation which will inevitably create more work and lead to a reduction in the amount of time and money spent on patient care is the right choice at this moment.
My prospectus for the NHS.
Here in Wales we have free prescriptions. These prescriptions are issued on a rolling delivery basis. So 200 Tramadol in week one 200 in week 2 and so on, and yet your weekly intake is probably 14. Thus after 6 months the house has more class A than an episode of Breaking Bad. When social services realise someone is living in an opium den they collect the surplus, snd the thousands of pounds worth of unusedTramadol from that one property is removed for incineration. Multiply that dituaty thousands of times over in Wales alone. Boots, Lloys and Well pharmacies are making a killing, figuratively and literally. Stop this abuse today!
A cost benefit analysis is also required for hospitalisation of near end of life patients. If life quality and expectancy do not equate to costs. Sorry, but it's "goodnight Vienna".
Frequent flyers, and time wasters. Charge everyone a nominal fee. If your call is worthy, a refund applies. If you are wasting time, drunk, off your head, or an injury has been deliberately self inflicted, sorry the NHS keeps your money.
Mental health in the community doesn't work. Ambulance and paramedic staff, not to mention the police have time, resources and money wasted dealing with people they shouldn't have to, and are not properly trained to deal with.
Hospitals: give Matron control of hygiene and if the useless, highly paid contractor fails her test, off they go. No contract cancellation, on your bike!
Education. Throw money at healthy lifestyle education. Alcohol, drugs, diet and fitness. Prevention is better and more cost effective than cure. Throw money at family planning education and contraception. Probably one for secondary education. Both would ultimately be at worst cost-neutrsl. Never ever allow Therese Coffey anywhere near an NHS facility ever again in a work capacity.
Ramp up testing and screening programmes.
Aggressive, low rent drug dealer, feral males irrespective of their birthright are liberated to detention centres in Rwanda to prevent them both impregnating, and beating their multiple girlfriends. They are free to WORK their passage home. A better use of that option than the current proposal.
Government profligacy over fast track PPE contracts is investigated and numbers totalled. Money to be recouped through the courts. Suspend limited liability rules in this instance and recover as much as possible from personal wealth.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
I was listening to the British History Podcast the other day (excellent, BTW), and it posed a question: why did the major late Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have counties form around their capitals, but Mercia did not? Northumbria had York and Yorkshire/Northumbria,; Kent had Canterbury and Kent, Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire.
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
'Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire':
Winchester isn't in Wiltshire!
Yeah, should have said Hampshire; my mistake, not his. I was thinking of Wessex's power base being slightly further west (which was also wrong, as at that time AIUI Wessex also included Kent, so most of southern and southeastern England.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
...if your love of money is so over-powering.
You don't make that kind of money without loving the stuff. If you inherit it it probably comes with enough in the way of estates to keep you here.
I disagree. For plenty of people it's the thrill of the game that drives them. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, even Elon Musk were/are not doing this for the money primarily, imo. They see a project they can succeed at and pursue it with exceptional drive. They get rich as a by-product and in some cases give a lot of it away.
Of course there are those who get rich purely because they love money but not a majority imo.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
No. It didn't happen last time or the time before. It's classic "project fear" designed to keep the the Tories in forever.
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
I was listening to the British History Podcast the other day (excellent, BTW), and it posed a question: why did the major late Anglo-Saxon kingdoms have counties form around their capitals, but Mercia did not? Northumbria had York and Yorkshire/Northumbria,; Kent had Canterbury and Kent, Wessex had Winchester and Wiltshire.
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
It is fascinating. Interestingly, St Albans was in Mercia for a while.
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
Can’t they find a suitable 70-year-old youngster to run?
Biden said yesterday that he lost his son in Iraq, and that he passed a bill on student debt forgiveness, both of which are incorrect. It’s very sad to see someone losing their mind in public.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
Hang on, he was on Politics Live yesterday and sat next to Richard Ding Dong Burgon looked almost sane. Am I reading this right that he's a bit dodge? Shocking.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
...if your love of money is so over-powering.
You don't make that kind of money without loving the stuff. If you inherit it it probably comes with enough in the way of estates to keep you here.
I disagree. For plenty of people it's the thrill of the game that drives them. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, even Elon Musk were/are not doing this for the money primarily, imo. They see a project they can succeed at and pursue it with exceptional drive. They get rich as a by-product and in some cases give a lot of it away.
Of course there are those who get rich purely because they love money but not a majority imo.
"Money is just what we use to keep tally" - Henry Ford.
But there's a bias here, the ones doing something interesting are the ones we are aware of.
And I am not sure the UK is so great that it takes a slavish love of money to persuade someone to move anyway. After all you can still come here and stay in your Knightsbridge house for nearly half the year.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
And if you're genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket, why not just pay your taxes here?
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Waves from a city full of rich people, attracted by low taxes.
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
Theresa May warned us about you lot. Citizens of nowhere.
She did, but nobody listened.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
...if your love of money is so over-powering.
You don't make that kind of money without loving the stuff. If you inherit it it probably comes with enough in the way of estates to keep you here.
I disagree. For plenty of people it's the thrill of the game that drives them. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, even Elon Musk were/are not doing this for the money primarily, imo. They see a project they can succeed at and pursue it with exceptional drive. They get rich as a by-product and in some cases give a lot of it away.
Of course there are those who get rich purely because they love money but not a majority imo.
Yes once you have a few millions you probably do everything else for power rather than money.
It looks to me like Rishi/Hunt will take the politically least risky decisions possible in this - more windfall tax/extend fiscal drag etc.
Don't expect fireworks on 17th November. They won't want anything that creates an exciting headline.
I hope it's not a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and the renewables companies that aren't on Cfd contracts and are therefore profiteering massively are also targeted.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
And if you're genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket, why not just pay your taxes here?
Because yachts and jets are really expensive to maintain.
First ConHome rankings on the Sunak cabinet. Kemi Badenoch is second, only to Ben Wallace while Suella Braverman - the supposed ‘darling of the right’ - is much less popular than some of the commentary would suggest.
I think this survey doesn’t have much thought to it, so please don’t take it seriously - 3 parts what ministry you are in charge of to 2 parts fair/unfair media perception.
Say you are in a difficult ministry, you are going down in history books as done a fine job there during your stint, this survey will mark you way down. Ditto some marked way up for no good reason at all, might well go down in history books as had an awful stint in their ministry.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
Monaco is not “boring as shit”
It’s a highly privileged small city surrounded by some of the most desirable real estate on earth - the south of France
You’ve got world class sailing, hiking, skiiing, and multiple other sports on your doorstep. You’ve got Provençal food, wine and climate. You’ve got zero taxes. You’ve got a string of famous art galleries, chateaux, museums, along the riviera. You’ve got Nice and Marseilles if you want urban grit in the sun
You’ve also got the Pyrenees and the Alps, and london and Paris are about an hour away
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
Can’t they find a suitable 70-year-old youngster to run?
Biden said yesterday that he lost his son in Iraq, and that he passed a bill on student debt forgiveness, both of which are incorrect. It’s very sad to see someone losing their mind in public.
He did lose his son, due to injuries that were caused in Iraq. He's not the only grieving parent to have ever said they lost their child in the war when it killed them but they technically survived it long enough to die elsewhere.
And the student debt forgiveness was done, so I don't understand what you mean by that? $10k per student, $20k if they had a "Pell Grant", but not if your earnings are over over $125k.
Obviously, London is geographically in the South East, never mind what HYUFD thinks.
The statistical regions are in some cases entirely artificial, and not supposed to trump everyday usage.
Personally, as I may have mentioned, I largely follow the watersheds, but correct using the the traditional county lines to avoid dismembering counties.
That puts Oxon, Berks, Herts, Essex, London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the South East (or perhaps better, “Thames”).
Northants, Beds, Cambs, and East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk) are all “Eastern” counties.
Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are “Wessex”, Somerset and Dorset are “South West”, and Cornwall is Cornwall.
The Midlands start with Gloucs and then run up through Warks, Leics, Rutland, Lincs.
My judgment on this matter is final.
Alfred’s judgement was final.
Oxford is in Mercia
You've also missed Devon.
D + C = West Country
Wiltshire is often called the west country too.
Naah, classic Hardy country (I think Tess has a wobbly at Stonehenge, gets hanged at Winchester).
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who
I think the point is that boring rich people want to be with other boring rich people.
Kari Lake for ‘28. Remember: you read it here first
Not sure her closing message of repeal Obamacare was the right move . I thought you didn’t like election deniers ?
PB should not be incapable of distinguishing between predictions and opinions
I noticed earlier than anyone on here that she has raw political talent. I also called her, from the start, extremely scary. She is an articulate and attractive Trump. That is a menacing proposition
"Joe Biden set to run again for re-election in face of midterm poll disaster
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
Can’t they find a suitable 70-year-old youngster to run?
Biden said yesterday that he lost his son in Iraq, and that he passed a bill on student debt forgiveness, both of which are incorrect. It’s very sad to see someone losing their mind in public.
He did lose his son, due to injuries that were caused in Iraq. He's not the only grieving parent to have ever said they lost their child in the war when it killed them but they technically survived it long enough to die elsewhere.
And the student debt forgiveness was done, so I don't understand what you mean by that? $10k per student, $20k if they had a "Pell Grant", but not if your earnings are over over $125k.
When it comes to county towns, you should also remember they weren't actually fixed in stone until the 1970s. So, to take the most obvious example, Hampshire was originally based in Southampton but the administration moved to the more convenient centre of Winchester. In Wiltshire, it moved from Wilton in the south to Devizes in the middle. This was because the official definition of a shire was one day's ride from the chosen burh. So obviously they had to be as central as possible.
In some of the other cases you mention, the county towns were capitals of ancient kingdoms. E.g. Yorkshire is the amended form of the Kingdom of Jorvik. In fact, much of the administration was run through the Ridings, which were based at Northallerton, Wakefield and Beverley. Similarly the ancient county town of Sussex would be Horsham as the South Saxons' capital, but in the real world it's always been divided into East and West Sussex based at Lewes and Chichester.
After the Norman conquest when counties were reorganised the general rule was the administration was based at wherever there was a royal castle to function as the headquarters and hold the courts. This is, for example, how Taunton became the county town of Somerset and why in 1286 two of the five new counties of Wales were based in Cardigan and Harlech rather than the logical centres of Lampeter and Bala.
It wasn't until 1889 that county councils were formed, and many of them met in various places for many years until permanent headquarters were built. Even then, the other major function of a county, the assize courts, often continued to meet elsewhere. In Westmoreland the county council met in Kendal but the assizes continued to be held in Appleby. In Wiltshire the county council was based in Trowbridge but the prison was in Devizes and the assizes met alternately in Salisbury and Devizes as they had done for seven centuries and as late as 1939 councillors still considered Devizes the county town and discussed moving there.
With the abolition of assizes in 1971 (I think) and the reforming of local government in 1974 we finally ended up with a clear definition of 'a county town.' And even since then, there have been moves and changes as local government is reorganised or changes are required in the building arrangements. For example, Surrey has just moved its county town from Kingston to Reigate.
Kari Lake for ‘28. Remember: you read it here first
Not sure her closing message of repeal Obamacare was the right move . I thought you didn’t like election deniers ?
PB should not be incapable of distinguishing between predictions and opinions
I noticed earlier than anyone on here that she has raw political talent. I also called her, from the start, extremely scary. She is an articulate and attractive Trump. That is a menacing proposition
It will certainly be pass the popcorn if she doesn’t win in Arizona . I think her comments on Obamacare will hurt her in the run in . The GOP as a whole have decided to not bring up Obamacare during the mid-terms as it’s overall a vote loser for them .
I’d hope not many PBers would look on this mob as oracles, but a handy crib sheet of people to whom one should pay no fcuking attention ever again.
I believe all three of the PB Trussites, who shall remain nameless to save their embarrassment, remained solid in their support for Truss throughout.
(Although LuckyGuy, WilliamG, and Barty could correct me if I have that wrong.)
I'm not embarrassed at all thanks. Liz was 100% right to grab for growth - her execution, and crucially her choice of Kwarteng as Chancellor, let her down badly, and she in turn was let down badly by Tories.
Kari Lake for ‘28. Remember: you read it here first
Not sure her closing message of repeal Obamacare was the right move . I thought you didn’t like election deniers ?
PB should not be incapable of distinguishing between predictions and opinions
I noticed earlier than anyone on here that she has raw political talent. I also called her, from the start, extremely scary. She is an articulate and attractive Trump. That is a menacing proposition
It will certainly be pass the popcorn if she doesn’t win in Arizona . I think her comments on Obamacare will hurt her in the run in . The GOP as a whole have decided to not bring up Obamacare during the mid-terms as it’s overall a vote loser for them .
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
Monaco is not “boring as shit”
It’s a highly privileged small city surrounded by some of the most desirable real estate on earth - the south of France
You’ve got world class sailing, hiking, skiiing, and multiple other sports on your doorstep. You’ve got Provençal food, wine and climate. You’ve got zero taxes. You’ve got a string of famous art galleries, chateaux, museums, along the riviera. You’ve got Nice and Marseilles if you want urban grit in the sun
You’ve also got the Pyrenees and the Alps, and london and Paris are about an hour away
It’s a pretty good option for a billionaire
I note that you have to leave Monaco to get access to most of these wonderful things.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
I expect Labour to offer something similar to 1997. Pledging to stick within an overall flattish envelope aligned roughly to the Conservatives , whilst differentiating by promoting key policies for working families that may include targeted tax cuts and spending. These will be paid for by targeting tax and spending changes elsewhere.
The recipe worked well before, no reason it can’t do so again.
Good morning
I was pleasantly surprised to hear Wes Streeting saying that ministers cannot keep just throwing ever increasing amounts of money at the NHS without significant changes to modernise the system
While I have frequently railed against aspects of the way the NHS is organised (GPs....) I would ask whether a major reorganisation which will inevitably create more work and lead to a reduction in the amount of time and money spent on patient care is the right choice at this moment.
My prospectus for the NHS.
Here in Wales we have free prescriptions. These prescriptions are issued on a rolling delivery basis. So 200 Tramadol in week one 200 in week 2 and so on, and yet your weekly intake is probably 14. Thus after 6 months the house has more class A than an episode of Breaking Bad. When social services realise someone is living in an opium den they collect the surplus, snd the thousands of pounds worth of unusedTramadol from that one property is removed for incineration. Multiply that dituaty thousands of times over in Wales alone. Boots, Lloys and Well pharmacies are making a killing, figuratively and literally. Stop this abuse today!
A cost benefit analysis is also required for hospitalisation of near end of life patients. If life quality and expectancy do not equate to costs. Sorry, but it's "goodnight Vienna".
Frequent flyers, and time wasters. Charge everyone a nominal fee. If your call is worthy, a refund applies. If you are wasting time, drunk, off your head, or an injury has been deliberately self inflicted, sorry the NHS keeps your money.
Mental health in the community doesn't work. Ambulance and paramedic staff, not to mention the police have time, resources and money wasted dealing with people they shouldn't have to, and are not properly trained to deal with.
Hospitals: give Matron control of hygiene and if the useless, highly paid contractor fails her test, off they go. No contract cancellation, on your bike!
Education. Throw money at healthy lifestyle education. Alcohol, drugs, diet and fitness. Prevention is better and more cost effective than cure. Throw money at family planning education and contraception. Probably one for secondary education. Both would ultimately be at worst cost-neutrsl. Never ever allow Therese Coffey anywhere near an NHS facility ever again in a work capacity.
Ramp up testing and screening programmes.
Aggressive, low rent drug dealer, feral males irrespective of their birthright are liberated to detention centres in Rwanda to prevent them both impregnating, and beating their multiple girlfriends. They are free to WORK their passage home. A better use of that option than the current proposal.
Government profligacy over fast track PPE contracts is investigated and numbers totalled. Money to be recouped through the courts. Suspend limited liability rules in this instance and recover as much as possible from personal wealth.
On prescriptions, most in England are free too (by prescription, not be person, as most are for the elderly). Its common here too for endless amounts of unused drugs to mount up with patients. In an ideal world there would be better medicines reviews (pharmacy led) to stop this, but it needs funding of the pharmacists time, and patients to engage with it.
I tend to agree about education on health, but I would also suggest that there is hardly anyone in the country who doesn't know: (1) Smoking is harmful (2) Eating fruit and veg is good (3) Eating fast food such as chips etc everyday is bad (4) Exercise is good.
They know all this, yet still choose not to act on it. Why? When you are young you feel invincible, so it doesn't matter. Plus people have no true appreciation of risk. Driving to the airport is likely more dangerous than the flight, yet more people are scared of flying than driving. We love an anecdote over data - 'Uncle Bill smoked 20 a day and lived to 102' trumps statistics showing an increased risk (but not certainty) of death.
Appropriate screening/testing is useful where early intervention can help, but it also needs to be cost effective in an environment of limited budget.
Anyone who failed to deliver PPE that was paid for should be hounded for the money.
When it comes to county towns, you should also remember they weren't actually fixed in stone until the 1970s. So, to take the most obvious example, Hampshire was originally based in Southampton but the administration moved to the more convenient centre of Winchester. In Wiltshire, it moved from Wilton in the south to Devizes in the middle. This was because the official definition of a shire was one day's ride from the chosen burh. So obviously they had to be as central as possible.
In some of the other cases you mention, the county towns were capitals of ancient kingdoms. E.g. Yorkshire is the amended form of the Kingdom of Jorvik. In fact, much of the administration was run through the Ridings, which were based at Northallerton, Wakefield and Beverley. Similarly the ancient county town of Sussex would be Horsham as the South Saxons' capital, but in the real world it's always been divided into East and West Sussex based at Lewes and Chichester.
After the Norman conquest when counties were reorganised the general rule was the administration was based at wherever there was a royal castle to function as the headquarters and hold the courts. This is, for example, how Taunton became the county town of Somerset and why in 1286 two of the five new counties of Wales were based in Cardigan and Harlech rather than the logical centres of Lampeter and Bala.
It wasn't until 1889 that county councils were formed, and many of them met in various places for many years until permanent headquarters were built. Even then, the other major function of a county, the assize courts, often continued to meet elsewhere. In Westmoreland the county council met in Kendal but the assizes continued to be held in Appleby. In Wiltshire the county council was based in Trowbridge but the prison was in Devizes and the assizes met alternately in Salisbury and Devizes as they had done for seven centuries and as late as 1939 councillors still considered Devizes the county town and discussed moving there.
With the abolition of assizes in 1971 (I think) and the reforming of local government in 1974 we finally ended up with a clear definition of 'a county town.' And even since then, there have been moves and changes as local government is reorganised or changes are required in the building arrangements. For example, Surrey has just moved its county town from Kingston to Reigate.
Very interesting. Question: When, in2023, Westmorland and Furness become a unitary authority, along with, Cumberland as another, it is obvious (I think) that Carlisle remains the 'County Town' for Cockermouth and Workington etc. But what is the 'County Town' for Penrith (newly in W and F) or Appleby?
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
Many places including Switzerland, Monaco and the US
On no. That old cliché. Tories always roll that one out as the end draws in.
Reality though
Reality is that Monaco is boring as shit. Unless you like spending your time with a bunch of boring rich people who are too tight fisted to live somewhere interesting I guess? Switzerland is great if you like mountains.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
Monaco is not “boring as shit”
It’s a highly privileged small city surrounded by some of the most desirable real estate on earth - the south of France
You’ve got world class sailing, hiking, skiiing, and multiple other sports on your doorstep. You’ve got Provençal food, wine and climate. You’ve got zero taxes. You’ve got a string of famous art galleries, chateaux, museums, along the riviera. You’ve got Nice and Marseilles if you want urban grit in the sun
You’ve also got the Pyrenees and the Alps, and london and Paris are about an hour away
It’s a pretty good option for a billionaire
I note that you have to leave Monaco to get access to most of these wonderful things.
I believe the super rich might have access to these things called 'cars' 'yachts' and 'planes'...
Good grief, every time I think the Tories aren't serious and maybe the Lib Dems should get my vote instead, they come out with some real whoppers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-63431894 @ 9:39am Calls for chancellor to address homeowners Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is facing calls to go to the House of Commons and address mortgage-holders on how he plans to help them, if the Bank of England increases interest rates as expected later on today.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: "The chancellor must address the country immediately after the rate rise decision to spell out a plan to save homeowners on the brink.
"He should either come to Parliament or hold a press conference to announce support for families facing mortgage bill rises worth hundreds of pounds a month.
"People are desperately worried about how they are going to pay these frightening mortgage payments after tomorrow," she said.
Everyone holding a mortgage should know that rates can go up as well as down, and prices can go down as well as up. Its not up to the Chancellor (read: taxpayer) to pay people's mortgages when rates change.
People have got far too addicted to the idea that taxpayers should pay for every problem, for every issue, that might ever strike anyone.
When it comes to county towns, you should also remember they weren't actually fixed in stone until the 1970s. So, to take the most obvious example, Hampshire was originally based in Southampton but the administration moved to the more convenient centre of Winchester. In Wiltshire, it moved from Wilton in the south to Devizes in the middle. This was because the official definition of a shire was one day's ride from the chosen burh. So obviously they had to be as central as possible.
In some of the other cases you mention, the county towns were capitals of ancient kingdoms. E.g. Yorkshire is the amended form of the Kingdom of Jorvik. In fact, much of the administration was run through the Ridings, which were based at Northallerton, Wakefield and Beverley. Similarly the ancient county town of Sussex would be Horsham as the South Saxons' capital, but in the real world it's always been divided into East and West Sussex based at Lewes and Chichester.
After the Norman conquest when counties were reorganised the general rule was the administration was based at wherever there was a royal castle to function as the headquarters and hold the courts. This is, for example, how Taunton became the county town of Somerset and why in 1286 two of the five new counties of Wales were based in Cardigan and Harlech rather than the logical centres of Lampeter and Bala.
It wasn't until 1889 that county councils were formed, and many of them met in various places for many years until permanent headquarters were built. Even then, the other major function of a county, the assize courts, often continued to meet elsewhere. In Westmoreland the county council met in Kendal but the assizes continued to be held in Appleby. In Wiltshire the county council was based in Trowbridge but the prison was in Devizes and the assizes met alternately in Salisbury and Devizes as they had done for seven centuries and as late as 1939 councillors still considered Devizes the county town and discussed moving there.
With the abolition of assizes in 1971 (I think) and the reforming of local government in 1974 we finally ended up with a clear definition of 'a county town.' And even since then, there have been moves and changes as local government is reorganised or changes are required in the building arrangements. For example, Surrey has just moved its county town from Kingston to Reigate.
Very interesting. Question: When, in2023, Westmorland and Furness become a unitary authority, along with, Cumberland as another, it is obvious (I think) that Carlisle remains the 'County Town' for Cockermouth and Workington etc. But what is the 'County Town' for Penrith (newly in W and F) or Appleby?
An interesting one. NW Leics is fairly classic Red Wall. A former coalfield, but with lots of new housing and now an economy of warehouses and Amazon. It used to be a marginal, but over the last decade swung heavily blue. A tough test for Labour.
Voters in the historic “red wall” seat of Sedgefield in County Durham, where Tony Blair was once elected to parliament, are willing to give Rishi Sunak a chance to improve their prospects as the cost of living crisis deepens, since Keir Starmer is “not making a case for himself”.
Members of a focus group, conducted by UK More in Common for the Guardian, described Sunak as “the money man” with a CV that proves he was the “best of a bad bunch” of Conservative leadership candidates……
“Winning back their confidence won’t be easy. But the good news for Rishi Sunak was that they thought he was the best person to clean up the mess, and didn’t think that anyone else, including Keir Starmer, would do a better job.”
Which plays into yesterday's suggestion that Rishi's faux Boris act at PMQs is deeply mistaken, and that he should revert to being the calm financial technocrat instead.
And proves once again that people will forgive the Tories anything, like a cheating husband who keeps worming his way back into the marriage. Incredible.
The reality of the situation is that Rishi is a welcome change from Truss and Boris. It’s a low bar he can walk under. Arguing to the contrary is a waste of time. He will be thanked for that, at least in the short term.
What will become clear is that change whilst necessary, was insufficient. We are starting to see that already. The government is still a mess.
The Conservative party is still split and confused, the ministers are still tired, the economy is on its knees and Tory solutions have demonstrably failed. Your taxes are going up, your costs are going up. They will both likely stay up into 2024.
So the question will be do you want another 5 years of that? If Labour can demonstrate another way, the answer will be no.
Is Labour going to lower tax and public spending?
Growth would allow lower tax and higher public spending. Liz Truss was not completely wrong.
It would.
How are you going to get growth? Do you think a higher UK growth rate magically appears the moment Labour take office?
How are you going to get growth? Not by austerity, that's for sure.
Every pound saved on public services, or by real-terms tax rises / pay cuts / benefit cuts on the poor, takes money out of the economy.
Every pound saved by tax rises on the rich takes money out of the property bubble, off-shore accounts, stocks and shares, foreign holidays, etc. etc.
The only problem with taxing the rich is there are not enough of them, and the Seriousl rich just leave and pay their taxes elsewhere Taxing the rich is sensible as long as it is proportional and doesn’t encourage widespread tax evasion and loss of entrepreneurs skills to the UK
Where will the rich leave to?
America, same as always. Some will go to Switzerland. We're going to Lugano next week, Jen's first overseas trip. I think in 4-5 years we'll be there permanently. Though unrelated to Labour being in government.
Often Monaco for those with serious money. Dubai very up and coming. Channel Islands for the traditonally British (but don't want to pay the taxes here) lot.
To re-state a question I asked earlier why have UK gas prices spiked again?
Probably because there's very little storage, and an LNG cargo has been diverted to Rotterdam.
Really? Something like that and they spike? No sort of clever market people with 9 screens and coffee addiction peering into the future and getting a sense of something they don’t like? Just one walky-talks conversation “Sorry Biffur, all full, try Rotterdam.”
Would it be unduly expensive to use tankers as storage and pay to keep a few moored in Milford Haven through the winter?
It’s a good question. The answer as you sugggest, with these tankers worth their weight in gold right now, it could be too expensive to moor one down like that.
I think the issue is that if they are moored then they are not off getting your next load so you are just creating a bigger problem down the line
Basically - once again - the government (along with most other people) forgot that one of their primary roles is structural resilience
LNG vessels are not great looking term stores of natural gas, because - while they are well insulated - they have no way to actually cool the gas. An LNG vessel will therefore see its gas warming and expanding and ultimately returning to a gaseous state.
LNG Returning to a gaseous state would be cool to watch though…
Depends how quickly it does it
I've forgotten my O level physics. As the temperature rises to the LNG boiling point, presumably the ship would just burst under the pressure of boiled off gas?
I assume there are safety valves that would release first?
Yep they will have vent valves but of course that would lose them the cargo (though better than exploding).
The carriers have to keep their cargo at around -160 degrees C. Gaseous natural gas has 625x the volume of LNG and the biggest carriers hold around 250,000 cubic metres of LNG. So you can see that if the temperature rises it gets to be a problem very, very quickly.
I assume this is similar to liquid nitrogen (which I have a lot of experience with). Liquid transitioning to gas takes heat, so keeps the remaining liquid cold. As long as the pressure release valves work there is no issue, other than economics (and the climate issues of releasing it).
Yep. The only thing you have to watch out for is freezing of the valves. People (the general public I mean) don't seem to have a handle on how rapid changes in pressure can cause really really cold temperatures. It is known as the Joule-Thomson Effect and is a problem we are encountering with Carbon Capture and Storage schemes where the pressure regime change as the pressurised CO2 enters the storage reservoir causes a rapid drop in temperature and the formation of ice which blocks the pore spaces.
Have we really had a whole night arguing about whether or not London is in the South East?
I'm sure we can beat that in the coming months.
We should really all contrive to find a topic that hyufd has posted completely accurately on and all argue with him in a completely irrational, incoherent and illogical way. We should misquote some stats and wikipedia pages and see what happens. Could be fun.
Comments
You want to send them back without process. I don't. But what if I want to exile you without process. Who gets to choose who's right. Nigel Farage?
The voters of the UK don't want to send anyone back without process so it's a question of be careful what you wish for if you think it will stop at Albanians.
Not sure even why we're having this conversation and you know it but it does pass the time I suppose.
Channel crossers are bad
Most of them are Albanian
Therefore Albanians are bad
Therefore channel crossers are bad because they are ALBANIANS!!!
Water Resources South East: https://www.wrse.org.uk/
If we're going to have incontinent Labour levels of tax and spend I'd rather it be done by Labour with a Tory opposition, than by the Tories with a Labour opposition calling for even more fiscal incontinence.
Trussonomics=wishful thinking
Rwanda=wishful thinking
Labour hasn't got a monopoly on wishful thinking. If they can come up with a list of modestly helpful, actionable policies and project a degree of honesty and competence then I think they can get a majority.
In the year ending March 2022, there were 3,231 enforced returns, 55% fewer than in 2019 pre-pandemic (7,198). The vast majority of enforced returns in the latest year were of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) and 51% were EU nationals.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2022/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned
3,000. Illegals here about 2 million.
All solutions - send them home, send them to Rwanda - involve catching ALL of them. You have to realise the ones in detention centres are the failures: a successful crossing involves disembarking on Dover beach and everyone running like hell in different directions.
The best test for perimeter security, is drugs in high security prisons. If you can't solve that problem how the hell do you protect a whole coastline, without a wartime-level mobilisation?
There’s also the US, Singapore, Switzerland, Monaco, and plenty of other places where the internationally mobile can choose to live.
They are too statist for my liking, too centralising and too illiberal.
A bunch of pro-EU types got gratuitously upset, but the real target of her ire was the Philip Greens and Richard Bransons of the world, who can and do choose to live wherever they like, paying as much tax as they feel like paying. Add to that the Googles, Amazons, Apples and Facebooks, shuffling huge piles of cash to the Caymans.
The higher taxes rise, the less ‘rich’ one has to be, to consider moving somewhere else.
Albania is obviously not going to take them so what next, just throw them overboard?
All of us looking for the big dramatic gesture solution when the answer that works best is to slowly chip away with some modest improvements today, followed by some more tomorrow and the next day.
God knows how you win an election on that basis, though.
The Standards Committee found he breached rules "on registration, declaration and paid lobbying on multiple occasions and in multiple ways"
https://twitter.com/mirrorbreaking_/status/1588099686950387713
But Mercia was a major power in early and mid Anglo-Saxon times, yet its capital, Tamworth, has no Tamworthshire? In fact, it sits at pretty much the boundary of several shires.
It was around this time that the concept of 'shires' was coming about. The kingdoms (let alone England) were too large to be managed from one capital, so they were split up into shires, each shire having its own regional capital, and the shires were then subdivided up into smaller areas (e.g. hundreds or parishes). This made administration (and taxes!) easier.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great and one of the first rulers of England, was a Wessex man, and he disliked Mercia having any power (and Mercia bordered Wessex). He therefore either organised the counties, or reorganised them, so that Lichfield had no shires of its own, massively reducing its power and influence.
I am not an historian, and I hope I've got the gist of that argument correct. I thought it fascinating.
On official figures (published yesterday) 1 in 6 people in England and Wales were born abroad. That fact plus the truth that we are not acting as Germany 1936 suggests that we are not a racist hell hole.
If the government has a plan (which I doubt) it appears to be to run things so uselessly that people prefer to try their luck somewhere else. In fact this works (other countries take far more asylum seekers than we do, but no-one wants to know this) but it won't do for Farage and co.
FWIW and reluctantly, as we already have 1 in 6 E and W citizens born abroad, and a massive labour shortage, I think the least worst solution is to make the best of a bad job and use their work and skills as well as possible while retaining the right to export criminals and nuisances.
President Biden is planning his re-election campaign with a “very small group” of senior advisers, even as the signs grow of a disastrous midterm election for the Democrats next week." (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/joe-biden-set-to-run-again-for-re-election-in-face-of-midterm-poll-disaster-snwnrjl0z
Edit - on your substantive point, Tamworth wasn't the capital of Mercia by the time counties were being formed, and it was actually quite small, poor and in disputed territory between the Danes and the Saxons. There was a county later formed around the new capital of Gloucester.
Winchester isn't in Wiltshire!
Here in Wales we have free prescriptions. These prescriptions are issued on a rolling delivery basis. So 200 Tramadol in week one 200 in week 2 and so on, and yet your weekly intake is probably 14. Thus after 6 months the house has more class A than an episode of Breaking Bad. When social services realise someone is living in an opium den they collect the surplus, snd the thousands of pounds worth of unusedTramadol from that one property is removed for incineration. Multiply that dituaty thousands of times over in Wales alone. Boots, Lloys and Well pharmacies are making a killing, figuratively and literally. Stop this abuse today!
A cost benefit analysis is also required for hospitalisation of near end of life patients. If life quality and expectancy do not equate to costs. Sorry, but it's "goodnight Vienna".
Frequent flyers, and time wasters. Charge everyone a nominal fee. If your call is worthy, a refund applies. If you are wasting time, drunk, off your head, or an injury has been deliberately self inflicted, sorry the NHS keeps your money.
Mental health in the community doesn't work. Ambulance and paramedic staff, not to mention the police have time, resources and money wasted dealing with people they shouldn't have to, and are not properly trained to deal with.
Hospitals: give Matron control of hygiene and if the useless, highly paid contractor fails her test, off they go. No contract cancellation, on your bike!
Education. Throw money at healthy lifestyle education. Alcohol, drugs, diet and fitness. Prevention is better and more cost effective than cure. Throw money at family planning education and contraception. Probably one for secondary education. Both would ultimately be at worst cost-neutrsl. Never ever allow Therese Coffey anywhere near an NHS facility ever again in a work capacity.
Ramp up testing and screening programmes.
Aggressive, low rent drug dealer, feral males irrespective of their birthright are liberated to detention centres in Rwanda to prevent them both impregnating, and beating their multiple girlfriends. They are free to WORK their passage home. A better use of that option than the current proposal.
Government profligacy over fast track PPE contracts is investigated and numbers totalled. Money to be recouped through the courts. Suspend limited liability rules in this instance and recover as much as possible from personal wealth.
"Cab for hire, £5k a day"
Of course there are those who get rich purely because they love money but not a majority imo.
= the end of American democracy?
They should have held this in England...
Tories 24
LDs 9
Greens 6
SNP 5
Are they expecting the Democrats to lose more or fewer seats than they lost in the 1994 midterms? Or 2010 midterms?
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/governor/oregon/
Biden said yesterday that he lost his son in Iraq, and that he passed a bill on student debt forgiveness, both of which are incorrect. It’s very sad to see someone losing their mind in public.
The US is much the same: if you want to live an a Houston exurb & spend all your time on the road then sure, go for it. Otherwise you’re going to get taxed (and the healthcare costs might eat you alive unless you’re genuinely in the “too rich to care about such things” bracket - the merely wealthy get fleeced by the healthcare system just as much as everyone else does).
But there's a bias here, the ones doing something interesting are the ones we are aware of.
And I am not sure the UK is so great that it takes a slavish love of money to persuade someone to move anyway. After all you can still come here and stay in your Knightsbridge house for nearly half the year.
Say you are in a difficult ministry, you are going down in history books as done a fine job there during your stint, this survey will mark you way down. Ditto some marked way up for no good reason at all, might well go down in history books as had an awful stint in their ministry.
It’s a highly privileged small city surrounded by some of the most desirable real estate on earth - the south of France
You’ve got world class sailing, hiking, skiiing, and multiple other sports on your doorstep. You’ve got Provençal food, wine and climate. You’ve got zero taxes. You’ve got a string of famous art galleries, chateaux, museums, along the riviera. You’ve got Nice and Marseilles if you want urban grit in the sun
You’ve also got the Pyrenees and the Alps, and london and Paris are about an hour away
It’s a pretty good option for a billionaire
And the student debt forgiveness was done, so I don't understand what you mean by that? $10k per student, $20k if they had a "Pell Grant", but not if your earnings are over over $125k.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/08/25/remarks-by-president-biden-announcing-student-loan-debt-relief-plan/
I noticed earlier than anyone on here that she has raw political talent. I also called her, from the start, extremely scary. She is an articulate and attractive Trump. That is a menacing proposition
In some of the other cases you mention, the county towns were capitals of ancient kingdoms. E.g. Yorkshire is the amended form of the Kingdom of Jorvik. In fact, much of the administration was run through the Ridings, which were based at Northallerton, Wakefield and Beverley. Similarly the ancient county town of Sussex would be Horsham as the South Saxons' capital, but in the real world it's always been divided into East and West Sussex based at Lewes and Chichester.
After the Norman conquest when counties were reorganised the general rule was the administration was based at wherever there was a royal castle to function as the headquarters and hold the courts. This is, for example, how Taunton became the county town of Somerset and why in 1286 two of the five new counties of Wales were based in Cardigan and Harlech rather than the logical centres of Lampeter and Bala.
It wasn't until 1889 that county councils were formed, and many of them met in various places for many years until permanent headquarters were built. Even then, the other major function of a county, the assize courts, often continued to meet elsewhere. In Westmoreland the county council met in Kendal but the assizes continued to be held in Appleby. In Wiltshire the county council was based in Trowbridge but the prison was in Devizes and the assizes met alternately in Salisbury and Devizes as they had done for seven centuries and as late as 1939 councillors still considered Devizes the county town and discussed moving there.
With the abolition of assizes in 1971 (I think) and the reforming of local government in 1974 we finally ended up with a clear definition of 'a county town.' And even since then, there have been moves and changes as local government is reorganised or changes are required in the building arrangements. For example, Surrey has just moved its county town from Kingston to Reigate.
Rishi Sunak & Jeremy Hunt are planning to raise £40billion over next 5 years by extending windfall tax
They're planning to do all 3 main options - increasing rate to 30%, extending to 2028 & extending scheme to electricity generators
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunak-prepares-big-tax-grab-from-energy-firms-m7wdbv7pw
Looks tight now
I tend to agree about education on health, but I would also suggest that there is hardly anyone in the country who doesn't know:
(1) Smoking is harmful
(2) Eating fruit and veg is good
(3) Eating fast food such as chips etc everyday is bad
(4) Exercise is good.
They know all this, yet still choose not to act on it. Why? When you are young you feel invincible, so it doesn't matter. Plus people have no true appreciation of risk. Driving to the airport is likely more dangerous than the flight, yet more people are scared of flying than driving. We love an anecdote over data - 'Uncle Bill smoked 20 a day and lived to 102' trumps statistics showing an increased risk (but not certainty) of death.
Appropriate screening/testing is useful where early intervention can help, but it also needs to be cost effective in an environment of limited budget.
Anyone who failed to deliver PPE that was paid for should be hounded for the money.
£ but gist in URL. Sunak said no prob with KC going, but too late to arrange.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-63431894 @ 9:39am
Calls for chancellor to address homeowners
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is facing calls to go to the House of Commons and address mortgage-holders on how he plans to help them, if the Bank of England increases interest rates as expected later on today.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: "The chancellor must address the country immediately after the rate rise decision to spell out a plan to save homeowners on the brink.
"He should either come to Parliament or hold a press conference to announce support for families facing mortgage bill rises worth hundreds of pounds a month.
"People are desperately worried about how they are going to pay these frightening mortgage payments after tomorrow," she said.
Everyone holding a mortgage should know that rates can go up as well as down, and prices can go down as well as up. Its not up to the Chancellor (read: taxpayer) to pay people's mortgages when rates change.
People have got far too addicted to the idea that taxpayers should pay for every problem, for every issue, that might ever strike anyone.
https://cumbriacrack.com/2022/05/12/new-cumbria-councils-to-hold-inaugural-meetings/
We should really all contrive to find a topic that hyufd has posted completely accurately on and all argue with him in a completely irrational, incoherent and illogical way. We should misquote some stats and wikipedia pages and see what happens. Could be fun.