Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
Of course I'm a Tory. I've pounded the pavements for them for nearly half a century to get councillors and MPs elected. I don't recall doing so for any Peers of the Realm....
Your view of the Conservative Party is Victorian, at best. It is a very broad church indeed, as evidenced that it still permits itself to include you.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
Then a Conservative controlled elected Senate would vote down every piece of legislation an elected Commons controlled by Labour puts forward. Just as the elected US Senate blocks legislation passed by the elected House of Representatives when they are controlled by different parties
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
From a political betting point of view, I think it pretty strong odds on that the Telegraph has enough material to bring down the government at a point of its choosing.
I'm not sure that's true.
Most of those leaked WhatsApp messages have been a bit of non event, to be honest.
(a) that's normal by the nature of things (b) ... and in a trash-the-wrong-sort-of-Tory campaign like this, some tasty bits will be being saved for later.
That remains to be seen.
It's not like the expenses scandal, where every day was gold.
Most of the leaked messages are remarkably banal.
So is gold ore. The vast percentage is gangue and rock. But it's still carefully mined.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
None. Did Charles at one point not want to be guardian of the faiths rather than guardian of the faith? It was during one of the periods he was spending more middle eastern money than usual.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Will never happen David, they need to be able to give the crooks, comic singers and assorted wrong uns their rewards, the likes of Mone , Davidson and other such troughers and social climbers , etc. It is all down to money.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
Yes. She was elected by members of the Conservative Party...
I’d really like Hancock to sue Oakshott just from a professional standpoint. NDA’s are routinely put in employment settlement agreements, although these days with a specific exemption for public interest disclosures and the reporting of crime, but it’s rare to see litigation on their breach. Would be fascinating to see what happens at trial. I have no predictions.
Does the legality of Mr Hancock's original leak to Ms Oakeshott have any effect? There must have been a number of people not directly under Cabinet Office or HMG control whose telecomms were made public in this way, which is AFAIK illegal. Also under general civil service confidentiality rules.
Indeed, under GPDR leaking conversations to third parties without their consent is an offence surely, whatever the NDA.
It’s an incredibly complex area. Data protection legislation only protects data that makes you personally identifiable (email addresses, names, details of personal characteristics etc.) and the content of a WhatsApp conversation is not automatically personal data. If it is possible to identify an individual directly from the information you are processing, then that information may be personal data. But there’s not really any such information, save for the names of the individuals sending the messages, in these Whatsapp messages. So I’d question whether they are personal data in the first place.
If I’m wrong, and they are, then UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 set out exemptions from some of the rights and obligations in some circumstances. One of those is journalism and the public interest. Now, this is not the place for an in depth discussion about whether this or any other exemption was available to Oakeshott and the DT, but their lawyers would have been all over it I’m sure.
Many thanks for your posts. I can see that about public interest. But "I am Matt Hancock and I want to be rich" doesn't seem to be likely to be a valid exemption!
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
Of course I'm a Tory. I've pounded the pavements for them for nearly half a century to get councillors and MPs elected. I don't reall doing so for any Peers of the Realm....
Your view of the Conservative Party is Victorian, at best. It is a very broad church indeed, as evidenced that it still permits itself to include you.
If you oppose hereditaries you aren't a Tory. You might be a member and activist for the Conservative Party which is a combination of Tories, those who would have been free market Liberals and Peelites in the 19th century like you and now Brexiteers. However being a supporter of and voter for the Conservative Party doesn't automatically make you a Tory
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
That looks remarkably low, even in England and France, which have the highest usage rates. I suspect that the real rate is much higher in both countries.
I would be interested to see the figures in the higher age groups.
Official figures probably similar. Real figures for Gen X very much higher, both in England and France, I’d estimate.
Indeed. One of my bugbears is drugs being a "kids" issue. I'd trust them rather more than many of their parents and even grandparents (a great many of whom are the "e" generation.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
“Best information at the time “probably applies here. To be fair to all concerned we were in a situation that we’d never been in before, and some judgements were bound to be wrong. Like war!
I think the cabinet being stuffed with idiots, crooks and no users is more appropriate, wrong judgements based on personal enhancement in all ways being above all other concerns.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
Then a Conservative controlled elected Senate would vote down every piece of legislation an elected Commons controlled by Labour puts forward. Just as the elected US Senate blocks legislation passed by the elected House of Representatives when they are controlled by different parties
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
Yes, it's very concerning.
I must say, I've been disappointed by Hunt whilst Sunak has exceeded my expectations.
Hunt seems to be another Hammond. And possibly less than that.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Indeed, how can you be a Tory and not support Church of England Diocesan Bishops and hereditary peers in the Upper House?
Quite easily - I have no time for any of them
You aren't a Tory either BigG, after all you even voted for Blair and New Labour in 2001 after he scrapped most of the hereditary peers
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
Of course I'm a Tory. I've pounded the pavements for them for nearly half a century to get councillors and MPs elected. I don't reall doing so for any Peers of the Realm....
Your view of the Conservative Party is Victorian, at best. It is a very broad church indeed, as evidenced that it still permits itself to include you.
If you oppose hereditaries you aren't a Tory. You might be a member and activist for the Conservative Party which is a combination of Tories, those who would have been free market Liberals and Peelites in the 19th century like you and now Brexiteers. However being a supporter of and voter for the Conservative Party doesn't automatically make you a Tory
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Excellent post! There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
It's a nice idea, but a blocking majority on behalf of less than 17% of the electorate seems also too unbalanced not to be destabilising. If Scotland, Wakes and NI had between them a third of the votes, it would at least require a quarter if English votes too.
One of the destabilising factors in the Union is the overwhelming dominance of England, something that has greatly increased over the last 30 years as most of our mass immigration has chosen to live there. I would not go as far as the US, where even small, largely empty states have as many Senators as California but some sort of balancing is required.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
You do come up with such childish responses
I support the conservatives party under Sunak but have many disagreements with your little Englander right wing religion dominated views
And before you say it, I have voted Labour previously as Blair was the right person for the country but in every election before 1997 and 2001 and since I have supported the party
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
PMSL laughing at that GUFF MD, England gets teh vote on everything, devolved = retained and devolved parliaments can be outvoted , have any bill banned at any time by the English parliament.
SNP parliamentarians have warned that Humza Yousaf is doomed to fail as Scottish first minister even though he is the frontrunner in the race for the party leadership.
Senior figures including some of his own supporters have privately said that the Scottish health secretary is “lightweight”, “over-promoted” and “not going to be able to deliver” if elected leader.
One ally said Yousaf risked being ousted shortly after next year’s general election should the party not live up to its performance under Nicola Sturgeon.
I've been idly pondering whether Yousaf might be better positioned, career-wise, to do a deal with Forbes and sell it to the membership & SNP voters as a sort of 'I'll be your left/progressive voice in her ear as deputy FM'.
If Forbes does well, he gets some glory and a nice job. If she does badly and gets the heave-ho, he's well placed to - sadly, wipes-tear-from-eye, go-on-then-if-I-must - take over as FM.
But I suspect the idea of winning outright and being FM (for however long) must be a strong pull.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
Is Essex big enough to be a region on its own or would we be combined with East Anglia? Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
Essex would be combined with East Anglia and Hertfordshire to form an Eastern region Regional Assembly
Right then. More banging going on in our shop-to-be former bank. Ring Cam not picking up any movement, but definitely door banging going on.
Context - house & bank/shop are one U-shaped building. House is southern wing and upstairs across the middle & northern wing, bank is downstairs in the middle and northern wing. Wifey's office upstairs is directly above the former banking hall entrance door. Which keeps being slammed despite nobody being in that part of the building.
Sounds like a draught from somewhere unless it is a big heavy door.
No draughts. And beside which all the doors are closed and latched.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
Then a Conservative controlled elected Senate would vote down every piece of legislation an elected Commons controlled by Labour puts forward. Just as the elected US Senate blocks legislation passed by the elected House of Representatives when they are controlled by different parties
Why would it be Tory controlled? You win England a fair bit of the time, but as its not FPTP you wouldn't win all the senate seats. And you don't win Wales. Scotland. NI.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Still leaves the current imbalance in that every vote is decided by England, the rest have no influence and no say whatsoever. Scotland never votes Tory, wanted to stay in EU, etc etc and yet England just crushes them.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
Of course I'm a Tory. I've pounded the pavements for them for nearly half a century to get councillors and MPs elected. I don't recall doing so for any Peers of the Realm....
Your view of the Conservative Party is Victorian, at best. It is a very broad church indeed, as evidenced that it still permits itself to include you.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
Is Essex big enough to be a region on its own or would we be combined with East Anglia? Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
Essex would be combined with East Anglia and Hertfordshire to form an Eastern region Regional Assembly
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
We do not have relevant emails, letters, phone calls, memoranda or conversations that would provide the context, so only a small part of the story is being written about. Also you can be certain that the Telegraph is carefully picking the messages they publish, they have an axe to grind.
The Telegraph was a much better paper when it was owned by a crook.
Only an idiot or a clown does not get the context, these thick grifting wankers laughing at the plebs as they have parties, orgies , etc whilst the plebs see their family members dying through windows standing in the cold. Evil bastards.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
Is Essex big enough to be a region on its own or would we be combined with East Anglia? Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
Essex would be combined with East Anglia and Hertfordshire to form an Eastern region Regional Assembly
What about Cambridgeshire?
Cambridgeshire would also be part of the Eastern region Regional Assembly as it was part of the Eastern region to elect MEPs via PR when we were still in the EU
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
I'm not aware of any US state having 80% of the population of the whole country...
For this kind of concept to work there first needs to be an equal devolution to an English parliament, and then the UK parliament can deal only with reserved matters for the enitre country. It's bad enough at the moment with the UK parliament legislating for England-only matters; your proposal would be quite absurd.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
We do not have relevant emails, letters, phone calls, memoranda or conversations that would provide the context, so only a small part of the story is being written about. Also you can be certain that the Telegraph is carefully picking the messages they publish, they have an axe to grind.
The Telegraph was a much better paper when it was owned by a crook.
Only an idiot or a clown does not get the context, these thick grifting wankers laughing at the plebs as they have parties, orgies , etc whilst the plebs see their family members dying through windows standing in the cold. Evil bastards.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
We do not have relevant emails, letters, phone calls, memoranda or conversations that would provide the context, so only a small part of the story is being written about. Also you can be certain that the Telegraph is carefully picking the messages they publish, they have an axe to grind.
The Telegraph was a much better paper when it was owned by a crook.
Only an idiot or a clown does not get the context, these thick grifting wankers laughing at the plebs as they have parties, orgies , etc whilst the plebs see their family members dying through windows standing in the cold. Evil bastards.
We knew they were evil bastards when they imposed lockdown. What they did during lockdown doesn't change that.
Have ordered Starlink. Will be interesting to see if it makes a rapid improvement or if its meh enough to be sent back for a refund...
Be surprised if you send it back....
Hope I don't! On paper our broadband (c. 50MBps) or 4G (c. 60MBps) should be quick enough. In practice with so many devices it doesn't take much of a slowdown to cause lag. So if Starlink can offer well north of 100 down that would definitely help.
In all seriousness we (London) are as different and important part of the UK as Scotland, Wales or NI, and our objectives are often not represented at national level. If they get separate representation I don't really see why we shouldn't either.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
Is Essex big enough to be a region on its own or would we be combined with East Anglia? Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
Essex would be combined with East Anglia and Hertfordshire to form an Eastern region Regional Assembly
What about Cambridgeshire?
Cambridgeshire would also be part of the Eastern region Regional Assembly as it was part of the Eastern region to elect MEPs via PR when we were still in the EU
Actually, that’s quite an attractive prospect. Not quite sure about Hertfordshire on the other hand.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
Our old kirkyard is - so far as I can see - the district council's responsibility, not the kirk session - but, translating into southronese, that is the same thing!
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Which counties?
All of them! I’d reduce income taxes, perhaps to rates of 15% and 35%, but reduce subsidy to local authorities by the amount lost, allowing them to raise local taxes instead.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
No, anyone from the Parish can get buried in the rural churchyards here of Church of England churches.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
It wouldn't be if the Church of England was disestablished. Burial in the churchyard could be refused to those who had not been regular attendees at the Church of England Parish Church
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
I'm not aware of any US state having 80% of the population of the whole country...
For this kind of concept to work there first needs to be an equal devolution to an English parliament, and then the UK parliament can deal only with reserved matters for the enitre country. It's bad enough at the moment with the UK parliament legislating for England-only matters; your proposal would be quite absurd.
Yeah, I would be very quickly and strongly in favour of English independence if that became a new settlement, and I'd be at least in the last quarter of people in favour of English independence.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
No, anyone from the Parish can get buried in the rural churchyards here of Church of England churches and still do.
And how many people live in areas with rural churchyards that are open to all? Compasred to urban areas?
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
I'm not aware of any US state having 80% of the population of the whole country...
For this kind of concept to work there first needs to be an equal devolution to an English parliament, and then the UK parliament can deal only with reserved matters for the enitre country. It's bad enough at the moment with the UK parliament legislating for England-only matters; your proposal would be quite absurd.
But I am an open and long-standing advocate of an English parliament. I am proposing the bicameral federal government structure. A very much reduced Commons and an evenly composited Senate as an upper house. Each nation has a unicameral assembly plus gets to send MPs and Senators to Westminster.
Absurd would be carrying on with the current stupid. No English parliament. Mince elected as MPs. The Lords full of Tory donors and archbishops.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
On Eat Covid to Catch Covid, it had the same impact on the industry as giving someone crack cocaine. A brief buzz, followed immediately by a crashing decline. They could have found other ways to keep hospitality afloat which actually kept hospitality afloat without spreading the pox.
Probably yes. However we still didn’t have a vaccine in summer 2020. If we knew for sure it was coming, we could have just kept things shut and paid for it. But we didn’t, and eat our to help out was part of trying to live with covid with mitigations, but without either (a) widespread disease acquired immunity or (b) vaccination.
Far too many people just know what we should have done, but a lot of it is based on hindsight.
In all seriousness we (London) are as different and important part of the UK as Scotland, Wales or NI, and our objectives are often not represented at national level. If they get separate representation I don't really see why we shouldn't either.
Have ordered Starlink. Will be interesting to see if it makes a rapid improvement or if its meh enough to be sent back for a refund...
Be surprised if you send it back....
Hope I don't! On paper our broadband (c. 50MBps) or 4G (c. 60MBps) should be quick enough. In practice with so many devices it doesn't take much of a slowdown to cause lag. So if Starlink can offer well north of 100 down that would definitely help.
Do report back please - I will be interested. Fibreoptic on my street now but it involves an absurd amount of digging up of our garden and driveway from what I see of the neighbours.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
Then a Conservative controlled elected Senate would vote down every piece of legislation an elected Commons controlled by Labour puts forward. Just as the elected US Senate blocks legislation passed by the elected House of Representatives when they are controlled by different parties
Why would it be Tory controlled? You win England a fair bit of the time, but as its not FPTP you wouldn't win all the senate seats. And you don't win Wales. Scotland. NI.
On midterm protest vote and even with PR RefUK would win 10 to 20% of the seats too and would vote with the Conservatives to vote down legislation from a Labour majority House of Commons
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
It’s pretty shocking.
It’s always fun to embarrass Hancock but she was given this information for a specific purpose and under an NDA.
She has clearly demonstrated that she simply cannot be trusted
you got your panties in a bunch luv, the sheer horror of her perfidy is breathtaking. She Outwitted and outed a turnip headed clown.
The obvious thing to say about this is how would you feel if you had all your personal and business emails and messages gone through, and released in a manner, and with a commentary, designed to make you look bad?
If I was as rotten to the core as Hancock who has been hoist by his own petard, then she has done the public a service and deserves a medal. The weasel has such a high opinion of himself and is so stupid he handed them over, Nothing is too bad for the odious little creep.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
It wouldn't be if the Church of England was disestablished. Burial in the churchyard could be refused to those who had not been regular attendees at the Church of England Parish Church
No, because the C of E has handed over control of the burial ground to the local authority.
Have ordered Starlink. Will be interesting to see if it makes a rapid improvement or if its meh enough to be sent back for a refund...
I had it at my place in France before I sold it and it was very good. I wouldn't have it now because Elon is a fucking shitlord.
Elon is Hank Scorpio. But what are we going to do? Boycott Amazon because Bezos is also a fucking shitlord? I have a very simple policy which is to ignore the machinations of business leaders and artists. That way I don't have to cancel JK Rowling or Michael Jackson or boycott Starlink or do some other pointless shit that doesn't impact the supposed Bad Guys but impacts me quite a lot.
I used to work for Nestle. Some leftie friends would recoil in horror and state firmly that they boycott us. "Great! And do you know how much impact that has on the business? None at all..."
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Excellent post! There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
It's a nice idea, but a blocking majority on behalf of less than 17% of the electorate seems also too unbalanced not to be destabilising. If Scotland, Wakes and NI had between them a third of the votes, it would at least require a quarter if English votes too.
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
Truss ruined the economic in just 6 weeks of madness which has required Sunak and Hunt to take steps to stabilise the economy and they have achieved that
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
There is nothing stabilising about hiking corporation tax, it does not increase tax receipts, it discourages investment and encourages offshoring of profits. Hunt knows this, hence his proposal during the leadership campaign was to reduce CT to 15%. His plan to increase it has already harmed the economy and continues to do so.
Truss did far more harm to our economy than imaginable
The pound fell to 1.03 $ on her watch and has climbed back to 1.20$ under Hunt
The economy has been stabilised and is the pre cursor to reducing taxes
I also think it is premature to describe Hunt as useless or pointless as Hammond. The budget he delivered was made in incredibly sensitive times and the absolute priority was to win back the trust of the markets on whom we depend (since we cannot resist spending a lot more money than we earn). It will be interesting to see if he can be more innovative in his next effort when the pressure is less. I certainly hope so. There is so much to do.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
SNP parliamentarians have warned that Humza Yousaf is doomed to fail as Scottish first minister even though he is the frontrunner in the race for the party leadership.
Senior figures including some of his own supporters have privately said that the Scottish health secretary is “lightweight”, “over-promoted” and “not going to be able to deliver” if elected leader.
One ally said Yousaf risked being ousted shortly after next year’s general election should the party not live up to its performance under Nicola Sturgeon.
I've been idly pondering whether Yousaf might be better positioned, career-wise, to do a deal with Forbes and sell it to the membership & SNP voters as a sort of 'I'll be your left/progressive voice in her ear as deputy FM'.
If Forbes does well, he gets some glory and a nice job. If she does badly and gets the heave-ho, he's well placed to - sadly, wipes-tear-from-eye, go-on-then-if-I-must - take over as FM.
But I suspect the idea of winning outright and being FM (for however long) must be a strong pull.
Do we have SNP members on PB who are prepared to report from the closed hustings, just for interest (and betting)? How long is it going on?
We have FTTC. Not the cabinet outside the building, no no, the one a kilometre away. OK so 50ish down is decent for rural, but its not quick enough any more. Its like how computing power gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER and the demand on processor and memory keeps going up faster.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
We have FTTC. Not the cabinet outside the building, no no, the one a kilometre away. OK so 50ish down is decent for rural, but its not quick enough any more. Its like how computing power gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER and the demand on processor and memory keeps going up faster.
FTTP surely on the way to you at some point, let’s hope it is soon. It’s fantastic and just what you need long term.
SNP parliamentarians have warned that Humza Yousaf is doomed to fail as Scottish first minister even though he is the frontrunner in the race for the party leadership.
Senior figures including some of his own supporters have privately said that the Scottish health secretary is “lightweight”, “over-promoted” and “not going to be able to deliver” if elected leader.
One ally said Yousaf risked being ousted shortly after next year’s general election should the party not live up to its performance under Nicola Sturgeon.
I've been idly pondering whether Yousaf might be better positioned, career-wise, to do a deal with Forbes and sell it to the membership & SNP voters as a sort of 'I'll be your left/progressive voice in her ear as deputy FM'.
If Forbes does well, he gets some glory and a nice job. If she does badly and gets the heave-ho, he's well placed to - sadly, wipes-tear-from-eye, go-on-then-if-I-must - take over as FM.
But I suspect the idea of winning outright and being FM (for however long) must be a strong pull.
Do we have SNP members on PB who are prepared to report from the closed hustings, just for interest (and betting)? How long is it going on?
Not closed any more - there was a u-turn. Licvestreamed. Haven't checked if they are archived - am too busy on a job.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
It wouldn't be if the Church of England was disestablished. Burial in the churchyard could be refused to those who had not been regular attendees at the Church of England Parish Church
I’m certain that the last two funerals at our local parish church that I attended, where the bodies were buried in the churchyard, were not of men who regularly attended church. One of them, though could be described as an upright and honest citizen; I’m not so sure about the other one!
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
It’s pretty shocking.
It’s always fun to embarrass Hancock but she was given this information for a specific purpose and under an NDA.
She has clearly demonstrated that she simply cannot be trusted
you got your panties in a bunch luv, the sheer horror of her perfidy is breathtaking. She Outwitted and outed a turnip headed clown.
The obvious thing to say about this is how would you feel if you had all your personal and business emails and messages gone through, and released in a manner, and with a commentary, designed to make you look bad?
If I was as rotten to the core as Hancock who has been hoist by his own petard, then she has done the public a service and deserves a medal. The weasel has such a high opinion of himself and is so stupid he handed them over, Nothing is too bad for the odious little creep.
Don't put it in writing. They can't leak your WhatsApp messages if you didn't sit there typing the bad shit in the first place. As for passing them over to Oakeshott, would have been more secure had he commissioned Led By Donkeys to write his book. What a moron! Oakeshott FFS - she's the primordial slime we evolved from.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
Sound money? Low taxation? Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning? ....
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
Truss ruined the economic in just 6 weeks of madness which has required Sunak and Hunt to take steps to stabilise the economy and they have achieved that
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
There is nothing stabilising about hiking corporation tax, it does not increase tax receipts, it discourages investment and encourages offshoring of profits. Hunt knows this, hence his proposal during the leadership campaign was to reduce CT to 15%. His plan to increase it has already harmed the economy and continues to do so.
Truss did far more harm to our economy than imaginable
The pound fell to 1.03 $ on her watch and has climbed back to 1.20$ under Hunt
The economy has been stabilised and is the pre cursor to reducing taxes
I also think it is premature to describe Hunt as useless or pointless as Hammond. The budget he delivered was made in incredibly sensitive times and the absolute priority was to win back the trust of the markets on whom we depend (since we cannot resist spending a lot more money than we earn). It will be interesting to see if he can be more innovative in his next effort when the pressure is less. I certainly hope so. There is so much to do.
I'm told that the autumn Budget/Statement (I lose track of which it is) wil have massive support for especially small businesses - but business generally. The "fuck business" years are now gone....
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
The Lords can't meaningfully be said to "pass laws".
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
The Lords can't meaningfully be said to "pass laws".
They had a good go at blocking them during Brexit....
Right then. More banging going on in our shop-to-be former bank. Ring Cam not picking up any movement, but definitely door banging going on.
Context - house & bank/shop are one U-shaped building. House is southern wing and upstairs across the middle & northern wing, bank is downstairs in the middle and northern wing. Wifey's office upstairs is directly above the former banking hall entrance door. Which keeps being slammed despite nobody being in that part of the building.
Sounds like a draught from somewhere unless it is a big heavy door.
No draughts. And beside which all the doors are closed and latched.
Have you thought to contact the Society for Psychical Research? Might be an interesting case for them to investigate?
SNP parliamentarians have warned that Humza Yousaf is doomed to fail as Scottish first minister even though he is the frontrunner in the race for the party leadership.
Senior figures including some of his own supporters have privately said that the Scottish health secretary is “lightweight”, “over-promoted” and “not going to be able to deliver” if elected leader.
One ally said Yousaf risked being ousted shortly after next year’s general election should the party not live up to its performance under Nicola Sturgeon.
I've been idly pondering whether Yousaf might be better positioned, career-wise, to do a deal with Forbes and sell it to the membership & SNP voters as a sort of 'I'll be your left/progressive voice in her ear as deputy FM'.
If Forbes does well, he gets some glory and a nice job. If she does badly and gets the heave-ho, he's well placed to - sadly, wipes-tear-from-eye, go-on-then-if-I-must - take over as FM.
But I suspect the idea of winning outright and being FM (for however long) must be a strong pull.
Given he is Murrells stooge and they control the voting he will imagine , despite being thick and useless, he is a shoo in. Hopefully there are still enough sane members to ensure this nest of vipers is cleared out despite a huge amount of real independence supporters having left.
We have FTTC. Not the cabinet outside the building, no no, the one a kilometre away. OK so 50ish down is decent for rural, but its not quick enough any more. Its like how computing power gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER and the demand on processor and memory keeps going up faster.
FTTP surely on the way to you at some point, let’s hope it is soon. It’s fantastic and just what you need long term.
Had it before we moved. Great until it went down. Then on the phone to the Bengaluru call centre where the call handler is called David and wants me to switch it off and back on again. Then agreed to call out an engineer and threatens me with a Big Fine if I didn't switch it off and back on again as that's definitely the fix when half the street is down.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
I'm not aware of any US state having 80% of the population of the whole country...
For this kind of concept to work there first needs to be an equal devolution to an English parliament, and then the UK parliament can deal only with reserved matters for the enitre country. It's bad enough at the moment with the UK parliament legislating for England-only matters; your proposal would be quite absurd.
But I am an open and long-standing advocate of an English parliament. I am proposing the bicameral federal government structure. A very much reduced Commons and an evenly composited Senate as an upper house. Each nation has a unicameral assembly plus gets to send MPs and Senators to Westminster.
Absurd would be carrying on with the current stupid. No English parliament. Mince elected as MPs. The Lords full of Tory donors and archbishops.
Right. But we're not ever going to get an English parliament - the Conservative Party doesn't want any further devolution (for reasons I really don't understand) and insofar as the Labour Party wants further devolution it's through the balkanisation of England.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Which counties?
All of them! I’d reduce income taxes, perhaps to rates of 15% and 35%, but reduce subsidy to local authorities by the amount lost, allowing them to raise local taxes instead.
So you’d bankrupt half the LAs in the country. Granted just a speeding up of what successive governments have done for the last couple of decades, but people might actually notice.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
It wouldn't be if the Church of England was disestablished. Burial in the churchyard could be refused to those who had not been regular attendees at the Church of England Parish Church
I’m certain that the last two funerals at our local parish church that I attended, where the bodies were buried in the churchyard, were not of men who regularly attended church. One of them, though could be described as an upright and honest citizen; I’m not so sure about the other one!
I think that we can say with some confidence that neither of them are upright anymore.
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
Yes, it's very concerning.
I must say, I've been disappointed by Hunt whilst Sunak has exceeded my expectations.
Hunt seems to be another Hammond. And possibly less than that.
What has Sunak done ? SFA
Avoided scandal and achieved a significant change to the NIP. Not insignificant under the circs.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Which counties?
All of them! I’d reduce income taxes, perhaps to rates of 15% and 35%, but reduce subsidy to local authorities by the amount lost, allowing them to raise local taxes instead.
And further widen the gap between rich and poor areas? Anyway. My point was this. Which counties? Modern or historic? Do we reconstitute Berkshire? Which county is Doncaster in? Or Gateshead? Is there one Cumbria or two? Etc., Etc.. The entire system is a shambles because of tinkering for political advantage.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
Sound money? Low taxation? Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning? ....
Exactly. All much more important to me than @HYUFD's list.
In all seriousness we (London) are as different and important part of the UK as Scotland, Wales or NI, and our objectives are often not represented at national level. If they get separate representation I don't really see why we shouldn't either.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
The Lords can't meaningfully be said to "pass laws".
They had a good go at blocking them during Brexit....
Oh, indeed. Delaying laws is what it does, and it works about as well as anything else in the political system does.
Elon is Hank Scorpio. But what are we going to do? Boycott Amazon because Bezos is also a fucking shitlord? I have a very simple policy which is to ignore the machinations of business leaders and artists. That way I don't have to cancel JK Rowling or Michael Jackson or boycott Starlink or do some other pointless shit that doesn't impact the supposed Bad Guys but impacts me quite a lot.
I used to work for Nestle. Some leftie friends would recoil in horror and state firmly that they boycott us. "Great! And do you know how much impact that has on the business? None at all..."
Mmm -- if Amazon gets into difficulties I think it will be because it's become increasingly hard to find what you want amongst the sea of identikit direct-from-China cheap-as-chips-and-about-as-durable products, and difficult to trust that you're going to get the real thing and not a counterfeit if you do buy a known brandname from them. On-principle boycotts are rarely very effective.
Have ordered Starlink. Will be interesting to see if it makes a rapid improvement or if its meh enough to be sent back for a refund...
I had it at my place in France before I sold it and it was very good. I wouldn't have it now because Elon is a fucking shitlord.
Elon is Hank Scorpio. But what are we going to do? Boycott Amazon because Bezos is also a fucking shitlord? I have a very simple policy which is to ignore the machinations of business leaders and artists. That way I don't have to cancel JK Rowling or Michael Jackson or boycott Starlink or do some other pointless shit that doesn't impact the supposed Bad Guys but impacts me quite a lot.
I used to work for Nestle. Some leftie friends would recoil in horror and state firmly that they boycott us. "Great! And do you know how much impact that has on the business? None at all..."
Bezos is nowhere near the same level of shitlord as Musk. Seriously. Musk is far, far worse.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
He voted remain, I believe ? Democracy has rarely been uppermost in HYUFD’s pronouncements.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
Sound money? Low taxation? Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning? ....
No, the first two were if anything more supported by 19th century Whigs and Liberals than Tories (albeit both support them more than Labour does after they largely combined to form today's Conservative Party with a few rump free market Liberals still Orange Book Liberals in today's Liberal Democrats).
Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning is something even New Labour could support
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
Sound money? Low taxation? Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning? ....
Exactly. All much more important to me than @HYUFD's list.
Yes but David you are more a Liberal Unionist than an 18th or 19th century Tory.
Indeed the Tories existed in England as the main opponents of the Whigs even before the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland
By the way, whoever on here recommended the musical version of War of the Worlds -narrated by Richard Burton - thank you.
Absolutely bloody brilliant.
I have been listening to it, and enjoying it, all weekend with my bose headphones and I even bought the original H.G Wells paperback at Waterstones yesterday as well.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Buried in the local church? Intramural burials have been banned for almost two centuries, the odd aristo or elite person aside!
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
In our town burial, either of bodies or of ashes, in the churchyard is the responsibility of the parish council. Not the parochial church council.
It wouldn't be if the Church of England was disestablished. Burial in the churchyard could be refused to those who had not been regular attendees at the Church of England Parish Church
I’m certain that the last two funerals at our local parish church that I attended, where the bodies were buried in the churchyard, were not of men who regularly attended church. One of them, though could be described as an upright and honest citizen; I’m not so sure about the other one!
Yes because the Church of England is the established church. As long as it remains the established church anyone from the Parish can be buried in the Church of England churchyard
Mr. L, you might be able to justify that if England had its own Parliament.
Mr. G, you might recall that Scottish constituencies also send MPs to Westminster.
MD, You might have noticed that no matter how they vote that they have ZERO impact as England can outvote them every time. You can pretend and dress it up and whine about no English parliament , still the truth is England only votes count for what happens in all UK countries. Westminster is an English parliament, dressed up as a UK one.
By the way, whoever on here recommended the musical version of War of the Worlds -narrated by Richard Burton - thank you.
Absolutely bloody brilliant.
I have been listening to it, and enjoying it, all weekend with my bose headphones and I even bought the original H.G Wells paperback at Waterstones yesterday as well.
Loving it. Amazing.
I think that was me. Burton's narration is just superb.
I very much hope it has got you in better humour. You have not quite been yourself of late.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
The Tories existed before the 1832 Reform Act at a time when less than 5% of the population could vote for MPs
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established Churcg would be a Tory
Sound money? Low taxation? Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning? ....
Exactly. All much more important to me than @HYUFD's list.
Yes but David you are more a Liberal Unionist than an 18th or 19th century Tory.
Indeed the Tories existed in England as the main opponents of the Whigs even before the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Yes, I would devolve more power to counties, and make them raise more of their own money. They can co-operate on projects that cross boundaries, such as transport infrastructure, and can compete with each other on property taxes and business rates.
Which counties?
All of them! I’d reduce income taxes, perhaps to rates of 15% and 35%, but reduce subsidy to local authorities by the amount lost, allowing them to raise local taxes instead.
So you’d bankrupt half the LAs in the country. Granted just a speeding up of what successive governments have done for the last couple of decades, but people might actually notice.
It would result in the same income for LAs, just that council tax would go up significantly and central government subsidy would fall.
It would also encourage housebuilding, as the LA would see more money for every new house built.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
It’s pretty shocking.
It’s always fun to embarrass Hancock but she was given this information for a specific purpose and under an NDA.
She has clearly demonstrated that she simply cannot be trusted
you got your panties in a bunch luv, the sheer horror of her perfidy is breathtaking. She Outwitted and outed a turnip headed clown.
The obvious thing to say about this is how would you feel if you had all your personal and business emails and messages gone through, and released in a manner, and with a commentary, designed to make you look bad?
If I was as rotten to the core as Hancock who has been hoist by his own petard, then she has done the public a service and deserves a medal. The weasel has such a high opinion of himself and is so stupid he handed them over, Nothing is too bad for the odious little creep.
Don't put it in writing. They can't leak your WhatsApp messages if you didn't sit there typing the bad shit in the first place. As for passing them over to Oakeshott, would have been more secure had he commissioned Led By Donkeys to write his book. What a moron! Oakeshott FFS - she's the primordial slime we evolved from.
Exactly , 100% stupid and getting all he deserves.
Is there anyone that can actually be a Tory by HYUFD's description. He doesn't even meet it himself.
Yes, anyone who supports keeping the monarchy, retaining the remaining hereditary peers and keeping the Church of England as the established would be a Tory
How do you square being democratic and having people pass laws who nobody has voted for? Didn’t you support Brexit so we could vote people out who we didn’t like?
The Tories existed before the 1832 Reform Act at a time when less than 5% of the population could vote for MPs
So you would be happy to bring back slavery, hanging, drawing and quartering (still used in 1820 IIRC), the Test Acts, and so on, on that logic.
Mr. G, except that devolved matters exist, and Scotland also sends MPs to Westminster. Not to mention the previous government (if we count the Coalition as Conservative) had 13 years of Scottish Chancellors and 3 years of a Scottish Prime Minister.
Comments
Your view of the Conservative Party is Victorian, at best. It is a very broad church indeed, as evidenced that it still permits itself to include you.
I'd trust them rather more than many of their parents and even grandparents (a great many of whom are the "e" generation.
Even if you are talking about churchyards, many are closed to new burials except sometimes if you have relatives or a lair there already. Off to the secular cemetery. So even less impact.
I support the conservatives party under Sunak but have many disagreements with your little Englander right wing religion dominated views
And before you say it, I have voted Labour previously as Blair was the right person for the country but in every election before 1997 and 2001 and since I have supported the party
Hereditary peers are an insult to our democracy
If Forbes does well, he gets some glory and a nice job. If she does badly and gets the heave-ho, he's well placed to - sadly, wipes-tear-from-eye, go-on-then-if-I-must - take over as FM.
But I suspect the idea of winning outright and being FM (for however long) must be a strong pull.
Mr. G, you might recall that Scottish constituencies also send MPs to Westminster.
For this kind of concept to work there first needs to be an equal devolution to an English parliament, and then the UK parliament can deal only with reserved matters for the enitre country. It's bad enough at the moment with the UK parliament legislating for England-only matters; your proposal would be quite absurd.
That's not "most people", surely.
Absurd would be carrying on with the current stupid. No English parliament. Mince elected as MPs. The Lords full of Tory donors and archbishops.
Far too many people just know what we should have done, but a lot of it is based on hindsight.
I used to work for Nestle. Some leftie friends would recoil in horror and state firmly that they boycott us. "Great! And do you know how much impact that has on the business? None at all..."
Granted just a speeding up of what successive governments have done for the last couple of decades, but people might actually notice.
Anyway. My point was this. Which counties? Modern or historic? Do we reconstitute Berkshire? Which county is Doncaster in? Or Gateshead? Is there one Cumbria or two? Etc., Etc..
The entire system is a shambles because of tinkering for political advantage.
Democracy has rarely been uppermost in HYUFD’s pronouncements.
Keeping crime low and the courts and prison system functioning is something even New Labour could support
Indeed the Tories existed in England as the main opponents of the Whigs even before the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland
Absolutely bloody brilliant.
I have been listening to it, and enjoying it, all weekend with my bose headphones and I even bought the original H.G Wells paperback at Waterstones yesterday as well.
Loving it. Amazing.
“It’s not about the listing rules, the governance or the free float requirements.”
https://twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1632146806799843329
I very much hope it has got you in better humour. You have not quite been yourself of late.
It would also encourage housebuilding, as the LA would see more money for every new house built.