I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
And furlough. Which benefited a huge number of working people, many of them on relatively low incomes.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
It is laughable how the cost of Covid/Furlough etc has been forgotten.
As you have brought it up, the means by which furlough was managed was an outrageous waste of public funds.
Some poor self- employed and employed getting nothing, some wealthy workers getting shed-fulls of cash and working too.
A flat rate for everyone would have been far simpler, cheaper and more equitable. The CoE was so clever he complicated a system that could have been simple. The abuse, including by organised criminals was mind- blowing.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
It goes without saying that we need to keep the children safe and having the ceiling fall down on Class 3B during double maths is no one's idea of a good outcome.
That said, I notice that schools are reverting to online learning for some affected pupils. Online learning, one of the most pernicious aspects of lockdown. And in this case engendering a fear in children that their school is not safe. Now, there may be some dodgy concrete in there but are they saying that they can't manage via other classrooms, portakabins, the gym, to have all pupils in school?
This is (yet) another reason why lockdowns were such a mistake. And people use "lockdown sceptic" as a term of insult.
Schools don't get portakabins at a day's notice.
Not really sure what this has got to do with lockdown, but I do think closing schools is a mistake.
Buildings are not safe or unsafe. Our building controls to date have given us an arbitrary level of safety that is indeed very safe. Knowing what we now about the dodgy concrete, that level has dropped a bit but evidently by the rarity of serious incidents, is still very safe and safer than most schools in the rest of the world.
I assume you don't have school age children? Or perhaps simply an above average tolerance for their school falling down on top of them.
I have 4 of my 5 grandchildren at schools here in Wales where the Welsh government is coming under a lot of criticism for failing to take action
Indeed my 10 year old grandson asked me on Sunday if it was safe to attend his school on going back today in Colwyn Bay
It goes without saying that we need to keep the children safe and having the ceiling fall down on Class 3B during double maths is no one's idea of a good outcome.
That said, I notice that schools are reverting to online learning for some affected pupils. Online learning, one of the most pernicious aspects of lockdown. And in this case engendering a fear in children that their school is not safe. Now, there may be some dodgy concrete in there but are they saying that they can't manage via other classrooms, portakabins, the gym, to have all pupils in school?
This is (yet) another reason why lockdowns were such a mistake. And people use "lockdown sceptic" as a term of insult.
Schools don't get portakabins at a day's notice.
Not really sure what this has got to do with lockdown, but I do think closing schools is a mistake.
Buildings are not safe or unsafe. Our building controls to date have given us an arbitrary level of safety that is indeed very safe. Knowing what we now about the dodgy concrete, that level has dropped a bit but evidently by the rarity of serious incidents, is still very safe and safer than most schools in the rest of the world.
I assume you don't have school age children? Or perhaps simply an above average tolerance for their school falling down on top of them.
Should most schools in Africa stop teaching because they are less safe than those here?
Is this the Rwanda policy that we're always hearing about?
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Thank you, Gardenwalker, for that outburst of good sense.
I caught the Keegan rant and didn't think it was so bad. Sure, as a Politician she should know there are cameras and recording equipment everywhere and she would never be safely off-air, but given it was an aside after the interview ended I think a few honest opinions and a bit of fruity language were perfectly reasonable.
What is interesting is that the Daily Hate-Mail should turn on her. (Does nobody there ever utter an expletive?) They have an agenda. This does not look good for her, and even worse for Sunak. The Mail speaks for What's Left Of The Tory Party and if he's lost them, he's on his way out, either before or by virtue of a General Election.
Will that help the Tories? Will it fuck. (Apologies to the snowflakes at the Mail but sometimes I can't help my language.) There is no Saviour, no Prince Over The Water, no option other than to keep buggering on with what might pass in some quarters for half-decent, competent Government, and hope the coming drubbing doesn't annihilate them completely.
Lose Mid-Beds? Yes, and High-Beds, Low-Beds, Flower Beds and any other Beds they try to lie in. Meanwhile, Starmer quietly prepares for the takeover.
Can't happen too soon, for everyone's sake.
Sunak's whining self- pity was worse than Keegan's.
Sunak implied Slater is a liar and he (Sunak) had not reduced the school refubishment programme to just fifty a year. How did he do this? By suggesting he was replacing schools at the more impressive rate of 500 a decade. It was Johnsonian fork-tongued chicanery at its finest.
We should remember Slater has every reason to bear a grudge against the government. He was fired (as was the chief of OFQUAL) to divert blame for the 2020 exams fiasco from where it actually lay - Nick Gibb, Gavin Williamson and to a lesser extent Amanda Spielman (whose contract had just been extended for good performance, and no, that's not a joke) whose bungling over many years and headless chicken policy decisions in early summer had left the whole system in absolute ruins.
His replacement, Acland-Hood, has demonstrated in a dozen ways she is a hundred times worse. Nobody ever accused Slater of breaking lockdown to my knowledge, or of using unlawful legal threats. He could also spell, which she clearly can't. He wasn't a latter day John Anderson, but on his watch the Department of Education was much less chaotic than under his predecessor (now at Health) or his successor (God help us).
And Gibb, of course, is still there and still looks like a completely useless twat.
I am sure therefore that he will be called a liar by many, not just Sunak.
However, because he has otherwise a track record of being honest we should probably trust him ahead of the people briefing against him.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A whistleblower exclusively tells East Anglia Bylines the education secretary deliberately mounted a cover-up of the RAAC dangers
in early February, two months after the risk level was raised to high, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan remarked, “We just need to keep the lid on this for two years and then it’s someone else’s problem.“
A zillion headers write themselves.......
Excessive honesty in a politician.
Because no-one would have been rewarded for standing up and saying “we have a problem”.
I saw this yesterday and I'm puzzled it's not in the national headlines today, as it seems absolutely a killer quote which should trigger her resignation. Perhaps not trusted because it's anonymous? But she should certainly be pressed on whether she said it - it combines indifference to the issue with resignation over the outcome of the election.
It goes without saying that we need to keep the children safe and having the ceiling fall down on Class 3B during double maths is no one's idea of a good outcome.
That said, I notice that schools are reverting to online learning for some affected pupils. Online learning, one of the most pernicious aspects of lockdown. And in this case engendering a fear in children that their school is not safe. Now, there may be some dodgy concrete in there but are they saying that they can't manage via other classrooms, portakabins, the gym, to have all pupils in school?
This is (yet) another reason why lockdowns were such a mistake. And people use "lockdown sceptic" as a term of insult.
Schools don't get portakabins at a day's notice.
Not really sure what this has got to do with lockdown, but I do think closing schools is a mistake.
Buildings are not safe or unsafe. Our building controls to date have given us an arbitrary level of safety that is indeed very safe. Knowing what we now about the dodgy concrete, that level has dropped a bit but evidently by the rarity of serious incidents, is still very safe and safer than most schools in the rest of the world.
I assume you don't have school age children? Or perhaps simply an above average tolerance for their school falling down on top of them.
Should most schools in Africa stop teaching because they are less safe than those here?
Is this the Rwanda policy that we're always hearing about?
Err, no. It is not about the death penalty or space exploration either if that helps clarify.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
I'm not sure exactly how old you are, but I think the Tories have been in power for most of your working life. You bleat about the tax you pay, but your beloved Tories are the ones taxing you-and delivering nothing for the country. You should be welcoming a change of government.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
So a bit of spraying our taxes all over every Tory spiv that crawled out of the woodwork was absolutely fine? The government also spent money on things that weren't corrupt so we can't criticise them for spending on things that were corrupt? Is that the defence now?
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Thank you, Gardenwalker, for that outburst of good sense.
I caught the Keegan rant and didn't think it was so bad. Sure, as a Politician she should know there are cameras and recording equipment everywhere and she would never be safely off-air, but given it was an aside after the interview ended I think a few honest opinions and a bit of fruity language were perfectly reasonable.
What is interesting is that the Daily Hate-Mail should turn on her. (Does nobody there ever utter an expletive?) They have an agenda. This does not look good for her, and even worse for Sunak. The Mail speaks for What's Left Of The Tory Party and if he's lost them, he's on his way out, either before or by virtue of a General Election.
Will that help the Tories? Will it fuck. (Apologies to the snowflakes at the Mail but sometimes I can't help my language.) There is no Saviour, no Prince Over The Water, no option other than to keep buggering on with what might pass in some quarters for half-decent, competent Government, and hope the coming drubbing doesn't annihilate them completely.
Lose Mid-Beds? Yes, and High-Beds, Low-Beds, Flower Beds and any other Beds they try to lie in. Meanwhile, Starmer quietly prepares for the takeover.
Can't happen too soon, for everyone's sake.
Sunak's whining self- pity was worse than Keegan's.
Sunak implied Slater is a liar and he (Sunak) had not reduced the school refubishment programme to just fifty a year. How did he do this? By suggesting he was replacing schools at the more impressive rate of 500 a decade. It was Johnsonian fork-tongued chicanery at its finest.
We should remember Slater has every reason to bear a grudge against the government. He was fired (as was the chief of OFQUAL) to divert blame for the 2020 exams fiasco from where it actually lay - Nick Gibb, Gavin Williamson and to a lesser extent Amanda Spielman (whose contract had just been extended for good performance, and no, that's not a joke) whose bungling over many years and headless chicken policy decisions in early summer had left the whole system in absolute ruins.
His replacement, Acland-Hood, has demonstrated in a dozen ways she is a hundred times worse. Nobody ever accused Slater of breaking lockdown to my knowledge, or of using unlawful legal threats. He could also spell, which she clearly can't. He wasn't a latter day John Anderson, but on his watch the Department of Education was much less chaotic than under his predecessor (now at Health) or his successor (God help us).
And Gibb, of course, is still there and still looks like a completely useless twat.
I am sure therefore that he will be called a liar by many, not just Sunak.
However, because he has otherwise a track record of being honest we should probably trust him ahead of the people briefing against him.
Gibb has just thrown Sunak under the bus. So credit where it is due.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
There is still good news from the southern frontline in Ukraine. Not a breakthrough but again, slow but steady deterioration of the Russian positions.
The situation in the Robotyne-Verbove area is developing in a positive direction for the Ukrainians. Ukraine has further penetrated the first Surovikin line near Verbove, now reaching the main trenchline.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
So the economy is in the toilet because of Covid & the cost of living?
Did they not have Covid or runaway food price inflation in France of Germany then?
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It reads like you can't wait for them to fall over.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
We said that about Cameron and he didn't deliver.
Or Blair, for the matter of that, although he had a much easier legacy.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It will be interesting times all round, bring it on.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
Or maybe Sunak will be fired? If Sunak knew about the situation then with the RAAC then that is a serious problem for him. Maybe Gibb is gunning for him already? Could we have yet another Tory PM?
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
Or maybe Sunak will be fired? If Sunak knew about the situation then with the RAAC then that is a serious problem for him. Maybe Gibb is gunning for him already? Could we have yet another Tory PM?
Given a choice between Sunak and Gibb, I still choose Sunak.
Education minister confirms that in 2021, Education Department put in a bid to rebuild 200 schools to the Treasury when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....
... but got 50
Do you think there was loads of money available in 2021 ?
Yes. The government was literally hosing the stuff against the walls and into their friend's pockets.
Again again because some of you Tories post like morons on this subject. There was not a "do not spend money" option. This was not discretionary spending. You can't avoid repairing and / or replacing these buildings and hope they repair themselves.
We had a choice. Spend the money then. Or spend the money now plus the same again on top with emergency measures. We were going to spend the money regardless of whether they wanted to or not. A Conservative approach is to spend the least amount possible and get value for money. Instead you Tories did the opposite - spend as much as possible in a panic.
Isn't "wasting other people's money" what you accuse Labour of?
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It reads like you can't wait for them to fall over.
Can you honestly say they have put forward any answers to our problems
No tax increases, no wealth taxes, retain the triple lock, and this morning no answer on how many schools they would build annually
Yesterday's disastrous whining performances from Sunak and Keegan is the legacy of long- Johnson.
Long-Johnson will blight the Conservatives for a while yet. By Johnson promoting duds, duffers are being over promoted even after he is gone. Sunak (who I like) is a case in point.
It must be painful for lifelong one nation Tories to accept there is room in the party for Braverman but not Grieve.
Rishi Sunak was presented with compelling evidence that more money was needed to make schools safe for kids to go to and was warned of a critical risk to life if action wasn’t taken. His reaction was to cut the repairs budget. Judge him on deeds, not words. That’s the man he is.
I would like to know what other options were presented to him. Maybe he was presented with other options with a critical risk to life and had to choose between them.
My view is that the triple lock has to go, as do other non-means tested benefits like winter fuel allowance etc. But it is delusional to think that with a few more taxes on wealthy pensioners we can get ourselves out of this hole.
It's not just repairing existing infrastructure which is needed but investing in infrastructure for the future to enhance productivity, and building houses and so on. A lot of money will need to be spent - wisely - and until that generates growth to pay for more sensible investment taxes will need to be levied on everyone, including at the bottom end even if the burden should be higher on those with more.
We don't simply have to pay for the things we want but also for the cost of what we have spent in the past eg on Covid and furlough, which largely benefited workers.
And then there is stuff like defence - if Trump is elected Nato is finished so we are going to have to prepare for a more dangerous world and, specifically, a revanchist and even more dangerous Russia and China. NI on pensioners' income simply is not going to be enough.
I see no sign that the Tories or Labour get this. But it looks pretty much certain that Labour will have to grapple with this. In a year or so.
I would like to see a govt introduce “national infrastructure bonds” where the revenue is managed by a standalone non-government body and all local councils can apply for chunks of the money with submission of a plan.
The funds generated are absolutely ringfenced for infrastructure and nothing else.
The councils don’t lose funds from their budgets for the day to day stuff but can get a big boost of a hundred million for an essential housing development and ring road, private companies could borrow large fixed sums at a known rate from the pot as well so that they could spread the cost of, for example a new reservoir, over a known period.
The bonds are backed by government at an attractive but not crippling rate and so attractive to overseas pension funds and sovereign funds so has benefit of big government involvement but also big benefit of decisions on spending being removed from big government to a micro level where the local gov or private companies can really see a practical benefit and need.
The cost of servicing this debt has to come out of overall government spending however at least tax payers see that a chunk of this spending is going purely to long term rebuilding of the country which is good for them, their children and their grandchildren.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Thank you, Gardenwalker, for that outburst of good sense.
I caught the Keegan rant and didn't think it was so bad. Sure, as a Politician she should know there are cameras and recording equipment everywhere and she would never be safely off-air, but given it was an aside after the interview ended I think a few honest opinions and a bit of fruity language were perfectly reasonable.
What is interesting is that the Daily Hate-Mail should turn on her. (Does nobody there ever utter an expletive?) They have an agenda. This does not look good for her, and even worse for Sunak. The Mail speaks for What's Left Of The Tory Party and if he's lost them, he's on his way out, either before or by virtue of a General Election.
Will that help the Tories? Will it fuck. (Apologies to the snowflakes at the Mail but sometimes I can't help my language.) There is no Saviour, no Prince Over The Water, no option other than to keep buggering on with what might pass in some quarters for half-decent, competent Government, and hope the coming drubbing doesn't annihilate them completely.
Lose Mid-Beds? Yes, and High-Beds, Low-Beds, Flower Beds and any other Beds they try to lie in. Meanwhile, Starmer quietly prepares for the takeover.
Can't happen too soon, for everyone's sake.
Sunak's whining self- pity was worse than Keegan's.
Sunak implied Slater is a liar and he (Sunak) had not reduced the school refubishment programme to just fifty a year. How did he do this? By suggesting he was replacing schools at the more impressive rate of 500 a decade. It was Johnsonian fork-tongued chicanery at its finest.
It's the mismanagement, isn't it?
I don't mean the concrete issue itself. That's the kind of black swan that can appear under any Government. It's the way they're reacting - chaotic, unclear and, as you rightly point out, mendacious.
They couldn't have created more of an impression of a Government hopelessly indisciplined and out of control if they tried.
I've downgraded my notional spread of likely Tory seats at the next election. It's now 100-200.
A whistleblower exclusively tells East Anglia Bylines the education secretary deliberately mounted a cover-up of the RAAC dangers
in early February, two months after the risk level was raised to high, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan remarked, “We just need to keep the lid on this for two years and then it’s someone else’s problem.“
A zillion headers write themselves.......
Excessive honesty in a politician.
Because no-one would have been rewarded for standing up and saying “we have a problem”.
I saw this yesterday and I'm puzzled it's not in the national headlines today, as it seems absolutely a killer quote which should trigger her resignation. Perhaps not trusted because it's anonymous? But she should certainly be pressed on whether she said it - it combines indifference to the issue with resignation over the outcome of the election.
Remember when Tony Blair was caught selling peerages? A prosecution was ruled out on the grounds it would be unfair, since every government sells peerages.
Same with can kicking.
It would be like firing CEOs for getting huge bonuses for fucking up.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
Or maybe Sunak will be fired? If Sunak knew about the situation then with the RAAC then that is a serious problem for him. Maybe Gibb is gunning for him already? Could we have yet another Tory PM?
It goes without saying that we need to keep the children safe and having the ceiling fall down on Class 3B during double maths is no one's idea of a good outcome.
That said, I notice that schools are reverting to online learning for some affected pupils. Online learning, one of the most pernicious aspects of lockdown. And in this case engendering a fear in children that their school is not safe. Now, there may be some dodgy concrete in there but are they saying that they can't manage via other classrooms, portakabins, the gym, to have all pupils in school?
This is (yet) another reason why lockdowns were such a mistake. And people use "lockdown sceptic" as a term of insult.
Schools don't get portakabins at a day's notice.
Not really sure what this has got to do with lockdown, but I do think closing schools is a mistake.
Buildings are not safe or unsafe. Our building controls to date have given us an arbitrary level of safety that is indeed very safe. Knowing what we now about the dodgy concrete, that level has dropped a bit but evidently by the rarity of serious incidents, is still very safe and safer than most schools in the rest of the world.
I assume you don't have school age children? Or perhaps simply an above average tolerance for their school falling down on top of them.
Should most schools in Africa stop teaching because they are less safe than those here?
Is this the Rwanda policy that we're always hearing about?
Err, no. It is not about the death penalty or space exploration either if that helps clarify.
Though the plan for the DfE to participate in the first manned landing on the Sun combined nearly every policy above…..
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
So a bit of spraying our taxes all over every Tory spiv that crawled out of the woodwork was absolutely fine? The government also spent money on things that weren't corrupt so we can't criticise them for spending on things that were corrupt? Is that the defence now?
Im sure thats what happened, every Tory spiv benefited from Covid and the millions upon millions of people who were paid 80% of their wages to stay at home for months on end, and all the businesses that were saved by the various schemes did not benefit at all.
What seems to have happened now is that the vast cost of Covid which was just 3 years ago has been forgotten. It had the biggest impact on Government finances since WW2. Of course some areas of Government expenditure had to be cut at the time. Whilst some areas of Government support/Furlough were subject to fraud, overall it was a brilliant system implemented within days of the stay at home annoucement. It was a signiifcant achievement to get the infrastuture in place to deal with the huge number of claims.
At the Strategic Bled Forum in Slovenia, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama @ediramaal told a joke about Putin and Prigozhin. I thought I'd share it with you:
"I don't know if you've heard about Russia having this negotiation to unify the clock because they have a nine hour difference from one part of the country to the other. And the Prime Minister went to Putin and said, 'Mr. President, we have a problem. I sent my family on holiday and I called to tell them good night. And it's already morning there, they're on the beach. I called Olaf Scholz to greet him on his anniversary, he said it's tomorrow. I called Xi Jinping for the new year and he said it's still the old year.' Putin said, 'Yes, it happened to me, I called Prigozhin's family to say I'm sorry for their loss, but the plane hadn't taken off yet.' https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1698971807343075442?s=20
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
At the Strategic Bled Forum in Slovenia, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama @ediramaal told a joke about Putin and Prigozhin. I thought I'd share it with you:
"I don't know if you've heard about Russia having this negotiation to unify the clock because they have a nine hour difference from one part of the country to the other. And the Prime Minister went to Putin and said, 'Mr. President, we have a problem. I sent my family on holiday and I called to tell them good night. And it's already morning there, they're on the beach. I called Olaf Scholz to greet him on his anniversary, he said it's tomorrow. I called Xi Jinping for the new year and he said it's still the old year.' Putin said, 'Yes, it happened to me, I called Prigozhin's family to say I'm sorry for their loss, but the plane hadn't taken off yet.' https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1698971807343075442?s=20
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A huge number of things, for example UC is too generous and they were far too weak when a footballer earning £250k per week was demanding yet more benefits. Due to its generosity UC is now a lifestyle, there needs to be more incentive to work.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
Even better.
So I can still think Sunak and Gibb are both lying, and hopefully see Gibb fired for accidentally feeding the narrative by trying to deny it.
AIUI the English Education Ministry changed government advice on RAAC a few days ago. Previously the advice was to inspect your buildings for RAAC, to keep a close eye on it, but to leave it in place unless it deteriorates.
Now it seems RAAC panels can disintegrate suddenly and without warning. Does that mean rooms containing RAAC should not be used? Keegan referred vaguely yesterday to mitigations. What are these mitigations?
Does anyone know more about this?
Mitigations presumably like the 2400 props holding up the roof at Kings Lynn Hospital.
It must incentivise the operating team to get a move on, when the operating theatre roof is being held up by props...
From the article:
The hospital is undergoing a major programme to support the roof with huge wooden ceiling struts (so if parts of it collapse, it's less likely to hurt people).
Each one of these pieces of wood is counted as a "prop". So as they are only part way through the programme, we can expect the number of "props" to rise to even higher numbers over the next year.
And that will be the case until 2030 when the majority of the building will be classed as unsafe to work in.
All very reassuring. You would definitely be spending most of your time looking up at the ceiling.
Kings Lynn hospital is a shithole whatever is holding up the roof.
From what I hear the Fens are poorly served, but it is hard to attract quality staff to a hospital in such a state.
Acknowledging that the NHS staff there are of inferior quality is I suppose a start. Is it really because the place looks like it should have been demolished 40 years ago? I would be interested to know the minimum characteristics of a hospital for it to be able to attract good quality staff.
It was only opened in 1980!
Pay rates are set nationally, so why staff want to work in one place rather than another is largely determined by other factors, and that often is at speciality level to do with facilities, equipment, car parking, local town and schools etc. Supportive management too at both top and middle levels.
One important factor determining where doctors practise is where their medical school is. Junior doctors do not fall far from the tree, whether for hospital or GP training. UEA's Norwich Medical School opened in 2002.
At the Strategic Bled Forum in Slovenia, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama @ediramaal told a joke about Putin and Prigozhin. I thought I'd share it with you:
"I don't know if you've heard about Russia having this negotiation to unify the clock because they have a nine hour difference from one part of the country to the other. And the Prime Minister went to Putin and said, 'Mr. President, we have a problem. I sent my family on holiday and I called to tell them good night. And it's already morning there, they're on the beach. I called Olaf Scholz to greet him on his anniversary, he said it's tomorrow. I called Xi Jinping for the new year and he said it's still the old year.' Putin said, 'Yes, it happened to me, I called Prigozhin's family to say I'm sorry for their loss, but the plane hadn't taken off yet.' https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1698971807343075442?s=20
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A huge number of things, for example UC is too generous and they were far too weak when a footballer earning £250k per week was demanding yet more benefits. Due to its generosity UC is now a lifestyle, there needs to be more incentive to work.
The HMRC is a complete joke and needs reforming.
The Child Maintenance Service is pathetic.
Your use of the word "generous" is satire, surely? The big crisis in education isn't these crumbling schools. They are acute in a handful of places. Across the country schools have pupils coming in hungry. Schools are having to feed them because there is no food in the house. Some are dirty.
This is the generous welfare system you speak of. It is generous - to the CEO of Asda and other businesses who get to pay starvation wages which are topped up by government.
I've proposed that we stop subsidising the likes of Asda and instead incentivise them to pay a living wage through targeted Corporation Tax rebates. If your alternative proposal is "cut UC" then it would rather expose a teeny tiny problem in your worldview. Work doesn't pay.
That isn't because of UC. Its because people can work absurd hours doing grafting jobs and not have enough money to feed their kids before they go to school. Making these kids go ever more hungry will cost more money as the economy shrinks because of a generation of morons. Taking these kids off their parents (usually described as "feckless" or "workshy" also costs more money.
So whats the plan? Other than angry slogans about why the plebs aren't working hard enough?
The thing with this week’s controversy (aside from the fact it’s such a shame the Ed sec isn’t Dominic RAAB) is it illustrates the strength of Labour’s position.
They are so far ahead - into landslide territory - that the Tories rely on major swingback to have a hope next year. Labour don’t need to wow the voters, nor do they need the government to fuck up further in a way that fully cuts through.
They just need something like RAAC, or today’s news on dry weather releases of sewage, every month or so to keep a lid on any Sunak comeback. So long as something comes along to remind voters the government is incompetent we remain in a fairly stable equilibrium.
They’ll swing back come GE time but if they only have 6 weeks to do it the movement won’t be enough.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
Even better.
So I can still think Sunak and Gibb are both lying, and hopefully see Gibb fired for accidentally feeding the narrative by trying to deny it.
I think we can be pretty certain that everyone is lying, even if only by omission.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
They are agitating for it, but my issue stands that socially productive work that makes less profit is valued less than socially neutral (or indeed antisocial work) as long as it makes a profit. Your position can be "so what?" and believe profit is more important than society, and the world will continue to get worse and worse. I would like the world to not get worse.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
I'd have some time for that argument if being a merchant banker was open to all. It isn't: it's still very much in the who-you-know or which-school-you-went-to style of job.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A huge number of things, for example UC is too generous and they were far too weak when a footballer earning £250k per week was demanding yet more benefits. Due to its generosity UC is now a lifestyle, there needs to be more incentive to work.
The HMRC is a complete joke and needs reforming.
The Child Maintenance Service is pathetic.
Your use of the word "generous" is satire, surely? The big crisis in education isn't these crumbling schools. They are acute in a handful of places. Across the country schools have pupils coming in hungry. Schools are having to feed them because there is no food in the house. Some are dirty.
This is the generous welfare system you speak of. It is generous - to the CEO of Asda and other businesses who get to pay starvation wages which are topped up by government.
I've proposed that we stop subsidising the likes of Asda and instead incentivise them to pay a living wage through targeted Corporation Tax rebates. If your alternative proposal is "cut UC" then it would rather expose a teeny tiny problem in your worldview. Work doesn't pay.
That isn't because of UC. Its because people can work absurd hours doing grafting jobs and not have enough money to feed their kids before they go to school. Making these kids go ever more hungry will cost more money as the economy shrinks because of a generation of morons. Taking these kids off their parents (usually described as "feckless" or "workshy" also costs more money.
So whats the plan? Other than angry slogans about why the plebs aren't working hard enough?
Kids go hungry because their parents choose to not feed them. A non working mother of 2 living in a 2 bedroom house with rent of £800 per month gets £2500 per month in benefits. That is a fact. Tell me how a person in such a situation cannot feed their children?
Education minister confirms that in 2021, Education Department put in a bid to rebuild 200 schools to the Treasury when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....
... but got 50
Do you think there was loads of money available in 2021 ?
Yes. The government was literally hosing the stuff against the walls and into their friend's pockets.
Again again because some of you Tories post like morons on this subject. There was not a "do not spend money" option. This was not discretionary spending. You can't avoid repairing and / or replacing these buildings and hope they repair themselves.
We had a choice. Spend the money then. Or spend the money now plus the same again on top with emergency measures. We were going to spend the money regardless of whether they wanted to or not. A Conservative approach is to spend the least amount possible and get value for money. Instead you Tories did the opposite - spend as much as possible in a panic.
Isn't "wasting other people's money" what you accuse Labour of?
Global pandemic, children often at home, and 2-3% of schools had some issue with some concrete but as yet we haven't had a twin towers-type collapse of anything. Number of children injured because of RAAC = zero (pls correct me if I'm wrong).
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Education minister confirms that in 2021, Education Department put in a bid to rebuild 200 schools to the Treasury when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....
... but got 50
Do you think there was loads of money available in 2021 ?
Yes. The government was literally hosing the stuff against the walls and into their friend's pockets.
Again again because some of you Tories post like morons on this subject. There was not a "do not spend money" option. This was not discretionary spending. You can't avoid repairing and / or replacing these buildings and hope they repair themselves.
We had a choice. Spend the money then. Or spend the money now plus the same again on top with emergency measures. We were going to spend the money regardless of whether they wanted to or not. A Conservative approach is to spend the least amount possible and get value for money. Instead you Tories did the opposite - spend as much as possible in a panic.
Isn't "wasting other people's money" what you accuse Labour of?
Global pandemic, children often at home, and 2-3% of schools had some issue with some concrete but as yet we haven't had a twin towers-type collapse of anything. Number of children injured because of RAAC = zero (pls correct me if I'm wrong).
So I get that decision.
Sure. And they will try and argue it out. Politically it isn't a good look and that is a problem.
But can we also go back to money? School replacement will cost a notional £1m. Don't want to spend that, so it is refused. 2 years later and the school is too dangerous to reopen. So the cost of mitigation (replacement places / buildings / management) is £500k. The cost of replacement is now £1.1m, so your saving from 2021 is -£600k.
This is reality. As I keep pointing out, it is a pitiful fallacy for the government to pretend that not spending money was an option. So using my notional figures they now have a massive political scandal and a 60% bigger bill. How is that Conservative?
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
They are agitating for it, but my issue stands that socially productive work that makes less profit is valued less than socially neutral (or indeed antisocial work) as long as it makes a profit. Your position can be "so what?" and believe profit is more important than society, and the world will continue to get worse and worse. I would like the world to not get worse.
Admirable. Form a political party and see how many people agree with you.
Use Nigel Farage as your shining example of what can be achieved in the face of ridicule and scepticism.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
I'd have some time for that argument if being a merchant banker was open to all. It isn't: it's still very much in the who-you-know or which-school-you-went-to style of job.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Surely this is a huge problem for Sunak? If he was aware but did nothing to resolve or, at the very least, mitigate. This is a problem a long time in the making where has been unfortunate that it has landed upon him to address. But it has, and had to be, addressed.
The thing with this week’s controversy (aside from the fact it’s such a shame the Ed sec isn’t Dominic RAAB) is it illustrates the strength of Labour’s position.
They are so far ahead - into landslide territory - that the Tories rely on major swingback to have a hope next year. Labour don’t need to wow the voters, nor do they need the government to fuck up further in a way that fully cuts through.
They just need something like RAAC, or today’s news on dry weather releases of sewage, every month or so to keep a lid on any Sunak comeback. So long as something comes along to remind voters the government is incompetent we remain in a fairly stable equilibrium.
They’ll swing back come GE time but if they only have 6 weeks to do it the movement won’t be enough.
That's the conventional wisdom, Tim, and hard to argue with, but I really do wonder whether this lot are capable of getting through a six week election campaign with blasting both feet off.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It reads like you can't wait for them to fall over.
Can you honestly say they have put forward any answers to our problems
No tax increases, no wealth taxes, retain the triple lock, and this morning no answer on how many schools they would build annually
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
Even better.
So I can still think Sunak and Gibb are both lying, and hopefully see Gibb fired for accidentally feeding the narrative by trying to deny it.
I think we can be pretty certain that everyone is lying, even if only by omission.
We have had 2 whistleblowers saying stuff which, prima facie, looks very damning.
But ...... but if this were a proper investigation I was conducting I would want to see all the other relevant statements / correspondence / documents at the time and talk to the others involved. It is not unusual for someone to say after the events in question "I told X this" or "X knew this" but when you look at what was actually said at the time it was much more equivocal or there is something critical that is missing from today's recollection.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A huge number of things, for example UC is too generous and they were far too weak when a footballer earning £250k per week was demanding yet more benefits. Due to its generosity UC is now a lifestyle, there needs to be more incentive to work.
The HMRC is a complete joke and needs reforming.
The Child Maintenance Service is pathetic.
Your use of the word "generous" is satire, surely? The big crisis in education isn't these crumbling schools. They are acute in a handful of places. Across the country schools have pupils coming in hungry. Schools are having to feed them because there is no food in the house. Some are dirty.
This is the generous welfare system you speak of. It is generous - to the CEO of Asda and other businesses who get to pay starvation wages which are topped up by government.
I've proposed that we stop subsidising the likes of Asda and instead incentivise them to pay a living wage through targeted Corporation Tax rebates. If your alternative proposal is "cut UC" then it would rather expose a teeny tiny problem in your worldview. Work doesn't pay.
That isn't because of UC. Its because people can work absurd hours doing grafting jobs and not have enough money to feed their kids before they go to school. Making these kids go ever more hungry will cost more money as the economy shrinks because of a generation of morons. Taking these kids off their parents (usually described as "feckless" or "workshy" also costs more money.
So whats the plan? Other than angry slogans about why the plebs aren't working hard enough?
Kids go hungry because their parents choose to not feed them. A non working mother of 2 living in a 2 bedroom house with rent of £800 per month gets £2500 per month in benefits. That is a fact. Tell me how a person in such a situation cannot feed their children?
If you’ve successfully navigated the benefit system & have secure housing, then you & your family should be fine.
But try feeding your family cheaply when the local council has housed you in a B+B with no cooking facilities miles from school & work. That money suddenly won’t go very far at all in that situation will it?
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
It depends on how much you earn (as it happens, we're in a similar situation).
But if you want improved public services, it will hurt people financially. The questions become: do you want improved public services, and do you want people who can already not afford to put food on the table to have *less* money, or reduced services?
You're in a blooming fortunate position. Yes, there are iniquities in the way tax brackets are arranged, which should be fixed. But lots of people work just as hard as you, or even harder, and don't get the same rewards.
And comments like this highlight the death of the aspiration society.
I have only been in the position I am in now for the last 22 months. It took nearly 20 years of building a career to get there. Now I am there, you think there's no level of taxation I cannot bear because I earn a bit more than you.
This is a socialist sentiment and it's a well-worn path that ends up impoverishing the whole country.
Work has to pay and be rewarded. Both @MaxPB and myself, and even @NickPalmer, have highlighted on here before how the current tax burden is distorting incentives to work and leading people to work fewer hours, and thus holding back productivity, whilst also contributing to a brain drain.
Your guttural politics will lead to less tax, and worse public services, not more. That's what happens when you put envy at the heart of it.
Your politics has led to a country where you feel you pay too much tax, and yet the schools, the roads, and the hospitals are crumbling, much of the NHS aren't able to attract good staff, the train service is not quite getting there and the water companies are shitting into the rivers and coastal waters.
What then *has* the Conservative government done with your tax money in the last 13 years?
Covid, cost of living or did you miss that ?
Yes. important to remember the Covid crisis, which the Tories used to shovel our taxes to their chums for dodgy PPE contracts.
Thats right, all the money was spent on dodgy PPE, Furlough did not happen, the vaccine did not happen, the huge business support scheme did not happen. the increase in Benefits did not happen. .
Is there anything that this Government has executed that you couldn't apply a 10/10 to?
A huge number of things, for example UC is too generous and they were far too weak when a footballer earning £250k per week was demanding yet more benefits. Due to its generosity UC is now a lifestyle, there needs to be more incentive to work.
The HMRC is a complete joke and needs reforming.
The Child Maintenance Service is pathetic.
Your use of the word "generous" is satire, surely? The big crisis in education isn't these crumbling schools. They are acute in a handful of places. Across the country schools have pupils coming in hungry. Schools are having to feed them because there is no food in the house. Some are dirty.
This is the generous welfare system you speak of. It is generous - to the CEO of Asda and other businesses who get to pay starvation wages which are topped up by government.
I've proposed that we stop subsidising the likes of Asda and instead incentivise them to pay a living wage through targeted Corporation Tax rebates. If your alternative proposal is "cut UC" then it would rather expose a teeny tiny problem in your worldview. Work doesn't pay.
That isn't because of UC. Its because people can work absurd hours doing grafting jobs and not have enough money to feed their kids before they go to school. Making these kids go ever more hungry will cost more money as the economy shrinks because of a generation of morons. Taking these kids off their parents (usually described as "feckless" or "workshy" also costs more money.
So whats the plan? Other than angry slogans about why the plebs aren't working hard enough?
Kids go hungry because their parents choose to not feed them. A non working mother of 2 living in a 2 bedroom house with rent of £800 per month gets £2500 per month in benefits. That is a fact. Tell me how a person in such a situation cannot feed their children?
You may be correct. But you can't get away without a citation. Citation please.
Education minister confirms that in 2021, Education Department put in a bid to rebuild 200 schools to the Treasury when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....
... but got 50
Do you think there was loads of money available in 2021 ?
Yes. The government was literally hosing the stuff against the walls and into their friend's pockets.
Again again because some of you Tories post like morons on this subject. There was not a "do not spend money" option. This was not discretionary spending. You can't avoid repairing and / or replacing these buildings and hope they repair themselves.
We had a choice. Spend the money then. Or spend the money now plus the same again on top with emergency measures. We were going to spend the money regardless of whether they wanted to or not. A Conservative approach is to spend the least amount possible and get value for money. Instead you Tories did the opposite - spend as much as possible in a panic.
Isn't "wasting other people's money" what you accuse Labour of?
Global pandemic, children often at home, and 2-3% of schools had some issue with some concrete but as yet we haven't had a twin towers-type collapse of anything. Number of children injured because of RAAC = zero (pls correct me if I'm wrong).
So I get that decision.
Sure. And they will try and argue it out. Politically it isn't a good look and that is a problem.
But can we also go back to money? School replacement will cost a notional £1m. Don't want to spend that, so it is refused. 2 years later and the school is too dangerous to reopen. So the cost of mitigation (replacement places / buildings / management) is £500k. The cost of replacement is now £1.1m, so your saving from 2021 is -£600k.
This is reality. As I keep pointing out, it is a pitiful fallacy for the government to pretend that not spending money was an option. So using my notional figures they now have a massive political scandal and a 60% bigger bill. How is that Conservative?
Of course. Don't disagree. Just that at the time, over the past few years, there have been bigger fish to fry for the government's budget. Covid cost billions upon billions and Sunak was perhaps smart enough to realise the juggernaut was coming down the road and thought he would make some savings where he could.
Was he right? With 20:20 hindsight maybe, maybe not.
We are still talking 2-3% of schools and it's not as though there is an unexploded WWII bomb underneath the assembly hall. No portakabins? Prop. Can't prop? What about the gym. No gym? Find somewhere else.
Edit: and yes politically it doesn't play well and if I were a Cons spad I would be raking through the documents to see if or where Lab fingerprints were on RAAC decisions.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Surely this is a huge problem for Sunak? If he was aware but did nothing to resolve or, at the very least, mitigate. This is a problem a long time in the making where has been unfortunate that it has landed upon him to address. But it has, and had to be, addressed.
I very much doubt he was told that schools will fall down if you don't do something.
I'd like to know the actual risk of failure, though. I'd put money on it being less of a risk to pupils than the daily school run given we've had no actual incidents.
What's the risk of disrupting education yet again?
Yes, get a programme of replacement / remediation going. But is this panic justified?
I think Labour have made a mistake by ruling out any tax increases. This is a hostage to fortune. They really should have re-instated the 50% rate and given recent events put that towards the schools .
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
They are agitating for it, but my issue stands that socially productive work that makes less profit is valued less than socially neutral (or indeed antisocial work) as long as it makes a profit. Your position can be "so what?" and believe profit is more important than society, and the world will continue to get worse and worse. I would like the world to not get worse.
Admirable. Form a political party and see how many people agree with you.
Use Nigel Farage as your shining example of what can be achieved in the face of ridicule and scepticism.
Are you sincerely uninterested in an economic system that incentivises antisocial labour over prosocial labour? That people who want to do work that is prosocial, teaching children, caring for the sick, looking after the elderly, are less valuable than those who manipulate fake money to make more fake money? Is that the world you like to see?
If you ask people if wealthy people should be taxed more and prosocial labourers paid more - most people do agree. We just have a political class that work in their own class interest, rather than that of the worker.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Further, I will bet that no one actually said in their bid to the Treasury “the schools are falling down”. Instead some extremely anodyne phrase was used.
This is because forcing people’s hands by recording hard facts in written communications is considered vile and abusive behaviour by bureaucracies. Once it has been done, you force their hand. But it is unforgivable.
There’s a great example of this in one of Doc EE Smiths stories. An honest manager in a munitions plant in WWII forces the hand of corrupt seniors to fix a problem that is literally killing people. By getting one of them to stupidly say the problem exists in front of witnesses. The reward for the honest manager is being fired, of course.
I don't think this will be what HMT were approving, as that's not the order of how things happen.
As I understand it, the DoE will have bid to accelerate the programme from 50 per year to 200 per year, and HMT (Sunak at the time) said "no". That's not a shocker in itself - HMT has to say "no" to a lot of departmental bids.
DoE almost certainly won't have given HMT a list of specific schools - both because it's meaningless to HMT, and because they'd actually plan the detailed programme, including hard decisions on who makes the cut, after budget is confirmed.
What is interesting is the justification DoE gave. If DoE were saying, "It's be nice to get some shiny new buildings in place in time for the General Election" that's less bad for Sunak than if they said, "We're really struggling to keep up with what we need to do to ensure roofs don't collapse on kiddies - in particular, we've got issues with buildings with RAAC".
In reality, it will be something more nuanced, but it'd be interesting to know. This feels potentially very dangerous for Sunak. The DoE request for quite a large increase suggests an identified issue, not necessarily with RAAC but with a pace of renewal giving serious cause for concern in terms of deteriorating stock of school buildings. If that was communicated to him and he said "no" (not even "no but have an increase" - it looks like a flat "no") that's bad.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Surely this is a huge problem for Sunak? If he was aware but did nothing to resolve or, at the very least, mitigate. This is a problem a long time in the making where has been unfortunate that it has landed upon him to address. But it has, and had to be, addressed.
Yesterday we were told on the today program by the “former top civil servant” that the building program was running at 100 schools / year & that was cut to 50 by Sunak instead of being increased to the necessary replacement rate requested by DfE.
So someone is being economical with the actualités here, I wonder who?
Are you feeling reassured? I’m very reassured by this, obviously.
To paraphrase Montgomery Burns, they’ve turned a mere Three Mile Island into a Chernobyl. A series of unforced errors that spell ‘cabinet minister needs sacking’.
I think Keegan is safe. It’s a fuck-up, but she does “human” reasonably ok, which is a rare thing in Tory politics.
As for Sunak, he is of course fucked. Unlike Keegan, he’s *personally* responsible for slashing school repair budgets.
The Mail AND the Telegraph are turning against him. Not just with these front pages, you can see the commentariat start to re-position itself, too.
Meanwhile, Keir’s re-shuffle has quietly impressed the more thoughtful analysts with its decisive and lack of sentimental focus on being a government-in-waiting.
I would not rule out a kamikaze leadership bid by Suella Braverman, but not until after next year’s locals.
In the shorter-term, I think the Tories lose Mid-Beds even if Labour/LD cannot agree who to rally behind.
Tories third? If so, they are not even in for a 97 shellacking, but something worse...
Third is very possible. It would be interesting to see a betting market on that.
Why would anyone vote for this shitshow?
Because it's in me and my family's interests to do so.
I don't share the values of SKS, or their hangers-on quite frankly, and I know Labour will be coming for me.
Playing devil's advocate: why is it bad for Labour to come for you?
You're apparently in a well-paid job, and have a comfortable life. You live in a society where lots - millions, in fact - of people don't have the advantages you have. Yes, you pay lots of tax. But many of the things that are wrong with this country can only be fixed with an increased tax take - and the question is where that comes from.
Someone has to pay tax - the question, as always, is how much of the burden falls on which individuals.
I pay 62% marginal rate on my income at the moment.
How much would you like me to pay? 70%? 80%? 100%?
Sentiments like this are stagnating the country and will lead to a brain drain from Britain, which will cost the exchequer not add to it.
If you're paying the 62% marginal tax rate you earn between £100k and £120k; your take home pay will be around £70-75k? That's double the median average household income; double the average income of a nurse or teacher.
And about 1/10th that of a senior consultant performing also in private practice.
So what? Nurses can become investment bankers if they so wish, or project managers.
It's not like the nursing payscales are a state secret, only revealed upon qualification.
I am reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote: you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If every nurse had decided to be an investment banker instead, our society wouldn't function. If every investment banker had instead decided to be nurses, whilst I'm sure society would be wildly different, I think it would still function.
Again, so what. People make choices. Nurses decided to be nurses, knowing the pay scale. If they want to overthrow the current system and pay themselves £1m/yr then go for their lives. Form that party and agitate for it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$ Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
They are agitating for it, but my issue stands that socially productive work that makes less profit is valued less than socially neutral (or indeed antisocial work) as long as it makes a profit. Your position can be "so what?" and believe profit is more important than society, and the world will continue to get worse and worse. I would like the world to not get worse.
Admirable. Form a political party and see how many people agree with you.
Use Nigel Farage as your shining example of what can be achieved in the face of ridicule and scepticism.
Are you sincerely uninterested in an economic system that incentivises antisocial labour over prosocial labour? That people who want to do work that is prosocial, teaching children, caring for the sick, looking after the elderly, are less valuable than those who manipulate fake money to make more fake money? Is that the world you like to see?
If you ask people if wealthy people should be taxed more and prosocial labourers paid more - most people do agree. We just have a political class that work in their own class interest, rather than that of the worker.
You are a voter. You hold the power. You and people who agree with you. Displacement onto the "political class" is lazy analysis.
Arundel & South Downs could go Labour if enough people in Arundel & South Downs voted Labour.
If you are saying burn it down and start again then also fine. Get your political party together and go for it.
Water privatisation has been an absolute disaster.
The regulator doesn't work and various companies are lining their pockets while literally filling our rivers with shit.
Just scandalous.
I agree with you that privatisation hasn't worked, but equally, it can't be the only problem. Look at Scotland, where the state owned water company is actually the worst offender of the lot.
Again, it comes back to a fundamentally stupid model where both the private sector and the Treasury funds things based on business plans rather than a realistic assessment of the externalities.
Understandable to some extent in the private sector, which is why you shouldn't privatise basic utilities like water (or indeed schools).
Unforgivable in the government whose ostensible purpose is to fill the gaps in essential infrastructure where private sector investment *won't* invest due to the financial limitations.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Surely this is a huge problem for Sunak? If he was aware but did nothing to resolve or, at the very least, mitigate. This is a problem a long time in the making where has been unfortunate that it has landed upon him to address. But it has, and had to be, addressed.
I very much doubt he was told that schools will fall down if you don't do something.
I'd like to know the actual risk of failure, though. I'd put money on it being less of a risk to pupils than the daily school run given we've had no actual incidents.
What's the risk of disrupting education yet again?
Yes, get a programme of replacement / remediation going. But is this panic justified?
It's a lockdown legacy. Problem at schools? Close them and move to online learning. Because that's what we do when we have a problem. Go for the most pernicious solution because it is neat and tidy.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It reads like you can't wait for them to fall over.
Can you honestly say they have put forward any answers to our problems
No tax increases, no wealth taxes, retain the triple lock, and this morning no answer on how many schools they would build annually
Best to stick with what we have then?
You can hold the opinion that the current government are a shit show, and that the government the opposition are offering would also be a shit show.
It's up there with Prince Andrew's interview. Absolute car crash:
But at the same time, what I wouldn’t do is disrespect the religion and culture in Saudi Arabia. If we’re all saying everybody can be who they want to be and everybody is inclusive, then we’ll have to respect that. We’ll have to respect everyone.
A perfect example would be before Qatar. We had a meeting with the FA about human rights, about the issues around the stadiums. I think it might have been Amnesty who had sent the images and stuff. And then, half an hour later, I go into a press conference or some media and I’ve commented on that situation. I was like, “Well, it was quite shocking and horrendous” and that was quite hard for us to see. But then when I went to Qatar and we had the experience we had at the World Cup, you get to meet the workers there and it was totally different.
I don't think this will be what HMT were approving, as that's not the order of how things happen.
As I understand it, the DoE will have bid to accelerate the programme from 50 per year to 200 per year, and HMT (Sunak at the time) said "no". That's not a shocker in itself - HMT has to say "no" to a lot of departmental bids.
DoE almost certainly won't have given HMT a list of specific schools - both because it's meaningless to HMT, and because they'd actually plan the detailed programme, including hard decisions on who makes the cut, after budget is confirmed.
What is interesting is the justification DoE gave. If DoE were saying, "It's be nice to get some shiny new buildings in place in time for the General Election" that's less bad for Sunak than if they said, "We're really struggling to keep up with what we need to do to ensure roofs don't collapse on kiddies - in particular, we've got issues with buildings with RAAC".
In reality, it will be something more nuanced, but it'd be interesting to know. This feels potentially very dangerous for Sunak. The DoE request for quite a large increase suggests an identified issue, not necessarily with RAAC but with a pace of renewal giving serious cause for concern in terms of deteriorating stock of school buildings. If that was communicated to him and he said "no" (not even "no but have an increase" - it looks like a flat "no") that's bad.
If they didn't say 'the schools are falling down' they were fools. Because the first failure happened in 2018, which is when they suggested that if schools had time and money they might want to check their buildings for this stuff. This didn't happen in a big way because (1) lack of time (2) lack of money and (3) Covid probably didn't help either.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Further, I will bet that no one actually said in their bid to the Treasury “the schools are falling down”. Instead some extremely anodyne phrase was used.
This is because forcing people’s hands by recording hard facts in written communications is considered vile and abusive behaviour by bureaucracies. Once it has been done, you force their hand. But it is unforgivable.
There’s a great example of this in one of Doc EE Smiths stories. An honest manager in a munitions plant in WWII forces the hand of corrupt seniors to fix a problem that is literally killing people. By getting one of them to stupidly say the problem exists in front of witnesses. The reward for the honest manager is being fired, of course.
Munitions factories (and chemicals factories generally) have the great advantage that they can offer the person in charge of safety a nice, family home as a perk of the job... right next to the factory they have responsibility over.
Perhaps Sunak and Keegan could be offered accommodation in a building with RAAC? Free and compulsory for them and their families until such time as the matter of the RAAC schools is settled.
I don't think this will be what HMT were approving, as that's not the order of how things happen.
As I understand it, the DoE will have bid to accelerate the programme from 50 per year to 200 per year, and HMT (Sunak at the time) said "no". That's not a shocker in itself - HMT has to say "no" to a lot of departmental bids.
DoE almost certainly won't have given HMT a list of specific schools - both because it's meaningless to HMT, and because they'd actually plan the detailed programme, including hard decisions on who makes the cut, after budget is confirmed.
What is interesting is the justification DoE gave. If DoE were saying, "It's be nice to get some shiny new buildings in place in time for the General Election" that's less bad for Sunak than if they said, "We're really struggling to keep up with what we need to do to ensure roofs don't collapse on kiddies - in particular, we've got issues with buildings with RAAC".
In reality, it will be something more nuanced, but it'd be interesting to know. This feels potentially very dangerous for Sunak. The DoE request for quite a large increase suggests an identified issue, not necessarily with RAAC but with a pace of renewal giving serious cause for concern in terms of deteriorating stock of school buildings. If that was communicated to him and he said "no" (not even "no but have an increase" - it looks like a flat "no") that's bad.
Do you not think that the fact the request was in 2021 when the pressure on Government finances was at its worst in 80 years due to Covid might be a mitigating issue. I very much doubt the request said if you dont give us money school roofs will collapse.
I don't understand how LAs have got off so lightly in this. They are responsible for the day to day maintenace/upkeep/refurbishment of tens of thousands of schools. If they were concerned about a particular school why haven't they raised the issue before. They employ surveyors directly who should know what the school roofs are made from.
I don't think this will be what HMT were approving, as that's not the order of how things happen.
As I understand it, the DoE will have bid to accelerate the programme from 50 per year to 200 per year, and HMT (Sunak at the time) said "no". That's not a shocker in itself - HMT has to say "no" to a lot of departmental bids.
DoE almost certainly won't have given HMT a list of specific schools - both because it's meaningless to HMT, and because they'd actually plan the detailed programme, including hard decisions on who makes the cut, after budget is confirmed.
What is interesting is the justification DoE gave. If DoE were saying, "It's be nice to get some shiny new buildings in place in time for the General Election" that's less bad for Sunak than if they said, "We're really struggling to keep up with what we need to do to ensure roofs don't collapse on kiddies - in particular, we've got issues with buildings with RAAC".
In reality, it will be something more nuanced, but it'd be interesting to know. This feels potentially very dangerous for Sunak. The DoE request for quite a large increase suggests an identified issue, not necessarily with RAAC but with a pace of renewal giving serious cause for concern in terms of deteriorating stock of school buildings. If that was communicated to him and he said "no" (not even "no but have an increase" - it looks like a flat "no") that's bad.
Do you not think that the fact the request was in 2021 when the pressure on Government finances was at its worst in 80 years due to Covid might be a mitigating issue. I very much doubt the request said if you dont give us money school roofs will collapse.
I don't understand how LAs have got off so lightly in this. They are responsible for the day to day maintenace/upkeep/refurbishment of tens of thousands of schools. If they were concerned about a particular school why haven't they raised the issue before. They employ surveyors directly who should know what the school roofs are made from.
They're not - not entirely. They used to be. Now academy chains are responsible for well over half of them.
I have a feeling that after the next election the Tories are going to be interesting. Buy popcorn while you can.
To be honest after the next election Starmer and labour will be far more interesting as they finally have to make unpopular decisions and deal with insurmountable problems going forward
It reads like you can't wait for them to fall over.
Can you honestly say they have put forward any answers to our problems
No tax increases, no wealth taxes, retain the triple lock, and this morning no answer on how many schools they would build annually
Best to stick with what we have then?
You can hold the opinion that the current government are a shit show, and that the government the opposition are offering would also be a shit show.
But they could surprise on the upside. We pretty much know as fact that Johnsonian/ Sunakian Tories are unlikely so to do.
“We put in a bid for 200 buildings but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year." Schools minister Nick Gibb on @BBCr4today .
Fucking hell. That's quite a thing for a minister to say.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
It is different to what our civil servant was saying though.
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
HMT: Budget was 50
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
Surely this is a huge problem for Sunak? If he was aware but did nothing to resolve or, at the very least, mitigate. This is a problem a long time in the making where has been unfortunate that it has landed upon him to address. But it has, and had to be, addressed.
Yesterday we were told on the today program by the “former top civil servant” that the building program was running at 100 schools / year & that was cut to 50 by Sunak instead of being increased to the necessary replacement rate requested by DfE.
So someone is being economical with the actualités here, I wonder who?
He’s absolutely clear that they were rebuilding 100/year, that 300-400 were needed & that the phrase “critical risk to life” was used to obtain that 100 & that Sunak halved the program to 50.
Sunak is on a very sticky wicket. HMT needs cast iron evidence that none of this is true.
Comments
Poisoned rivers
Get them out.
Theresa May’s parliamentary painting just dropped
Some poor self- employed and employed getting nothing, some wealthy workers getting shed-fulls of cash and working too.
A flat rate for everyone would have been far simpler, cheaper and more equitable. The CoE was so clever he complicated a system that could have been simple. The abuse, including by organised criminals was mind- blowing.
Eat out to help out. Whoever thought of that?
Education minister confirms that in 2021, Education Department put in a bid to rebuild 200 schools to the Treasury when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....
... but got 50
Latest infographic from the DfE according to https://twitter.com/thhamilton/status/1698969465457643970
Are you feeling reassured? I’m very reassured by this, obviously.
Indeed my 10 year old grandson asked me on Sunday if it was safe to attend his school on going back today in Colwyn Bay
His replacement, Acland-Hood, has demonstrated in a dozen ways she is a hundred times worse. Nobody ever accused Slater of breaking lockdown to my knowledge, or of using unlawful legal threats. He could also spell, which she clearly can't. He wasn't a latter day John Anderson, but on his watch the Department of Education was much less chaotic than under his predecessor (now at Health) or his successor (God help us).
And Gibb, of course, is still there and still looks like a completely useless twat.
I am sure therefore that he will be called a liar by many, not just Sunak.
However, because he has otherwise a track record of being honest we should probably trust him ahead of the people briefing against him.
Can I dream that Gibb will be fired by lunchtime?
The situation in the Robotyne-Verbove area is developing in a positive direction for the Ukrainians. Ukraine has further penetrated the first Surovikin line near Verbove, now reaching the main trenchline.
Ukrainians have also overran Russian positions south of Robotyne. 1/
https://twitter.com/emilkastehelmi/status/1698796521637007491?s=20
Did they not have Covid or runaway food price inflation in France of Germany then?
Or Blair, for the matter of that, although he had a much easier legacy.
Again again because some of you Tories post like morons on this subject. There was not a "do not spend money" option. This was not discretionary spending. You can't avoid repairing and / or replacing these buildings and hope they repair themselves.
We had a choice. Spend the money then. Or spend the money now plus the same again on top with emergency measures. We were going to spend the money regardless of whether they wanted to or not. A Conservative approach is to spend the least amount possible and get value for money. Instead you Tories did the opposite - spend as much as possible in a panic.
Isn't "wasting other people's money" what you accuse Labour of?
No tax increases, no wealth taxes, retain the triple lock, and this morning no answer on how many schools they would build annually
The funds generated are absolutely ringfenced for infrastructure and nothing else.
The councils don’t lose funds from their budgets for the day to day stuff but can get a big boost of a hundred million for an essential housing development and ring road, private companies could borrow large fixed sums at a known rate from the pot as well so that they could spread the cost of, for example a new reservoir, over a known period.
The bonds are backed by government at an attractive but not crippling rate and so attractive to overseas pension funds and sovereign funds so has benefit of big government involvement but also big benefit of decisions on spending being removed from big government to a micro level where the local gov or private companies can really see a practical benefit and need.
The cost of servicing this debt has to come out of overall government spending however at least tax payers see that a chunk of this spending is going purely to long term rebuilding of the country which is good for them, their children and their grandchildren.
I don't mean the concrete issue itself. That's the kind of black swan that can appear under any Government. It's the way they're reacting - chaotic, unclear and, as you rightly point out, mendacious.
They couldn't have created more of an impression of a Government hopelessly indisciplined and out of control if they tried.
I've downgraded my notional spread of likely Tory seats at the next election. It's now 100-200.
I may even bet on it.
Same with can kicking.
It would be like firing CEOs for getting huge bonuses for fucking up.
What seems to have happened now is that the vast cost of Covid which was just 3 years ago has been forgotten. It had the biggest impact on Government finances since WW2. Of course some areas of Government expenditure had to be cut at the time. Whilst some areas of Government support/Furlough were subject to fraud, overall it was a brilliant system implemented within days of the stay at home annoucement. It was a signiifcant achievement to get the infrastuture in place to deal with the huge number of claims.
@ediramaal
told a joke about Putin and Prigozhin. I thought I'd share it with you:
"I don't know if you've heard about Russia having this negotiation to unify the clock because they have a nine hour difference from one part of the country to the other. And the Prime Minister went to Putin and said, 'Mr. President, we have a problem. I sent my family on holiday and I called to tell them good night. And it's already morning there, they're on the beach. I called Olaf Scholz to greet him on his anniversary, he said it's tomorrow. I called Xi Jinping for the new year and he said it's still the old year.' Putin said, 'Yes, it happened to me, I called Prigozhin's family to say I'm sorry for their loss, but the plane hadn't taken off yet.'
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1698971807343075442?s=20
He said that the budget was for more and it was cut.
It looks more like the budget was for 50 and Rishi kept it at 50.
Departments put "bids" into the Treasury all the time. How many of them actually get all the money?
That's brilliant.
The HMRC is a complete joke and needs reforming.
The Child Maintenance Service is pathetic.
So I can still think Sunak and Gibb are both lying, and hopefully see Gibb fired for accidentally feeding the narrative by trying to deny it.
But as it stands, as an 18yr old (or 16yr old) you have the choice of being anything you want.
Lecherous banker = $$$
Saintly nurse = not much enough to scrape by, perhaps.
I don't see what the whining is about. "Oh but nurses earn XX% less than investment bankers (or project managers)" is fatuous in the extreme.
This is the generous welfare system you speak of. It is generous - to the CEO of Asda and other businesses who get to pay starvation wages which are topped up by government.
I've proposed that we stop subsidising the likes of Asda and instead incentivise them to pay a living wage through targeted Corporation Tax rebates. If your alternative proposal is "cut UC" then it would rather expose a teeny tiny problem in your worldview. Work doesn't pay.
That isn't because of UC. Its because people can work absurd hours doing grafting jobs and not have enough money to feed their kids before they go to school. Making these kids go ever more hungry will cost more money as the economy shrinks because of a generation of morons. Taking these kids off their parents (usually described as "feckless" or "workshy" also costs more money.
So whats the plan? Other than angry slogans about why the plebs aren't working hard enough?
They are so far ahead - into landslide territory - that the Tories rely on major swingback to have a hope next year. Labour don’t need to wow the voters, nor do they need the government to fuck up further in a way that fully cuts through.
They just need something like RAAC, or today’s news on dry weather releases of sewage, every month or so to keep a lid on any Sunak comeback. So long as something comes along to remind voters the government is incompetent we remain in a fairly stable equilibrium.
They’ll swing back come GE time but if they only have 6 weeks to do it the movement won’t be enough.
So I get that decision.
DoE: We need to rebuild 200 schools for x years because of we have x00 schools about to fall down killing people
HMT: Regardless of that your budget is 50
Looks like Sunak has a problem because the problem sat on his desk at the time the decision was made.
But can we also go back to money? School replacement will cost a notional £1m. Don't want to spend that, so it is refused. 2 years later and the school is too dangerous to reopen. So the cost of mitigation (replacement places / buildings / management) is £500k. The cost of replacement is now £1.1m, so your saving from 2021 is -£600k.
This is reality. As I keep pointing out, it is a pitiful fallacy for the government to pretend that not spending money was an option. So using my notional figures they now have a massive political scandal and a 60% bigger bill. How is that Conservative?
Use Nigel Farage as your shining example of what can be achieved in the face of ridicule and scepticism.
It is open to everyone. Like being an MP.
We could be looking at 1997 redux, and then some.
We have had 2 whistleblowers saying stuff which, prima facie, looks very damning.
But ...... but if this were a proper investigation I was conducting I would want to see all the other relevant statements / correspondence / documents at the time and talk to the others involved. It is not unusual for someone to say after the events in question "I told X this" or "X knew this" but when you look at what was actually said at the time it was much more equivocal or there is something critical that is missing from today's recollection.
Who is the Lord Mountbatten de nos jours?
But try feeding your family cheaply when the local council has housed you in a B+B with no cooking facilities miles from school & work. That money suddenly won’t go very far at all in that situation will it?
Was he right? With 20:20 hindsight maybe, maybe not.
We are still talking 2-3% of schools and it's not as though there is an unexploded WWII bomb underneath the assembly hall. No portakabins? Prop. Can't prop? What about the gym. No gym? Find somewhere else.
Edit: and yes politically it doesn't play well and if I were a Cons spad I would be raking through the documents to see if or where Lab fingerprints were on RAAC decisions.
I'd like to know the actual risk of failure, though. I'd put money on it being less of a risk to pupils than the daily school run given we've had no actual incidents.
What's the risk of disrupting education yet again?
Yes, get a programme of replacement / remediation going. But is this panic justified?
If you ask people if wealthy people should be taxed more and prosocial labourers paid more - most people do agree. We just have a political class that work in their own class interest, rather than that of the worker.
Water privatisation has been an absolute disaster.
The regulator doesn't work and various companies are lining their pockets while literally filling our rivers with shit.
Just scandalous.
This is because forcing people’s hands by recording hard facts in written communications is considered vile and abusive behaviour by bureaucracies. Once it has been done, you force their hand. But it is unforgivable.
There’s a great example of this in one of Doc EE Smiths stories. An honest manager in a munitions plant in WWII forces the hand of corrupt seniors to fix a problem that is literally killing people. By getting one of them to stupidly say the problem exists in front of witnesses. The reward for the honest manager is being fired, of course.
As I understand it, the DoE will have bid to accelerate the programme from 50 per year to 200 per year, and HMT (Sunak at the time) said "no". That's not a shocker in itself - HMT has to say "no" to a lot of departmental bids.
DoE almost certainly won't have given HMT a list of specific schools - both because it's meaningless to HMT, and because they'd actually plan the detailed programme, including hard decisions on who makes the cut, after budget is confirmed.
What is interesting is the justification DoE gave. If DoE were saying, "It's be nice to get some shiny new buildings in place in time for the General Election" that's less bad for Sunak than if they said, "We're really struggling to keep up with what we need to do to ensure roofs don't collapse on kiddies - in particular, we've got issues with buildings with RAAC".
In reality, it will be something more nuanced, but it'd be interesting to know. This feels potentially very dangerous for Sunak. The DoE request for quite a large increase suggests an identified issue, not necessarily with RAAC but with a pace of renewal giving serious cause for concern in terms of deteriorating stock of school buildings. If that was communicated to him and he said "no" (not even "no but have an increase" - it looks like a flat "no") that's bad.
So someone is being economical with the actualités here, I wonder who?
Arundel & South Downs could go Labour if enough people in Arundel & South Downs voted Labour.
If you are saying burn it down and start again then also fine. Get your political party together and go for it.
Again, it comes back to a fundamentally stupid model where both the private sector and the Treasury funds things based on business plans rather than a realistic assessment of the externalities.
Understandable to some extent in the private sector, which is why you shouldn't privatise basic utilities like water (or indeed schools).
Unforgivable in the government whose ostensible purpose is to fill the gaps in essential infrastructure where private sector investment *won't* invest due to the financial limitations.
https://theathletic.com/4831793/2023/09/05/jordan-henderson-interview-saudi
It's up there with Prince Andrew's interview. Absolute car crash:
But at the same time, what I wouldn’t do is disrespect the religion and culture in Saudi Arabia. If we’re all saying everybody can be who they want to be and everybody is inclusive, then we’ll have to respect that. We’ll have to respect everyone.
A perfect example would be before Qatar. We had a meeting with the FA about human rights, about the issues around the stadiums. I think it might have been Amnesty who had sent the images and stuff. And then, half an hour later, I go into a press conference or some media and I’ve commented on that situation. I was like, “Well, it was quite shocking and horrendous” and that was quite hard for us to see. But then when I went to Qatar and we had the experience we had at the World Cup, you get to meet the workers there and it was totally different.
But they are fools so it's eminently possible.
Perhaps Sunak and Keegan could be offered accommodation in a building with RAAC? Free and compulsory for them and their families until such time as the matter of the RAAC schools is settled.
I don't understand how LAs have got off so lightly in this. They are responsible for the day to day maintenace/upkeep/refurbishment of tens of thousands of schools. If they were concerned about a particular school why haven't they raised the issue before. They employ surveyors directly who should know what the school roofs are made from.
He’s absolutely clear that they were rebuilding 100/year, that 300-400 were needed & that the phrase “critical risk to life” was used to obtain that 100 & that Sunak halved the program to 50.
Sunak is on a very sticky wicket. HMT needs cast iron evidence that none of this is true.
Can't tell if that's sarcasm or desperation.