If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Not necessarily a threat. There are certain things you can’t display or say in Germany. By law.
That’s how it works in Germany - officialdom apparently ignores you, until you hit one of their redlines. Then they send everyone.
It’s a consequence of the intersection of rights in law to protest and assemble, the redlines in question and the process oriented methodology that dominates official thinking.
The extremists in Germany have got fairly good at colouring inside the lines, because of this. Though they always slip in the end (see AfD)
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
I find it there strange that a story that is 10 years old is playing out now and being kept for the actual election campaign.
Mind you multiple housing lawyers telling Guido he was talking complete horseshit was fun to watch last night
If Paul Staines had ever been near a council estate in his life, he'd know that many properties are let to tenants (often students) as soon as they're bought. Of course there's no requirement that you have to live there for five years to avoid having to pay back a slice of the discount.
That's making an assumption that Staines cares about being taken seriously by people who know stuff.
If his aim is to throw muck around with the aim of creating a pervasive stink, it barely matters whether the story stands up to scrutiny. It's already done its job.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
I find it there strange that a story that is 10 years old is playing out now and being kept for the actual election campaign.
Mind you multiple housing lawyers telling Guido he was talking complete horseshit was fun to watch last night
If Paul Staines had ever been near a council estate in his life, he'd know that many properties are let to tenants (often students) as soon as they're bought. Of course there's no requirement that you have to live there for five years to avoid having to pay back a slice of the discount.
Quite a few bought their council house, renting it out, specifically to fund leaving the area.
Generally worked out better, financially, than selling outright.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
I hope your son recovers fully and fast.
That footnote says it all about Britain.
The footnote says it all about the human condition.
Same stuff happens in bits of the Netherlands, France and Germany - that I’ve seen reports on. Probably every country has its version.
In todays express, Hunt seems to think that cutting taxes makes a huge difference to our business environment. The expresserati are lapping it up of course.
The only problem is that you could have corporate tax rates at 100% and it would make very little difference. Big corporations make it so they have nigh on no taxable profit in the UK. The tax on Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Macdonald is negligible... it is penny's. Corporation taxes make no difference to the business environment in the uk. Look it up. It is futile fighting about whether the corporate tax rate should be 20% or 80%. 80% of nothing is still nothing.
The tories will go all in on this taxes issue, but in that domain, where the real productive capacity exists, taxes are an irrelevance.
I am not even saying this out of a partisan sentiment... it is just as a baseline about reality from which to have a conversation about policies. I think the tories are revealing how out of ideas they actually are on the economy and business environment. Tax rates matter little to those who economy and invest in the country.
"H&M accordingly has no trading activity that creates business income and is therefore not in a position to pay corporate income tax in the countries where the representative offices are located."
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
I hope your son recovers fully and fast.
That footnote says it all about Britain.
The footnote is just essential safeguarding. It documents that there are no obvious signs of neglect or abuse. Considering the numerous scandals where staff have not noticed neglect it is a sign that some lessons have been learned. On our software we have to document on every patient if there are safeguarding concerns, and all children get a flag if repeat attenders.
Glad the service was good and the little lad makes a speedy recovery.
Angela Rayner and her husband re-registered their children's births after they got married in 2010. That's a legal requirement and therefore there's nothing peculiar about it. But if the form then was the same as it is now (the LA1) then both the mother and father would have had to fill in their addresses. What did she put for hers?
It would be interesting to know. I should add that I don't think there's an obligation to put your "permanent" address, or even where you're living most of the time. If you wanted to put a correspondence address or if you maintained a home separate from your husband's and you wanted to put his address as yours to keep things simple, I don't think you'd be breaking the law.
Would it ?
For electoral purposes, you can have more than one 'permanent address', providing each has 'elements of' permanence. Though that is admittedly unusual, it's far from unknown.
So a discrepancy between permanent addresses registered for different matters isn't necessarily a massive gotcha.
Given they were (I think) in the same constituency, this seems an enormous waste of police time. And political attention.
Yes I heard on the news today that both addresses were in Stockport. If they are in the same constituency and there is only one Stockport constituency so seems likely (but not definite) then this is a huge waste of time. Also I am confused about the issue of having multiple addresses. Certainly students do have multiple addresses for election purposes and I certainly did when at University and as long as you only vote in one for any particular election that is perfectly legal. We have two home, but live in one much more than the other, but I have always assumed I could register in either. We are only registered in one. Certainly PPCs often have a very temporary rented home in a constituency prior to becoming an MP to register themselves as locals in the electorates mind (although I don't know if they then put themselves on the electoral register, but I assume they would). I can think of numerous MPs who have done this.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
Oh, and on a related note, thanks to everyone who recommended getting a blood oxygen monitor during Covid (I think @Foxy was one). We bought one, and although he doesn't have Covid, it showed us last night when his blood oxygen went low.
So: if you haven't got them yet, get an electronic ear thermometer and blood-oxygen monitor. They both helped us last night.
In todays express, Hunt seems to think that cutting taxes makes a huge difference to our business environment. The expresserati are lapping it up of course.
The only problem is that you could have corporate tax rates at 100% and it would make very little difference. Big corporations make it so they have nigh on no taxable profit in the UK. The tax on Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Macdonald is negligible... it is penny's. Corporation taxes make no difference to the business environment in the uk. Look it up. It is futile fighting about whether the corporate tax rate should be 20% or 80%. 80% of nothing is still nothing.
The tories will go all in on this taxes issue, but in that domain, where the real productive capacity exists, taxes are an irrelevance.
I am not even saying this out of a partisan sentiment... it is just as a baseline about reality from which to have a conversation about policies. I think the tories are revealing how out of ideas they actually are on the economy and business environment. Tax rates matter little to those who economy and invest in the country.
"H&M accordingly has no trading activity that creates business income and is therefore not in a position to pay corporate income tax in the countries where the representative offices are located."
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
I hope your son recovers fully and fast.
That footnote says it all about Britain.
Potentially more worrying is what else they might have written, and with whom it ends up.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
You love it, and lap it up, going out of your way to highlight such stories.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
I hope your son recovers fully and fast.
That footnote says it all about Britain.
The footnote is just essential safeguarding. It documents that there are no obvious signs of neglect or abuse. Considering the numerous scandals where staff have not noticed neglect it is a sign that some lessons have been learned. On our software we have to document on every patient if there are safeguarding concerns, and all children get a flag if repeat attenders.
Glad the service was good and the little lad makes a speedy recovery.
I also liked the line: "Mum and dad on scene panicked." I don't think we were panicked - I was busy getting a couple of bags ready - but I guess we looked that way from the outside!
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
If they’re not careful they will end up compounding the idea that it’s one law for them and another for the rest of us.
If they want to create a feeling that “they’re all as bad as each other”, therefore levelling the playing field, then they should have focused their attention on a posh metropolitan type in Labour.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
When both mine were very small toddlers they had very short stays in hospital. One for dehydration, the other through banging her head and vomiting. Both were fine and out in a couple of days but it was very very worrying. In both cases I was allowed to stay in hospital with them. Don't think I have been so worried.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
agree with all your points but chances of that donkey fixing any of it are zero.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
You love it, and lap it up, going out of your way to highlight such stories.
It's all that was on BBC News yesterday you Muppet.
This stuff won't go away if you put your fingers in your ears and sing loudly. You should be calling out the Tory client journalists not me.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
last bit for the social workers to spy on you
I think @Foxy is correct below: it's safeguarding. I think it makes sense.
Though I'd have been mortified if they'd thought the house was dirty and messy...
In todays express, Hunt seems to think that cutting taxes makes a huge difference to our business environment. The expresserati are lapping it up of course.
The only problem is that you could have corporate tax rates at 100% and it would make very little difference. Big corporations make it so they have nigh on no taxable profit in the UK. The tax on Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Macdonald is negligible... it is penny's. Corporation taxes make no difference to the business environment in the uk. Look it up. It is futile fighting about whether the corporate tax rate should be 20% or 80%. 80% of nothing is still nothing.
The tories will go all in on this taxes issue, but in that domain, where the real productive capacity exists, taxes are an irrelevance.
I am not even saying this out of a partisan sentiment... it is just as a baseline about reality from which to have a conversation about policies. I think the tories are revealing how out of ideas they actually are on the economy and business environment. Tax rates matter little to those who economy and invest in the country.
"H&M accordingly has no trading activity that creates business income and is therefore not in a position to pay corporate income tax in the countries where the representative offices are located."
Both articles specifically mention Italy with a tax cap of €100k per year for 15 years as the preferred destination.
Someone in the comments calculating it takes half of the non doms to leave before the policy becomes net negative in terms of tax take, and that's before you take into account anything they spend or invest by being in the UK. Dunno if it's right, but it sounds about right.
I don't know what the answer is, but it seems like higher taxes... isn't.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
The idea that those who want to change the world have to live in a hybrid between their ideal world and the real world is quite bonkers. There is nothing wrong with or hypocritical about wanting society to be organised in a certain way, but acting based on how society is actually organised today.
Aside from the obvious pattern that people like the decade they grew up in, it also shows pretty clearly that the 1990s is most fondly remembered decade by far.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
last bit for the social workers to spy on you
If staff found the opposite (dirty clothes, unkempt child, chaotic house etc) then the Safeguarding team would be notified. It's what Social Workers for children are for!
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Worth remembering perhaps that Rayner has made unpleasant comments about her political opponents in the relatively recent past ("tory scum"); she has stumbled in to this cycle of reaction, of which the current campaign is perhaps a delayed manifestation.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
We’re not approaching the turnaround point where ‘someone’ is done for wasting police time are we? Just asking!
And a pleasant morning here, and cause for celebration; the blue-tit that’s nested in our tv-accessible nest box has laid the first of this years eggs. Rather touchingly she’s just been back and covered it with a feather!
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
last bit for the social workers to spy on you
If staff found the opposite (dirty clothes, unkempt child, chaotic house etc) then the Safeguarding team would be notified. It's what Social Workers for children are for!
No idea about the unkempt child bit but aren't you describing 67% of UK households.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
We’re not approaching the turnaround point where ‘someone’ is done for wasting police time are we? Just asking!
And a pleasant morning here, and cause for celebration; the blue-tit that’s nested in our tv-accessible nest box has laid the first of this years eggs. Rather touchingly she’s just been back and covered it with a feather!
I think it is a fairly clear cut case of wasting police time. I am just not sure if anyone reporting him for wasting police time is also guilty of wasting police time......probably.
FFS Rayner is shadow housing SoS and may or may not have failed to declare correctly her housing. I think it is entirely reasonable to ask what exactly she did or did not declare.
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
Okay let's see how good you are:
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Strangely Conservative MPs, the Mail and Laura Kuenssberg are riding this one like the wind, whereas the vox pop voters seem to be seeing it for what it is, a witch hunt over a triviality. All the while Conservative grandees have gamed and are gaming the tax system for millions in legally avoided tax using loopholes created by the Conservative Government for members of the Conservative Party.
You love it, and lap it up, going out of your way to highlight such stories.
It's all that was on BBC News yesterday you Muppet.
This stuff won't go away if you put your fingers in your ears and sing loudly. You should be calling out the Tory client journalists not me.
It’s all you ever talk about on here. Revealed preference. Similar to when a poll shows Tory+1 and you breathlessly jump on it as proof that your beloved Rishi will romp to power in a January election.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
And on the other point, I reminded you that Israel is a Jewish state. Which of course attracts plenty of criticism (it's racist, something else-ist, etc) but there we are.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
I've just spent half the night in hospital with our son. He's back home now, but the ambulance staff were excellent (*), as were the nurses and doctors who treated him. even our doctor's surgery, which I have often whinged about, saw him promptly yesterday with an emergency appointment.
We talk a great deal about broken Britain, but it works well - or even excellently - a lot of the time. But we need it to work well like this more of the time.
(*) Especially as they put "Pt in clean clothes. House tidy and clean" in their notes.
last bit for the social workers to spy on you
I think @Foxy is correct below: it's safeguarding. I think it makes sense.
Though I'd have been mortified if they'd thought the house was dirty and messy...
Through seeing how some of the labour force at the bottom end of the construction industry live…. There’s stuff you really wouldn’t believe.
I’m not talking about some dirty dishes in the sink. More that you’d want a shower after standing in the room.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Worth remembering perhaps that Rayner has made unpleasant comments about her political opponents in the relatively recent past ("tory scum"); she has stumbled in to this cycle of reaction, of which the current campaign is perhaps a delayed manifestation.
The confected horror and outrage at her use of the word scum is nothing compared to Conservative MPs shaming her feminity by outrageously claiming she was flashing her intimate parts at Boris John'son to put him off his stride. That really is a truly disgusting slur. No wonder she considers them "scum".
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
Okay, I’ll bite.
What do you dislike about her politics?
Do you like anyone in the party you purport to support?
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
'smarter' is an interesting choice of words; and like 'intelligence', really hard to define.
I wouldn't make a good MP for a number of reasons: one being that I don't particularly like crowds any more, and also because I'm far better at talking to individuals than groups. I'm agog when I've seen political operators or business people working a room; or others trying to work out who is the most important person in the room. It's like lions hunting their prey. That's a form of 'smart'. But it doesn't mean, when presented with evidence, they will make a good decision. That's a different form of 'smart'.
Being 'quick-witted' is fine, as long as the point you are using your wits with are consistent and valid. Boris had a great turn of phrase; but I'm unsure his mastery of the English language was necessarily a good thing...
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
Okay let's see how good you are:
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
Anti-semitic or not anti-semitic.
{Ian Paisley Mode On}
D’ya break the eggs from The Big End or The Little End?
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
That is when you find out the shop payout limit was £100,000 and you owe a couple of hundred K to your office colleagues.....
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
That is when you find out the shop payout limit was £100,000 and you owe a couple of hundred K to your office colleagues.....
Nope. I was on the ball regarding that. It was £250,000 I think, but I made sure I was within the limit.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
Partly because it is money for old rope! I was paid £4 000 for 2 days work a few years back on waiting list clearance.
Partly because I thought that there might be useful lessons to learn from how the contractor organised things. (Not much to be honest).
Partly because I am good at what I do, and didn't want these patients getting second rate care. Call it medical machismo if you like.
It isn't good medicine for long term conditions. I had never seen the patients before and wouldn't ever see them again. I knew none of their GPs or other healthcare providers, nor the geography of local care, being several hours drive away.
Mr. Pete, calling political opponents scum then refusing to apologise justifies an outraged response.
An apology had to be dragged out (not sure but I think it was after a Conservative MP was stabbed to death). Dehumanising opponents and condemning people for having a different party in a democracy is wretched and worthy of harsh criticism.
The flashing nonsense was repugnant and condemned at the time. Nobody, as far as I know, defends that stupid claim. Some people, however, such as yourself are seeking to diminish the validity of criticising Rayner for her 'Tory scum' insults. Someone who might be Deputy Prime Minister before too long describing other politicians or supporters of another party as scum is vile.
FFS Rayner is shadow housing SoS and may or may not have failed to declare correctly her housing. I think it is entirely reasonable to ask what exactly she did or did not declare.
Maybe the apt description of Ms Rayner is 'No Fixed Abode'. It's nothing to be ashamed of. The King is another.
Middle class people and centrist dad podcasts like her as a working class gal made good. It’s the same as having a black friend. I cannot be prejudiced because…..
Rayner has questions to answer, has been shifty and evasive in her response, and was very quick to demand Tories stand down when under investigation. I think, at worst, if there is an issue with the tax she didn’t pay it is inadvertent and down to the complexities of the system.
However her side happily make hay with such nonsense. Live by the sword die by the sword.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
And on the other point, I reminded you that Israel is a Jewish state. Which of course attracts plenty of criticism (it's racist, something else-ist, etc) but there we are.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
Okay let's see how good you are:
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
'smarter' is an interesting choice of words; and like 'intelligence', really hard to define.
I wouldn't make a good MP for a number of reasons: one being that I don't particularly like crowds any more, and also because I'm far better at talking to individuals than groups. I'm agog when I've seen political operators or business people working a room; or others trying to work out who is the most important person in the room. It's like lions hunting their prey. That's a form of 'smart'. But it doesn't mean, when presented with evidence, they will make a good decision. That's a different form of 'smart'.
Being 'quick-witted' is fine, as long as the point you are using your wits with are consistent and valid. Boris had a great turn of phrase; but I'm unsure his mastery of the English language was necessarily a good thing...
Johnson wasn't quick witted. Johnson just used buffoonery to bamboozle the viewer.
Rayner is Street- smart. Far smarter than Starmer. I recall a retort about Jeigerbombs a while ago. I can't remember the context but I thought this women is far cleverer than her accent suggests.
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
I should add most years the horse we backed stopped and ate the privet from the first fence (and yes I know it isn't privet).
So Iran threatened football stadiums last week and now there is an attack in a shopping mall.
Interesting point to note, should you bump up against such an event, is that in at least one instance a bloke faced/confronted the attacker and the attacker changed direction away from them. Looking for an easier target.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
There is a classist, misogynistic undercurrent to the Rayner story. It reared up here yesterday. I think it was Root (might be wrong) who called her "thick", which I doubt she is. And (possibly someone else) called her a "slapper", which is nothing short of a smack-down to any feisty woman who doesn't realise in certain male minds her place is in the kitchen.
I don't like Rayner, nonetheless the establishment, be that Labour or Conservative biased are out to give her a kicking.
Definitely so. A very large number of attacks on her are deeply personal, very few on her politics.
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
Worth remembering perhaps that Rayner has made unpleasant comments about her political opponents in the relatively recent past ("tory scum"); she has stumbled in to this cycle of reaction, of which the current campaign is perhaps a delayed manifestation.
The confected horror and outrage at her use of the word scum is nothing compared to Conservative MPs shaming her feminity by outrageously claiming she was flashing her intimate parts at Boris John'son to put him off his stride. That really is a truly disgusting slur. No wonder she considers them "scum".
The ones making said comments, fair enough. She said it about them all though.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
Okay let's see how good you are:
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
Okay, I’ll bite.
What do you dislike about her politics?
Do you like anyone in the party you purport to support?
The impracticality of her Corbynite ambition for social service provision. The Conservatives have spent all the money on unusable PPE and Eat out to help out.
Any Labour politicians I like? Can't think of any. But Zi can think of plenty of Tories I despise.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
Okay let's see how good you are:
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
And on the other point, I reminded you that Israel is a Jewish state. Which of course attracts plenty of criticism (it's racist, something else-ist, etc) but there we are.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
I should add most years the horse we backed stopped and ate the privet from the first fence (and yes I know it isn't privet).
Boris won't stand at the next general election, not least as CCHQ will block him from the approved Tory parliamentary candidates list.
If he ever did come back it would be in Opposition if a likely Starmer government was unpopular and the Conservative Leader of the Opposition was not making any progress
They had their very own Narwhal tusk guy. A bloke with a bollard trying to stop,the attacker.
Yep. They will look for easy targets. Look at the footage of the attacker walking through the mall and a big guy stands in front of him. The attacker changes direction.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
And on the other point, I reminded you that Israel is a Jewish state. Which of course attracts plenty of criticism (it's racist, something else-ist, etc) but there we are.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
My only point is not all Israelis are Jews. 73% are.
Saying one hates Israelis as a group is daft. They are not a single homogenous entity. Same with Palestinians. I’m not sure it’s anti semitic. Saying you hate Jews is a different matter.
If the impartial BBC is worried, best stick with the Tories.
I find myself in an interesting position of (a) not really giving a toss about Angela Rayner and her house and what she did with it and (b) being rather amused at the kerfuffle it's all causing.
I find it there strange that a story that is 10 years old is playing out now and being kept for the actual election campaign.
Mind you multiple housing lawyers telling Guido he was talking complete horseshit was fun to watch last night
If Paul Staines had ever been near a council estate in his life, he'd know that many properties are let to tenants (often students) as soon as they're bought. Of course there's no requirement that you have to live there for five years to avoid having to pay back a slice of the discount.
That's making an assumption that Staines cares about being taken seriously by people who know stuff.
If his aim is to throw muck around with the aim of creating a pervasive stink, it barely matters whether the story stands up to scrutiny. It's already done its job.
They had their very own Narwhal tusk guy. A bloke with a bollard trying to stop,the attacker.
Yep. They will look for easy targets. Look at the footage of the attacker walking through the mall and a big guy stands in front of him. The attacker changes direction.
It looked like a few of the victims were in one shop but, yes, the attacker seems to change direction a few t times when challenged.
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
And in rides our anti-anti-semitism expert.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Since I made the original post upon which all you experts are having opinions, in rides our any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews expert surely?
And on the other point, I reminded you that Israel is a Jewish state. Which of course attracts plenty of criticism (it's racist, something else-ist, etc) but there we are.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
My only point is not all Israelis are Jews. 73% are.
Saying one hates Israelis as a group is daft. They are not a single homogenous entity. Same with Palestinians. I’m not sure it’s anti semitic. Saying you hate Jews is a different matter.
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
A 40-horse handicapped 4 1/2 mile steeplechase might be a somewhat difficult to predict, you don’t say?
It’s fun for a work sweepstake or as you say messing around with some funny bets. Doesn’t it have the bookies’ biggest over-round you’ll ever see in a horse race?
Boris won't stand at the next general election, not least as CCHQ will block him from the approved Tory parliamentary candidates list.
If he ever did come back it would be in Opposition if a likely Starmer government was unpopular and the Conservative Leader of the Opposition was not making any progress
You mean the LD’s won a bye-election in a previously Tory seat?
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
A 40-horse handicapped 4 1/2 mile steeplechase might be a somewhat difficult to predict, you don’t say?
It’s fun for a work sweepstake or as you say messing around with some funny bets. Doesn’t it have the bookies’ biggest over-round you’ll ever see in a horse race?
Middle class people and centrist dad podcasts like her as a working class gal made good. It’s the same as having a black friend. I cannot be prejudiced because…..
Rayner has questions to answer, has been shifty and evasive in her response, and was very quick to demand Tories stand down when under investigation. I think, at worst, if there is an issue with the tax she didn’t pay it is inadvertent and down to the complexities of the system.
However her side happily make hay with such nonsense. Live by the sword die by the sword.
I don't think she expects any slack. She knows precisely how misogyny and classism work. She has had to fight for everything that she has in life, unlike Sunak.
Angela Rayner and her husband re-registered their children's births after they got married in 2010. That's a legal requirement and therefore there's nothing peculiar about it. But if the form then was the same as it is now (the LA1) then both the mother and father would have had to fill in their addresses. What did she put for hers?
It would be interesting to know. I should add that I don't think there's an obligation to put your "permanent" address, or even where you're living most of the time. If you wanted to put a correspondence address or if you maintained a home separate from your husband's and you wanted to put his address as yours to keep things simple, I don't think you'd be breaking the law.
Would it ?
For electoral purposes, you can have more than one 'permanent address', providing each has 'elements of' permanence. Though that is admittedly unusual, it's far from unknown.
So a discrepancy between permanent addresses registered for different matters isn't necessarily a massive gotcha.
Given they were (I think) in the same constituency, this seems an enormous waste of police time. And political attention.
That's the point!
It's a dead cat to ditract.
Meanwhile in perhaps the greatest example of Chutzpah* in recent times, Johnson has been deploring cronyism and politicians enabling their mates:
.@BorisJohnson: 'Without democracy governments will become corrupt and they will be run by an elite who will hand power to other members of that elite down the generations and that will have a terrible effect on the rule of law'
*best Chutzpah since a defendant on trial for murdering his parents pleaded for clemency on the grounds of being an orphan.
Was that the same speech where he said this?
Boris Johnson was enjoying himself in Canada, addressing a conservative conference. He told the guests it would be to everyone’s benefit if he were “back in power as soon as possible”. He added, apparently half in jest: “There’s not a day that goes by now where I don’t think the world would be substantially improved if that were the case.”
Boris in discussion with former Australian PM Abbott here, agreement on Ukraine and Brexit but some disagreement on climate change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2NOZI5S2M
I fear there’s something a bit whiffy in the state of Germany. Of course for some folk this will overcome their instinctive Germanophobia and they’ll be slapping their flippers together at any criticism of the state of Israel characterised as antisemitism and being shut down.
They shut the conference using more than 900 polizei. Clearly what he might have or would have said was considered a threat. Even Karl Liebknecht got a few words out ("Down with the war. Down with the government") before he was arrested and jailed.
Germany taking what was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism rather seriously. Who’d have thought it?
What was likely very thinly-veiled anti-Semitism? Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert on these events, do tell me more.
I’m as much of an ‘expert’ as anyone else at reading the news, and there’s a very long history of these “Palestine Conference” events being little more than a long line of anti-Semites spewing bile, but they’re good at inviting a few genuine guests just to give the veneer of legitimacy, and to let them complain when the event gets shut down.
We saw this play out dozens of times when Jeremy Corbyn was around. Funnily enough, Germany takes these things a lot more seriously than most countries, for the obvious historical reasons.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
Partly because it is money for old rope! I was paid £4 000 for 2 days work a few years back on waiting list clearance.
Partly because I thought that there might be useful lessons to learn from how the contractor organised things. (Not much to be honest).
Partly because I am good at what I do, and didn't want these patients getting second rate care. Call it medical machismo if you like.
It isn't good medicine for long term conditions. I had never seen the patients before and wouldn't ever see them again. I knew none of their GPs or other healthcare providers, nor the geography of local care, being several hours drive away.
The last part sounds indistinguishable from NHS care for long-term patients. The admin is so pisspoor we have to explain everything over again whenever my elderly relative sees a new person. It really is utterly hopeless.
In todays express, Hunt seems to think that cutting taxes makes a huge difference to our business environment. The expresserati are lapping it up of course.
The only problem is that you could have corporate tax rates at 100% and it would make very little difference. Big corporations make it so they have nigh on no taxable profit in the UK. The tax on Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Macdonald is negligible... it is penny's. Corporation taxes make no difference to the business environment in the uk. Look it up. It is futile fighting about whether the corporate tax rate should be 20% or 80%. 80% of nothing is still nothing.
The tories will go all in on this taxes issue, but in that domain, where the real productive capacity exists, taxes are an irrelevance.
I am not even saying this out of a partisan sentiment... it is just as a baseline about reality from which to have a conversation about policies. I think the tories are revealing how out of ideas they actually are on the economy and business environment. Tax rates matter little to those who economy and invest in the country.
"H&M accordingly has no trading activity that creates business income and is therefore not in a position to pay corporate income tax in the countries where the representative offices are located."
One doesn't have to like her to see she is being tucked up by the establishment.
She *is* the establishment. She has a darned sight more power than you or I do.
But how she got there is what the left and right elites don't like. She doesn't know her place!
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
Okay, I’ll bite.
What do you dislike about her politics?
Do you like anyone in the party you purport to support?
The impracticality of her Corbynite ambition for social service provision. The Conservatives have spent all the money on unusable PPE and Eat out to help out.
Any Labour politicians I like? Can't think of any. But Zi can think of plenty of Tories I despise.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
They deserve obliteration and are going to get it.
I am not optimistic for a Starmer government, and despise Streeting already. I am not looking forward to it at all. I really am not willing to tactically vote for it, even if the price is my Tory MP surviving as part of the rump opposition.
Yes, Streeting soiled himself in public this week. He is not the Statesman genius he thinks he is. He reminds me a lot of Osborne.
Try analysing potential failure rather than blithely following Labour down white van man cul de sacs.
If a local private hospital has capacity and can be used to treat NHS patients, why not? My wife was treated at a local private hospital on the NHS. It all went well.
The immediate challenge for the NHS is its pisspoor, antiquated admin. Stupid paper letters rather than texts. Ring Up at Exactly 8am or Get Fucked. Only Pound Coins in the Car Park Meter. It is agony to use.
Hopefully Wes can start to sort it.
I suspect the private sector is the only way to increase capacity at present, but without using the time to build permanent capacity it is like giving an alcoholic a bottle of whisky to stave off DTs.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
I do, and have done NHS work for private contractors in the past. It doesn't mean that I think it is a good way forward, just that that is the world that I live in. If I were running the world a lot of things would be different.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
Partly because it is money for old rope! I was paid £4 000 for 2 days work a few years back on waiting list clearance.
Partly because I thought that there might be useful lessons to learn from how the contractor organised things. (Not much to be honest).
Partly because I am good at what I do, and didn't want these patients getting second rate care. Call it medical machismo if you like.
It isn't good medicine for long term conditions. I had never seen the patients before and wouldn't ever see them again. I knew none of their GPs or other healthcare providers, nor the geography of local care, being several hours drive away.
The last part sounds indistinguishable from NHS care for long-term patients. The admin is so pisspoor we have to explain everything over again whenever my elderly relative sees a new person. It really is utterly hopeless.
When you Cut Penpushers To Focus On Frontline Doctors And Nurses, what do you expect?
I can think of no better way to sum up PB than to note that when I see @Taz has responded to me I have no idea whether his post will be about the nature of anti-semitism in the context of the current geo-political upheaval or about the best accompaniment to scrambled eggs on toast.
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
A 40-horse handicapped 4 1/2 mile steeplechase might be a somewhat difficult to predict, you don’t say?
It’s fun for a work sweepstake or as you say messing around with some funny bets. Doesn’t it have the bookies’ biggest over-round you’ll ever see in a horse race?
That’s amazingly tight. I suspect there’s some good arb opportunities between BF and the traditional bookies, if anyone has some spare cash and time in the next few hours.
Middle class people and centrist dad podcasts like her as a working class gal made good. It’s the same as having a black friend. I cannot be prejudiced because…..
Rayner has questions to answer, has been shifty and evasive in her response, and was very quick to demand Tories stand down when under investigation. I think, at worst, if there is an issue with the tax she didn’t pay it is inadvertent and down to the complexities of the system.
However her side happily make hay with such nonsense. Live by the sword die by the sword.
I don't think she expects any slack. She knows precisely how misogyny and classism work. She has had to fight for everything that she has in life, unlike Sunak.
It still doesn't make it right.
It’s nothing more than political point scoring. Nothing to do with class or gender.
Why on earth would someone stab a 9 month old baby ?
Another morning another day of horror unfolds
Terror, Big G, terror.
Among some Israelis there is the idea that a Palestinian baby is a future enemy ("terrorist") and that therefore maternity wards should be ethnically segregated.
This is because, in the words of finance and defence minister Bezalel Smotrich (he's the one who said all Palestinians should be subjugated, deported, or killed) he wouldn't want his wife lying down in the next bed to an Arab woman whose baby will try to murder their baby in 20 years' time:
That's how those whose minds are possessed by an ultra-extreme ethnic-supremacist hatred "think".
And it gets worse than that.
Chabad rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh - an influential figure and inspirer of much of the "price-tag" fascist violence on the West Bank - has written "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us":
Without a religious reference there were the "1 shot 2 kills" t-shirts. A person has to be insane in about the most inhuman way possible to think this kind of thing is amusing:
Note that it is not just babies that are talked about in this way, and not just pregnant women or mothers of young babies, but women in general, viewed as "those who produce the future generation".
It's interesting that among the very few countries that are saying NO to the genocide are South Africa and Ireland. Call me a cynic but I think Spanish and Norwegian statements about possibly "recognising Palestine" are insincere.
Middle class people and centrist dad podcasts like her as a working class gal made good. It’s the same as having a black friend. I cannot be prejudiced because…..
Rayner has questions to answer, has been shifty and evasive in her response, and was very quick to demand Tories stand down when under investigation. I think, at worst, if there is an issue with the tax she didn’t pay it is inadvertent and down to the complexities of the system.
However her side happily make hay with such nonsense. Live by the sword die by the sword.
I like Rayner because she has character, unlike 95% of politicians and people in leadership positions you meet in real life. None of that removes a requirement to be ethical. If you wish to assign my soft spot for Rayner to being the type of person who disguises their priors through having token black friends, please feel free.
By the way if it really is your "at worst" Rayner doesn't in fact have a case to answer.
FFS Rayner is shadow housing SoS and may or may not have failed to declare correctly her housing. I think it is entirely reasonable to ask what exactly she did or did not declare.
Of course it is. Problem for those with an agenda is nothing substantial has been found against Rayner so far. They are making themselves ridiculous by inventing nefarious motivations for Rayner and saying she's the problem for not "coming clean" about them
I can think of no better way to sum up PB than to note that when I see @Taz has responded to me I have no idea whether his post will be about the nature of anti-semitism in the context of the current geo-political upheaval or about the best accompaniment to scrambled eggs on toast.
I do actually think a bit of chopped smoked salmon on top would be nice 👍
Comments
She is too working class for the political class and commentariat to tolerate. The only acceptable working class spokespeople are Lee Anderson and his mates.
That footnote says it all about Britain.
That’s how it works in Germany - officialdom apparently ignores you, until you hit one of their redlines. Then they send everyone.
It’s a consequence of the intersection of rights in law to protest and assemble, the redlines in question and the process oriented methodology that dominates official thinking.
The extremists in Germany have got fairly good at colouring inside the lines, because of this. Though they always slip in the end (see AfD)
If his aim is to throw muck around with the aim of creating a pervasive stink, it barely matters whether the story stands up to scrutiny. It's already done its job.
Generally worked out better, financially, than selling outright.
The recent Private Eye podcast covers the issues well:
https://twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1770469582643343694?t=0FyHR4FcYoskMyyMi7ukmg&s=19
Same stuff happens in bits of the Netherlands, France and Germany - that I’ve seen reports on. Probably every country has its version.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1887890/Jeremy-Hunt-Economy-GDP-inflation-interest-rates-Rishi-Sunak
The only problem is that you could have corporate tax rates at 100% and it would make very little difference. Big corporations make it so they have nigh on no taxable profit in the UK. The tax on Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Macdonald is negligible... it is penny's. Corporation taxes make no difference to the business environment in the uk. Look it up. It is futile fighting about whether the corporate tax rate should be 20% or 80%. 80% of nothing is still nothing.
The tories will go all in on this taxes issue, but in that domain, where the real productive capacity exists, taxes are an irrelevance.
I am not even saying this out of a partisan sentiment... it is just as a baseline about reality from which to have a conversation about policies. I think the tories are revealing how out of ideas they actually are on the economy and business environment. Tax rates matter little to those who economy and invest in the country.
"H&M accordingly has no trading activity that creates business income and is therefore not in a position to pay corporate income tax in the countries where the representative offices are located."
https://hmgroup.com/about-us/corporate-governance/policies/#:~:text=H&M accordingly has no trading,the representative offices are located
Focuing so univocally on taxes in the economy is just a distraction for the people who don't know better.
Glad the service was good and the little lad makes a speedy recovery.
So: if you haven't got them yet, get an electronic ear thermometer and blood-oxygen monitor. They both helped us last night.
Given that private medical is heavily staffed by people who also work in the NHS??
Or is it that, by employing the private facilities , you are getting the staff time without the gigantic premiums for agency work?
If they want to create a feeling that “they’re all as bad as each other”, therefore levelling the playing field, then they should have focused their attention on a posh metropolitan type in Labour.
Why people like Rayner is beyond me.
I wrote a header on the 70th Birthday of the NHS and my views haven't changed a great deal. It covers the private sector:
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2018/07/01/three-score-and-ten-has-the-nhs-reached-the-end-of-its-natural-life/
This stuff won't go away if you put your fingers in your ears and sing loudly. You should be calling out the Tory client journalists not me.
Seeking out instances of non-anti-semitism wherever he goes.
Though I'd have been mortified if they'd thought the house was dirty and messy...
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/the-key-differences-and-stand-outs-from-the-2025-f1-calendar.1Et7BrKQ2N5X7t3k7OiRvd
https://www.ft.com/content/f551d2d6-8ac0-4f28-8ec4-a60ba38b33a1
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/13/uk-non-doms-uk-labour-tax-plans
Both articles specifically mention Italy with a tax cap of €100k per year for 15 years as the preferred destination.
Someone in the comments calculating it takes half of the non doms to leave before the policy becomes net negative in terms of tax take, and that's before you take into account anything they spend or invest by being in the UK. Dunno if it's right, but it sounds about right.
I don't know what the answer is, but it seems like higher taxes... isn't.
https://x.com/yougov/status/1778772126431899798?s=46
Aside from the obvious pattern that people like the decade they grew up in, it also shows pretty clearly that the 1990s is most fondly remembered decade by far.
Just asking!
And a pleasant morning here, and cause for celebration; the blue-tit that’s nested in our tv-accessible nest box has laid the first of this years eggs.
Rather touchingly she’s just been back and covered it with a feather!
She has a back story that means she better connects with Labour voters especially in the north and the now infamous Red Wall.
The Tories going after her is a sign they see her an an electorate threat .
And her Tory scum comment encapsulated what many Labour voters think of the current government !
I can't speak for you, but she is where she is because she is far smarter than me. I don't like her politics, but she is quick witted and I like that in a world of tongue -tied public schoolboy politics.
Scrambled eggs on toast should be made with free range eggs.
Anti-semitic or not anti-semitic.
Try posting about something else.
Hence if you say I hate Israelis (for example) you are saying you hate Jews. I mean that's just an identity.
I’m not talking about some dirty dishes in the sink. More that you’d want a shower after standing in the room.
Actually in the 80s when I worked in a large organisation I used do a whip round and back the worse horse in the field. The greatest joy was the panic on the bookies face when I placed the bet. They always had to go and make a phone call to establish whether they could take the bet. They always did. I assume establishing I was a loon rather than part of some plot.
One year the horse was Double You Again. I had it at 1000-1 and had probably several hundred pounds on it each way. It was leading with 1 or 2 fences to go but got taken out by loose horses refusing to jump. I thought everyone would be disappointed but they were over the moon, having had a great day of excitement.
What do you dislike about her politics?
Do you like anyone in the party you purport to support?
I wouldn't make a good MP for a number of reasons: one being that I don't particularly like crowds any more, and also because I'm far better at talking to individuals than groups. I'm agog when I've seen political operators or business people working a room; or others trying to work out who is the most important person in the room. It's like lions hunting their prey. That's a form of 'smart'. But it doesn't mean, when presented with evidence, they will make a good decision. That's a different form of 'smart'.
Being 'quick-witted' is fine, as long as the point you are using your wits with are consistent and valid. Boris had a great turn of phrase; but I'm unsure his mastery of the English language was necessarily a good thing...
D’ya break the eggs from The Big End or The Little End?
Partly because I thought that there might be useful lessons to learn from how the contractor organised things. (Not much to be honest).
Partly because I am good at what I do, and didn't want these patients getting second rate care. Call it medical machismo if you like.
It isn't good medicine for long term conditions. I had never seen the patients before and wouldn't ever see them again. I knew none of their GPs or other healthcare providers, nor the geography of local care, being several hours drive away.
An apology had to be dragged out (not sure but I think it was after a Conservative MP was stabbed to death). Dehumanising opponents and condemning people for having a different party in a democracy is wretched and worthy of harsh criticism.
The flashing nonsense was repugnant and condemned at the time. Nobody, as far as I know, defends that stupid claim. Some people, however, such as yourself are seeking to diminish the validity of criticising Rayner for her 'Tory scum' insults. Someone who might be Deputy Prime Minister before too long describing other politicians or supporters of another party as scum is vile.
Rayner has questions to answer, has been shifty and evasive in her response, and was very quick to demand Tories stand down when under investigation. I think, at worst, if there is an issue with the tax she didn’t pay it is inadvertent and down to the complexities of the system.
However her side happily make hay with such nonsense. Live by the sword die by the sword.
Rayner is Street- smart. Far smarter than Starmer. I recall a retort about Jeigerbombs a while ago. I can't remember the context but I thought this women is far cleverer than her accent suggests.
Interesting point to note, should you bump up against such an event, is that in at least one instance a bloke faced/confronted the attacker and the attacker changed direction away from them. Looking for an easier target.
Any Labour politicians I like? Can't think of any. But Zi can think of plenty of Tories I despise.
They had their very own Narwhal tusk guy. A bloke with a bollard trying to stop,the attacker.
If he ever did come back it would be in Opposition if a likely Starmer government was unpopular and the Conservative Leader of the Opposition was not making any progress
Saying one hates Israelis as a group is daft. They are not a single homogenous entity. Same with Palestinians. I’m not sure it’s anti semitic. Saying you hate Jews is a different matter.
It’s fun for a work sweepstake or as you say messing around with some funny bets. Doesn’t it have the bookies’ biggest over-round you’ll ever see in a horse race?
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/horse-racing/market/1.227448734?nodeId=33183895
It still doesn't make it right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2NOZI5S2M
We saw this play out dozens of times when Jeremy Corbyn was around. Funnily enough, Germany takes these things a lot more seriously than most countries, for the obvious historical reasons.
This is because, in the words of finance and defence minister Bezalel Smotrich (he's the one who said all Palestinians should be subjugated, deported, or killed) he wouldn't want his wife lying down in the next bed to an Arab woman whose baby will try to murder their baby in 20 years' time:
https://www.google.com/search?q=smotrich+babies+maternity
That's how those whose minds are possessed by an ultra-extreme ethnic-supremacist hatred "think".
And it gets worse than that.
Chabad rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh - an influential figure and inspirer of much of the "price-tag" fascist violence on the West Bank - has written "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us":
https://www.google.com/search?q=rabbi+ginsburgh+babies
Without a religious reference there were the "1 shot 2 kills" t-shirts. A person has to be insane in about the most inhuman way possible to think this kind of thing is amusing:
https://www.google.com/search?q=1+shot+2+kills
On the same theme during the ongoing war:
https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-rabbi-says-gaza-women-children-should-all-be-killed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1766413166693454212
Note that it is not just babies that are talked about in this way, and not just pregnant women or mothers of young babies, but women in general, viewed as "those who produce the future generation".
It's interesting that among the very few countries that are saying NO to the genocide are South Africa and Ireland.
Call me a cynic but I think Spanish and Norwegian statements about possibly "recognising Palestine" are insincere.
By the way if it really is your "at worst" Rayner doesn't in fact have a case to answer. Of course it is. Problem for those with an agenda is nothing substantial has been found against Rayner so far. They are making themselves ridiculous by inventing nefarious motivations for Rayner and saying she's the problem for not "coming clean" about them
Don’t forget to fill your car up ASAP too. War is coming.