@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
Total airy-fairy nonsense. With the exception of 'No new IT projects' those are all on a par with Sunak's 'cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion'. Taking Quangos for example, you need to list all the quangos that are going to be cut, how much each will save, and what, if any, downsides there are.
Mythical vague reform and efficiencies, especially many promised before, will save us!
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/byron-donalds-nostalgia-jim-crow-00161786 ...“During Jim Crow the Black family was together,” Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, and criticized decades-old policies from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson for promoting a culture of dependence. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were — not just conservative, because Black people always have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”..
I think the refusal of both parties to mention the B-word in this campaign - for reasons we’ve gone over before - shames them. History will not judge them kindly.
This election will see the revenge of the 48%. They will swing behind Labour/LD, voting tactically to unseat the Tories. A big chunk of the Brexit true believers, the deluded irreconcilables who think the Tories botched Brexit by not doing it properly, will drink the Reform PLC Kool-Aid.
And that eviscerates the Tories.
That’s what the history books will say, I reckon.
Anyway, the Shrimsley piece tickles my fancy. Here’s the conclusion:
It is just nonsense. The Tories were fine after Brexit and were riding high in the polls. What screwed them was Johnson's COVID shenanigans and the disastrous Truss budget. The Eurofanatics want to blame everything in Brexit. They still can't accept that the UK has had better economic growth and unemploymemt than the EU since we fully Brexited.
Put another way, the Tories were fine until they ran into problems - as every single government does. When they did they did not have the ability to deal with them in the ways the would have done in the past because ideology had become more important than pragmatism. That made rejecting the rule of law more important than accepting it. Sunak made Suella Braverman Home Secretary. He did so because he felt he had no choice not because she was even remotely capable of doing the job.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
That's down to Covid and the interest rate spikes to fight inflation. Don't forget that.
Look at the forecasts for budget balance beforehand, in 2019.
The energy cap was another major contributor. Martin Lewis is truly an enemy of the people.
But the current fiscal targets are a joke promising to be good one day. The reputation of the Tories for being sound on finance has taken a hell of a dunt in this Parliament and will take quite some time to recover.
You say the energy price cap was bad - but the alternative would have been soaring bills anyway, so people would have been worse off either way. The alternative to a cap was just letting the worst off default on their bills, more energy companies going bust and people having their electricity turned off?
The reason that this is clearly a Tory issue is that they had Treasury brain - so the benefits of spending if too intangible are just ignored. Infrastructure spending would increase economic growth, productivity, general health, etc etc. which would grow the economy. All Treasury sees is spending. This mindset needs to end.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Yeah - the daily interactions people have with services, whether that's health, education, policing, etc. are much worse than 10 - 15 years ago. The Tories oversaw and are responsible for that.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
That's down to Covid and the interest rate spikes to fight inflation. Don't forget that.
Look at the forecasts for budget balance beforehand, in 2019.
The energy cap was another major contributor. Martin Lewis is truly an enemy of the people.
But the current fiscal targets are a joke promising to be good one day. The reputation of the Tories for being sound on finance has taken a hell of a dunt in this Parliament and will take quite some time to recover.
You say the energy price cap was bad - but the alternative would have been soaring bills anyway, so people would have been worse off either way. The alternative to a cap was just letting the worst off default on their bills, more energy companies going bust and people having their electricity turned off?
The reason that this is clearly a Tory issue is that they had Treasury brain - so the benefits of spending if too intangible are just ignored. Infrastructure spending would increase economic growth, productivity, general health, etc etc. which would grow the economy. All Treasury sees is spending. This mindset needs to end.
There would have been a customer payment strike when bills hit £5k per year, even the ones who could afford it would simply not pay and ramp up pressure on the government, something similar, and of the same order of magnitude of cost, was inevitable.
The problem with rejoiner faction is their underlying assumption that we can rejoin on exactly the same terms as we left. That is never going to happen, and the terms we would get might not be ones that a majority would want to agree to.
I don't think either of those statements is true.
I don't think we would rejoin on the same terms.
I don't think different terms can never have majority support.
Agreed. I think we would have to join the Euro and Schengen. I doubt the country's ready for that yet but in 20 years time maybe?
Ah the dreamy days of the continent is cut off without us.
Why is it you never ask if the EU wants the UK back ? All evidence suggests they had enough and rejoining is not on the cards. Well not unless PM Farage can call in a favour from Giorgia Meloni.
Please keep hammering that point, Alan, again and again. I get tired of doing so.
There isn't a snowball in hell's chance of them having us back, and with good reason. Talk of rejoining is therefore poppycock. Why would anybody even raise it?
There are fewer more pro-EU posters on this site than me, and even I wouldn't support rejoining, not least because I am a believer in the idea that if you make the bed, you should lie in it. More kindly put, that means that we voted democratically to join and should abide by that decision, even if people like me think it was dumb. But since they won't have us back anyway, we don't even have to discuss it.
That doesn't mean we should develop a more constructive relationship with the EU. That's just common sense. I expect the EU would be up for that too, not least because they were partly to bame for the disater that was Brexit. But rejoin? That's fairyland, and nobody should think otherwise.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
Total airy-fairy nonsense. With the exception of 'No new IT projects' those are all on a par with Sunak's 'cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion'. Taking Quangos for example, you need to list all the quangos that are going to be cut, how much each will save, and what, if any, downsides there are.
Mythical vague reform and efficiencies, especially many promised before, will save us!
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
The problem with rejoiner faction is their underlying assumption that we can rejoin on exactly the same terms as we left. That is never going to happen, and the terms we would get might not be ones that a majority would want to agree to.
I don't think either of those statements is true.
I don't think we would rejoin on the same terms.
I don't think different terms can never have majority support.
Agreed. I think we would have to join the Euro and Schengen. I doubt the country's ready for that yet but in 20 years time maybe?
Ah the dreamy days of the continent is cut off without us.
Why is it you never ask if the EU wants the UK back ? All evidence suggests they had enough and rejoining is not on the cards. Well not unless PM Farage can call in a favour from Giorgia Meloni.
Right now, I think the EU has no serious interest in us rejoining, just as we have no serious interest in rejoining it. But things change over time. We weren't wanted in the EEC in 1963, but we did join in 1973, for example. 20 years of less antagonistic interactions plus fixing the worst of the economic barriers we saddled ourselves with, accepted as normal by both major parties here, and things might look different to both us and the EU. Or we might find we've got somewhere good enough and stay there. Or the EU might itself have changed in some hard to foresee ways. The future is hard to predict...
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
The problem with rejoiner faction is their underlying assumption that we can rejoin on exactly the same terms as we left. That is never going to happen, and the terms we would get might not be ones that a majority would want to agree to.
I don't think either of those statements is true.
I don't think we would rejoin on the same terms.
I don't think different terms can never have majority support.
Agreed. I think we would have to join the Euro and Schengen. I doubt the country's ready for that yet but in 20 years time maybe?
Ah the dreamy days of the continent is cut off without us.
Why is it you never ask if the EU wants the UK back ? All evidence suggests they had enough and rejoining is not on the cards. Well not unless PM Farage can call in a favour from Giorgia Meloni.
We're agreed though, shirley? In 20 years time ≠ 'on the cards'.
I think the refusal of both parties to mention the B-word in this campaign - for reasons we’ve gone over before - shames them. History will not judge them kindly.
This election will see the revenge of the 48%. They will swing behind Labour/LD, voting tactically to unseat the Tories. A big chunk of the Brexit true believers, the deluded irreconcilables who think the Tories botched Brexit by not doing it properly, will drink the Reform PLC Kool-Aid.
And that eviscerates the Tories.
That’s what the history books will say, I reckon.
Anyway, the Shrimsley piece tickles my fancy. Here’s the conclusion:
It is just nonsense. The Tories were fine after Brexit and were riding high in the polls. What screwed them was Johnson's COVID shenanigans and the disastrous Truss budget. The Eurofanatics want to blame everything in Brexit. They still can't accept that the UK has had better economic growth and unemploymemt than the EU since we fully Brexited.
Former French President Francois Hollande was interviewed on Sky yesterday and affirmed that there is no way the EU will reopen negotiations for UK to rejoin
This is the point for those who want to rejoin, the EU doesn't want us back
I think they would ultimately allow us to rejoin. The problem with rejoiner faction is their underlying assumption that we can rejoin on exactly the same terms as we left. That is never going to happen, and the terms we would get might not be ones that a majority would want to agree to.
The only terms that might get past the rest of Europe are simple. Join under the current rules as a new entrant.
Looking at Reform and Cons polling within 2% of each other (17% and 19% respectively) - what would be a point where between the two of them the showing is relatively good, but both of them collapse in terms of seat numbers due to FPTP? I assume if they both polled equal at ~17% that could potentially stop either party getting any / a significant number of seats. Whilst I am not looking forward to this Labour super majority government, I do feel that the extinction of the Conservative party is a long time coming.
If you’re transiting through LAX, literally 4 hours on a two leg flight booking and (hope to God) not stepping outside the airport, would you apply for an ETSA waiver or a C1 transit visa?
The opinions of a single aged French political has been are totally irrelevant. Recent opinion poll of the German population showed that the Germans are strongly in favour of the UK rejoining the EU.
The EU will not blindly reject a net contributor to the budget given who is on the current provisional membership list. But there would be no going back to what we had before, that is for sure. It's a process from here. We'll just get closer over time and then UK demographics will do the rest. Look at support for rejoining among the under-50s.
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
Just to be clear, the Tory right, kipper entryists and ex-communists bear none of the responsibility and it is all the fault of Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine and Rory Stewart. Got it.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Streetings plan for the Reform of the NHS has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and involves handing more NHS money to profits of private sector.
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
I think the refusal of both parties to mention the B-word in this campaign - for reasons we’ve gone over before - shames them. History will not judge them kindly.
This election will see the revenge of the 48%. They will swing behind Labour/LD, voting tactically to unseat the Tories. A big chunk of the Brexit true believers, the deluded irreconcilables who think the Tories botched Brexit by not doing it properly, will drink the Reform PLC Kool-Aid.
And that eviscerates the Tories.
That’s what the history books will say, I reckon.
Anyway, the Shrimsley piece tickles my fancy. Here’s the conclusion:
It is just nonsense. The Tories were fine after Brexit and were riding high in the polls. What screwed them was Johnson's COVID shenanigans and the disastrous Truss budget. The Eurofanatics want to blame everything in Brexit. They still can't accept that the UK has had better economic growth and unemploymemt than the EU since we fully Brexited.
Put another way, the Tories were fine until they ran into problems - as every single government does. When they did they did not have the ability to deal with them in the ways the would have done in the past because ideology had become more important than pragmatism. That made rejecting the rule of law more important than accepting it. Sunak made Suella Braverman Home Secretary. He did so because he felt he had no choice not because she was even remotely capable of doing the job.
If COVID hadn’t happened the Tories would have still run into trouble, Boris’ fantasies would have encountered inconvenient realities eventually.
@ConnorGillies Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has called an emergency press conference to deliver an ‘announcement’ regarding the general election.
Perhaps the positive predictions for Scottish Conservatives need to be revisited.
Indeed rumours that Mr Ross is inserting himself into the seat from which David Duguid was vacated yesterday. If so the Scottish Tories should be comprehensively pulverised.
If you’re transiting through LAX, literally 4 hours on a two leg flight booking and (hope to God) not stepping outside the airport, would you apply for an ETSA waiver or a C1 transit visa?
(Passport all tickety boo and biometric)
Experienced answers appreciated, thanks. xx
It may be tough to get an ESTA as you need to provide an address in the US for your first stay. I am not sure if you can put an airport. But if you can get past that, the ESTA is pretty easy to sort out. I did one the other day and it took a few hours to get after a 15 minute form-filling exercise.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
Total airy-fairy nonsense. With the exception of 'No new IT projects' those are all on a par with Sunak's 'cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion'. Taking Quangos for example, you need to list all the quangos that are going to be cut, how much each will save, and what, if any, downsides there are.
And HS2 has already been cancelled. Though not before we'd incurred most of the expense for none of the benefits.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
We spend about three times that apparently - the last published report only goes to 2020.
@ConnorGillies Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has called an emergency press conference to deliver an ‘announcement’ regarding the general election.
Perhaps the positive predictions for Scottish Conservatives need to be revisited.
Indeed rumours that Mr Ross is inserting himself into the seat from which David Duguid was vacated yesterday. If so the Scottish Tories should be comprehensively pulverised.
That would be a massive own goal. Scottish Tories are doing ok.
I think the refusal of both parties to mention the B-word in this campaign - for reasons we’ve gone over before - shames them. History will not judge them kindly.
This election will see the revenge of the 48%. They will swing behind Labour/LD, voting tactically to unseat the Tories. A big chunk of the Brexit true believers, the deluded irreconcilables who think the Tories botched Brexit by not doing it properly, will drink the Reform PLC Kool-Aid.
And that eviscerates the Tories.
That’s what the history books will say, I reckon.
Anyway, the Shrimsley piece tickles my fancy. Here’s the conclusion:
It is just nonsense. The Tories were fine after Brexit and were riding high in the polls. What screwed them was Johnson's COVID shenanigans and the disastrous Truss budget. The Eurofanatics want to blame everything in Brexit. They still can't accept that the UK has had better economic growth and unemploymemt than the EU since we fully Brexited.
Put another way, the Tories were fine until they ran into problems - as every single government does. When they did they did not have the ability to deal with them in the ways the would have done in the past because ideology had become more important than pragmatism. That made rejecting the rule of law more important than accepting it. Sunak made Suella Braverman Home Secretary. He did so because he felt he had no choice not because she was even remotely capable of doing the job.
As noted elsewhere, the Tory Party is a victim of Brexit.
They wholly embraced the idea that wishes were all that mattered. We have had enough of experts, and we can use alternative facts.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
The problem with efficiency savings is that they need to be carefully identified. That takes work and effort and so management tend to just cut blindly, assuming the 'waste' will be the first thing to go in a reduced budget. When applied lazily and haphazardly the cuts tend to just reduce the capacity to deliver whatever the cut service is supposed to deliver. Universities, as talked about on here, are essentially doing this at the moment and it's hollowing out both research and teaching.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
That's down to Covid and the interest rate spikes to fight inflation. Don't forget that.
Look at the forecasts for budget balance beforehand, in 2019.
The energy cap was another major contributor. Martin Lewis is truly an enemy of the people.
But the current fiscal targets are a joke promising to be good one day. The reputation of the Tories for being sound on finance has taken a hell of a dunt in this Parliament and will take quite some time to recover.
You say the energy price cap was bad - but the alternative would have been soaring bills anyway, so people would have been worse off either way. The alternative to a cap was just letting the worst off default on their bills, more energy companies going bust and people having their electricity turned off?
The reason that this is clearly a Tory issue is that they had Treasury brain - so the benefits of spending if too intangible are just ignored. Infrastructure spending would increase economic growth, productivity, general health, etc etc. which would grow the economy. All Treasury sees is spending. This mindset needs to end.
Like far too much of our expenditure the energy cap was badly directed by being universal. Any government support should have been focused on those in need. The majority should just have grinned and bore it. Instead tens of billions were, once again, chucked on the credit card for our benighted children to pay.
I agree with @Alanbrooke that there must be room for increases in productivity and savings, especially after such a long period of rapid growth in spending, but I also think we need to be much more radical about how we cut current spending, not least to allow us to increase capital spending on infrastructure etc as you point out.
The Universal state pension is, to me, an obvious target. Anyone receiving other income of more than double average earnings, whether because they are still working or because of private or state pensions, should not be receiving it.
We need to make people pay for their care in old age rather than leave hundreds of thousands as inheritance after the State has picked up the tab.
Without fundamental changes like this there is no capacity for the likes of HS2 and therefore few opportunities to encourage future growth.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
We spend about three times that apparently - the last published report only goes to 2020.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
That's down to Covid and the interest rate spikes to fight inflation. Don't forget that.
Look at the forecasts for budget balance beforehand, in 2019.
The energy cap was another major contributor. Martin Lewis is truly an enemy of the people.
But the current fiscal targets are a joke promising to be good one day. The reputation of the Tories for being sound on finance has taken a hell of a dunt in this Parliament and will take quite some time to recover.
I think maybe 'taken a hell of a dunt' = 'been totally destroyed', and 'take quite some time' = 'never'.
Well, lets see if Labour do any better. I am not holding my breathe.
The opinions of a single aged French political has been are totally irrelevant. Recent opinion poll of the German population showed that the Germans are strongly in favour of the UK rejoining the EU.
The EU will not blindly reject a net contributor to the budget given who is on the current provisional membership list. But there would be no going back to what we had before, that is for sure. It's a process from here. We'll just get closer over time and then UK demographics will do the rest. Look at support for rejoining among the under-50s.
This is the point. It's often claimed that people become more conservative, and thus Conservative, as they age - and maybe so. But what is going to turn the under 50s into Eurosceptics while we are not in the EU? (Hint: nothing)
I would love to see odds on the first by election of the next parliament. I still see Sunak retaining his seat, but come the end of July I do not see him as leader of the Tories. Is he really going to stay an MP for five years in opposition? But it would leave one of the most interesting by election fights in years. A Tory party in turmoil and a Labour party of ‘change’ which has a huge majority. I suspect that both the Lib Dem’s and Reform would fancy it and at the right odds one of them having the constituency MP at Christmas 2024 would be an interesting bet.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Streetings plan for the Reform of the NHS has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and involves handing more NHS money to profits of private sector.
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
If he can get rid of the utterly moronic “call at precisely 0800hrs or get to fuck” system that they have currently, he’ll have made massive progress already.
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
An odd, and untrue argument. An election is about to be won from the centre. The Tory's long term reputation is based on moderation, decency and competence. They win elections on two great foundations: the middle class suburban and rural centre right vote, and winning floating votes from Labour inclined moderates who in a particular moment find the Tories a better option.
A couple of million centre right voters plan to vote Labour this time. How many normally Labour floaters plan to vote Tory? Roughly zero. This is not because the Tories are too centrist or too competent for them.
@Peter_the_Punter strong words. Not in some ways your best if I may say. The ‘make your bed lie in it’ argument is particularly weak.
I would expect us to rejoin eventually, perhaps c. 20 years, maybe less. The economic arguments will be compelling as will freedom of movement.
Agree about the twenty years, though not about the reasoning.
Vibes got us out, and vibes will pull us back in. Nostalgia for a youth of war stories drove Brexit, nostalgia for a youth of school language exchanges is driving the yearning for Brejoin. We're all as irrational as each other.
If Brexit really were brilliant, that could have cemented it, but it isn't. In the meantime, we have to tiptoe round the subject, because otherwise Uncle Nigel will go off on one about how ungrateful the youth of today are after all the sacrifices he made.
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
On seats though even if Reform are level pegging with the Tories or even slightly ahead of the Tories on voteshare, the Tories still win significantly more seats than Reform, Labour and the LDs however win even more seats with a split right.
Anyway, I suspect his return to leadership was peak Farage in the polls. He will decline as the Starmer v Sunak debates from which he is excluded continue and the Conservatives probably win back a few voters from Reform and the LDs if as is likely the Tory manifesto promises a big IHT cut
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
No new IT projects but productivity improvements - how the f*** does that work....
Thanks for confirming in 1 post my believe that you are absolutely f***ing clueless..
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
That's down to Covid and the interest rate spikes to fight inflation. Don't forget that.
Look at the forecasts for budget balance beforehand, in 2019.
The energy cap was another major contributor. Martin Lewis is truly an enemy of the people.
But the current fiscal targets are a joke promising to be good one day. The reputation of the Tories for being sound on finance has taken a hell of a dunt in this Parliament and will take quite some time to recover.
You say the energy price cap was bad - but the alternative would have been soaring bills anyway, so people would have been worse off either way. The alternative to a cap was just letting the worst off default on their bills, more energy companies going bust and people having their electricity turned off?
The reason that this is clearly a Tory issue is that they had Treasury brain - so the benefits of spending if too intangible are just ignored. Infrastructure spending would increase economic growth, productivity, general health, etc etc. which would grow the economy. All Treasury sees is spending. This mindset needs to end.
Like far too much of our expenditure the energy cap was badly directed by being universal. Any government support should have been focused on those in need. The majority should just have grinned and bore it. Instead tens of billions were, once again, chucked on the credit card for our benighted children to pay.
I agree with @Alanbrooke that there must be room for increases in productivity and savings, especially after such a long period of rapid growth in spending, but I also think we need to be much more radical about how we cut current spending, not least to allow us to increase capital spending on infrastructure etc as you point out.
The Universal state pension is, to me, an obvious target. Anyone receiving other income of more than double average earnings, whether because they are still working or because of private or state pensions, should not be receiving it.
We need to make people pay for their care in old age rather than leave hundreds of thousands as inheritance after the State has picked up the tab.
Without fundamental changes like this there is no capacity for the likes of HS2 and therefore few opportunities to encourage future growth.
Making an emergency payment for soaring prices means tested would a) have slowed down the payments getting to those in need and b) would likely have costed more to administer than would have been saved. Universalisation of such support is typically a cost saver - and any people who really got money they didn't need would have likely spent it back in the economy, boosting growth and being useful.
I don't see cutting things that help those who cannot work (the elderly) as a useful intervention. If anything we need more funding for that kind of work, as supporting those people is itself a job that needs doing and can be a source of pro social work. If you remove support for the elderly, their working age family are the ones who pick up the slack (as I well know) and that itself becomes a drag on productivity.
The UK can afford a robust social safety net system, robust social services, decent healthcare and public transport, without having to pick a group of people to immiserate. The wealth exists, it is in the hands of the exceedingly wealthy. Taxation on wealth and land, on empty or second (or third) homes, on financialised assets that do nothing but breed gold from barren gold - these are the places any sensible government would focus on. You will make the extremely wealthy marginally less wealthy - but not to the point of them being unable to cope.
I think the refusal of both parties to mention the B-word in this campaign - for reasons we’ve gone over before - shames them. History will not judge them kindly.
This election will see the revenge of the 48%. They will swing behind Labour/LD, voting tactically to unseat the Tories. A big chunk of the Brexit true believers, the deluded irreconcilables who think the Tories botched Brexit by not doing it properly, will drink the Reform PLC Kool-Aid.
And that eviscerates the Tories.
That’s what the history books will say, I reckon.
Anyway, the Shrimsley piece tickles my fancy. Here’s the conclusion:
It is just nonsense. The Tories were fine after Brexit and were riding high in the polls. What screwed them was Johnson's COVID shenanigans and the disastrous Truss budget. The Eurofanatics want to blame everything in Brexit. They still can't accept that the UK has had better economic growth and unemploymemt than the EU since we fully Brexited.
Former French President Francois Hollande was interviewed on Sky yesterday and affirmed that there is no way the EU will reopen negotiations for UK to rejoin
This is the point for those who want to rejoin, the EU doesn't want us back
Sure, it's a long road back, and the best approach is the LD one of rejoining slowly by individual measure and programme. There is a need to establish positive relations before any formal bid to Rejoin can be started.
The obliteration of the Tory party will help improve relations in itself.
Ironically he was expressing great concern over the rise in the right across EU and obliterate the conservative party you are left with Farage Reform
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
The problem with efficiency savings is that they need to be carefully identified. That takes work and effort and so management tend to just cut blindly, assuming the 'waste' will be the first thing to go in a reduced budget. When applied lazily and haphazardly the cuts tend to just reduce the capacity to deliver whatever the cut service is supposed to deliver. Universities, as talked about on here, are essentially doing this at the moment and it's hollowing out both research and teaching.
Its worse than that. The typical efficiency saving of the last decade goes something like this:
Organisation cuts headcount, paying out redundancy. Resultant workload pressures lead to experienced staff leave and/or take absence on long term stress. Now with staff shortages they have little choice but to pay 2-3x salary to rehire the same people who have left as contractors. Current salaried workforce get annoyed by the differentials on pay and go on strike, or become contractors themselves.
It just has cost us loads more, hence record investment in NHS but worse service, as one example. If we had seriously budgeted what we need, then paid for it we would be better off now than having a decade of top down austerity (a short burst was needed after the GFC). In parallel we should be working out sustainable ways of reducing costs (i.e. training 2x more doctors an obvious example, using more tech in healthcare another) - but those solutions come along as and when they do, not when politicians decide the budget looks better by reducing departmental budgets by 15% immediately.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
No new IT projects but productivity improvements - how the f*** does that work....
Thanks for confirming in 1 post my believe that you are absolutely f***ing clueless..
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
It is until you realise that Quangos do not burn money for fun. They provide essential services and support in a way designed to limit political interference and improve impartiality. If you take the service inhouse the vast majority of the cost remains and politicians start being accountable for things they really don't have a grip of.
Korea and the U.S. agreed to form the alliance during their dialogue on core emerging technologies in December, and expanded it to include Japan, India and the EU.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
We spend about three times that apparently - the last published report only goes to 2020.
See above comment about HS2 - that falls under the definition.
The £82 billion is fantasy. It's more than we spend on Defence. We spend £100 billion on education. £40 billion on the police. £140 billion on social security for pensioners.
The £82 billion simply describes some public services provided via arms length organisations. And I am a massive fan of such organisations - they have a democratic mandate but avoid all the micro-meddling from politicians and civil servants, with all the confused objectives and values that comes with.
Lothian Buses my special favourite - provide good bus services, do not make an operating loss. Simple. Perfect.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
We spend about three times that apparently - the last published report only goes to 2020.
See above comment about HS2 - that falls under the definition.
The £82 billion is fantasy. It's more than we spend on Defence. We spend £100 billion on education. £40 billion on the police. £140 billion on social security for pensioners.
The £82 billion simply describes some public services provided via arms length organisations. And I am a massive fan of such organisations - they have a democratic mandate but avoid all the micro-meddling from politicians and civil servants. Lothian Buses my special favourite.
I don't like that the last public report into quango finances was in 2020, and that the Cabinet Office can simply hold future ones back. Perhaps we need an OBR style quango for quango finance. QFQF.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
It is until you realise that Quangos do not burn money for fun. They provide essential services and support in a way designed to limit political interference and improve impartiality. If you take the service inhouse the vast majority of the cost remains and politicians start being accountable for things they really don't have a grip of.
The opinions of a single aged French political has been are totally irrelevant. Recent opinion poll of the German population showed that the Germans are strongly in favour of the UK rejoining the EU.
The EU will not blindly reject a net contributor to the budget given who is on the current provisional membership list. But there would be no going back to what we had before, that is for sure. It's a process from here. We'll just get closer over time and then UK demographics will do the rest. Look at support for rejoining among the under-50s.
This is the point. It's often claimed that people become more conservative, and thus Conservative, as they age - and maybe so. But what is going to turn the under 50s into Eurosceptics while we are not in the EU? (Hint: nothing)
Progressivism. Joining a Eurocentric club as we become less and less European will be increasingly toxic to the progressive left.
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
On seats though even if Reform are level pegging with the Tories or even slightly ahead of the Tories on voteshare, the Tories still win significantly more seats than Reform, Labour and the LDs however win even more seats with a split right.
Anyway, I suspect his return to leadership was peak Farage in the polls. He will decline as the Starmer v Sunak debates from which he is excluded continue and the Conservatives probably win back a few voters from Reform and the LDs if as is likely the Tory manifesto promises a big IHT cut
I don't think IHT is as unpopular as conservatives think it is. One, because most people are already safe from it because who has half a million worth of assets to gift the next generation that they aren't already having to dip into to make ends meet, and two, because it is the very definition of unearned wealth. Income tax bands you can at least go "I work hard for my money, why should it be taxed so high?", with inheritance it's just a case of rich people passing on their money to their kids so they stay rich.
I will probably have to pay some inheritance tax at some point when my grandparents pass away - they are splitting their only asset (their house) between 7 grandkids and my aunt. The house is only worth the ridiculous amount it is because it is within the M25 and the housing market is stupid. If we have to pay some tax - so be it. Again, I'd rather a functioning society than a bit more change in my pocket. The only people who really gripe about it are those who are already wedded to the "no such thing as society" mentality - the extremely wealthy who are all "I've got mine, Jack". If anything I think lots of people would be fine with inheritance tax increasing, especially on estates over £5 or £10 million.
@Peter_the_Punter strong words. Not in some ways your best if I may say. The ‘make your bed lie in it’ argument is particularly weak.
I would expect us to rejoin eventually, perhaps c. 20 years, maybe less. The economic arguments will be compelling as will freedom of movement.
I'm unlikely to be around in 20 years, Heathy, so Brexit is permanent for me. That's an absurdly long time span anyway, even for you young folk.
As for the bed, it's part of being a voter in a democracy. You have to accept responsibility for your decisions if you are to avoid making them frivolously. Those of us who voted remain bear some responsibility for not making a better case. It's not just the fault of those who voted leave, entirely rationally in many instances. We all made the bed. We all have to lie in it, but by all means make it as comfortable as possible now that it is done.
Scottish Conservative leader @Douglas4Moray will stand in Aberdeenshire North and East Moray
Good grief. Is he giving up his position as Scottish leader and seat at Holyrood then?
Of course not! He will be a part-time MP. The north east gets ignored as it is - investment in the central belt or England. Crumbling public services and infrastructure. Farming, fishing, energy - just political footballs.
So here we go. Brutally deselect your colleague to impose yourself. And then demand the loyalty of voters.
The opinions of a single aged French political has been are totally irrelevant. Recent opinion poll of the German population showed that the Germans are strongly in favour of the UK rejoining the EU.
The EU will not blindly reject a net contributor to the budget given who is on the current provisional membership list. But there would be no going back to what we had before, that is for sure. It's a process from here. We'll just get closer over time and then UK demographics will do the rest. Look at support for rejoining among the under-50s.
This is the point. It's often claimed that people become more conservative, and thus Conservative, as they age - and maybe so. But what is going to turn the under 50s into Eurosceptics while we are not in the EU? (Hint: nothing)
Progressivism. Joining a Eurocentric club as we become less and less European will be increasingly toxic to the progressive left.
I wonder why nobody else has ever thought of this. Such piercing insight.
In the unlikely event of our successfully reforming defence procurement, we probably wouldn't save money anyway. Though we might end up with a more effective military.
The opinions of a single aged French political has been are totally irrelevant. Recent opinion poll of the German population showed that the Germans are strongly in favour of the UK rejoining the EU.
The EU will not blindly reject a net contributor to the budget given who is on the current provisional membership list. But there would be no going back to what we had before, that is for sure. It's a process from here. We'll just get closer over time and then UK demographics will do the rest. Look at support for rejoining among the under-50s.
This is the point. It's often claimed that people become more conservative, and thus Conservative, as they age - and maybe so. But what is going to turn the under 50s into Eurosceptics while we are not in the EU? (Hint: nothing)
Progressivism. Joining a Eurocentric club as we become less and less European will be increasingly toxic to the progressive left.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
The struggle is real Comrade.
GP practises are private businesses. Owned and managed by the partners and providing a service to the NHS. But, yeah, Tories.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Yeah - the daily interactions people have with services, whether that's health, education, policing, etc. are much worse than 10 - 15 years ago. The Tories oversaw and are responsible for that.
@hzeffman Breaking: The Conservatives accepted £5 million from the controversial donor Frank Hester's company in January, new Electoral Commission figures show.
It follows £10 million of donations last year
Perhaps, but Labours going to take £2000 from every voter.
Probably more.
Quite possible, given the precedent our current government has just set.
The average household is paying £3,500 more in tax now than in 2019. The biggest tax raising parliament in UK history.
And I don’t blame the Tories for doing this. They probably should have raised more. Our public infrastructure, services and local government are on their knees after years of no investment.
Or were raising record taxes but spending it on the wrong things.
What would CoE Alanbrooke have stopped spending money on?
Woke diversity consultants in the NHS?
I answered this yesterday - some examples
Major cutback on Quangos theres £82billion to go at Restructure the BoE debt No new IT projects for the duration of parliament - they always overrun Reform MoD procurement for more value for money Restore public sector productivity instead of losing 2% a year
The government spends £1200 billion a year. If youre saying you couldnt find efficiencies in that sum then stay away from management.
If you dont actively go looking for savings you wont find them.
And just to finish off some of the savings need to be put back in to spending on issues like infrastructure which longer term create further savings through productivity
It's extraordinary that after 14 years of Conservative government, we still spend £82 billion on quangos. /s
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
It is until you realise that Quangos do not burn money for fun. They provide essential services and support in a way designed to limit political interference and improve impartiality. If you take the service inhouse the vast majority of the cost remains and politicians start being accountable for things they really don't have a grip of.
I suspect Dave retains the view, Labour quangos are profligate whilst Conservative quangos are top value for money.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Streetings plan for the Reform of the NHS has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and involves handing more NHS money to profits of private sector.
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
This is the conundrum of FPTP and the UK. The Conservative party deserves to be taken out behind the bike shed and be put down - that seems to be clear to even many of its voters. The Labour party is not offering much better, but the duopoly reigns and they are the "only alternative". My concern is come 2029 the far right will have made a big come back in the wake of Labour failures to improve the lives of people on a material level. Labour giving the franchise to 16yos may hold this off, but the young are also disillusioned with politics and are willing to turn to a far right source if it means shaking things up (see Trump's better ratings amongst younger voters than typical GOP polling). Long term Labour would be better off bringing in PR and accepting a role as the likeliest biggest player in a more continental style of government where they would work with Greens and LDs, shifting the country towards a more social democratic model. They won't, because they're neoliberalists to the core, but they should.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Streetings plan for the Reform of the NHS has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and involves handing more NHS money to profits of private sector.
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
I understand he is to widely use the private sector but better not tell his leader who apparently would let a loved one suffer even if he could and maybe should use the private sector
A news report from an academic source yesterday made the claim that we have 5 years to something something about CO2 to avert catastrophe. I think the story vanished fairly fast.
Two questions arise from this regularly occurring sort of story.
Does anyone keep a record of for how long and how many times we have been told we have X (small number) of years to do Y (massive decrease/elimination) about CO2 to avert catastrophe. (I think this began in the 1990s)
At what point does everyone publicly agree that this isn't going to happen as 2023 was a record year for CO2 output and it isn't going to change much within X (small number) years and even when it does CO2 continues to accumulate, even if a bit slower.
Scottish Conservative leader @Douglas4Moray will stand in Aberdeenshire North and East Moray
Good grief. Is he giving up his position as Scottish leader and seat at Holyrood then?
He's been MP for Moray for the last 7 years without any detriment to his SCon leadership and seat at Holyrood (or football refereeing for that matter), so..
"Nigel Farage may be about to pull off a once-in-a-century political realignment
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
On seats though even if Reform are level pegging with the Tories or even slightly ahead of the Tories on voteshare, the Tories still win significantly more seats than Reform, Labour and the LDs however win even more seats with a split right.
Anyway, I suspect his return to leadership was peak Farage in the polls. He will decline as the Starmer v Sunak debates from which he is excluded continue and the Conservatives probably win back a few voters from Reform and the LDs if as is likely the Tory manifesto promises a big IHT cut
I don't think IHT is as unpopular as conservatives think it is. One, because most people are already safe from it because who has half a million worth of assets to gift the next generation that they aren't already having to dip into to make ends meet, and two, because it is the very definition of unearned wealth. Income tax bands you can at least go "I work hard for my money, why should it be taxed so high?", with inheritance it's just a case of rich people passing on their money to their kids so they stay rich.
I will probably have to pay some inheritance tax at some point when my grandparents pass away - they are splitting their only asset (their house) between 7 grandkids and my aunt. The house is only worth the ridiculous amount it is because it is within the M25 and the housing market is stupid. If we have to pay some tax - so be it. Again, I'd rather a functioning society than a bit more change in my pocket. The only people who really gripe about it are those who are already wedded to the "no such thing as society" mentality - the extremely wealthy who are all "I've got mine, Jack". If anything I think lots of people would be fine with inheritance tax increasing, especially on estates over £5 or £10 million.
In support of your opening line I give you Mrs PtP, who has no dependent relatives. She is perfectly happy for the State to tax her wealth when she is gone, not least because it has provided her with a safe and generally healthy and happy environment throughout her life.
That seems to me a perfectly sensible outlook, at least as sensible as leaving it all to The Dogs Trust (which would be the second contender.) It may not be a widely accepted view, but I doubt she is alone in thinking that way.
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Streetings plan for the Reform of the NHS has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and involves handing more NHS money to profits of private sector.
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
If he can get rid of the utterly moronic “call at precisely 0800hrs or get to fuck” system that they have currently, he’ll have made massive progress already.
I dont think you have been paying attention to his reform agenda
Even private health CEOs have told him it's no chance of working
Have you even read his Reform plan or is it bound to improve stuff cos he has a red rosette?
Do your homework scrutinise the plan then if you want to proclaim, let's talk
Scottish Conservative leader @Douglas4Moray will stand in Aberdeenshire North and East Moray
Good grief. Is he giving up his position as Scottish leader and seat at Holyrood then?
Of course not! He will be a part-time MP. The north east gets ignored as it is - investment in the central belt or England. Crumbling public services and infrastructure. Farming, fishing, energy - just political footballs.
So here we go. Brutally deselect your colleague to impose yourself. And then demand the loyalty of voters.
Re your tweet - you might need tgo explain why he is being so disdainful. No mention of Mr Duguid once and not now at all future MP.
If you’re transiting through LAX, literally 4 hours on a two leg flight booking and (hope to God) not stepping outside the airport, would you apply for an ETSA waiver or a C1 transit visa?
I have been trying to book a GP appointment for my son for the last 45 mins. Online system has stopped taking appointments and the phone just keeps on ringing. This is what folks face everyday thanks to the Tories.
The usual right-wing fruit loops on here will continue to pretend there is nothing wrong and still put the x against the Conservatives. I actually pity them as they obviously need some kind of help. At least one of this group, @Leon has called a spade a spade and wants the Tories destroyed. His reasoning is wrong, immigration is not the main issue, it’s the fact that the Tories have completely and utterly Ratnered this country over the last 14 years.
Hopefully they will end up with less 15 seats but my betting position is 100-150 seats.
Yeah - the daily interactions people have with services, whether that's health, education, policing, etc. are much worse than 10 - 15 years ago. The Tories oversaw and are responsible for that.
Not here in Wales which is worse than England
Funding of Wales is still dictated by Westminster - even if the administration is self governed. And from the polling (and anecdotal evidence from family in Wales), it isn't seen as just Labour's fault and they don't seem to be interested in voting against Labour because of it.
Your regular reminder that Douglas Ross, when asked what he would do if PM for a day "with no consequences", could think of nothing better to do than harass a persecuted minority group.
Tbf he's not doing much for the morale of that persecuted minority group, the SCons.
@ConnorGillies Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has called an emergency press conference to deliver an ‘announcement’ regarding the general election.
Perhaps the positive predictions for Scottish Conservatives need to be revisited.
Indeed rumours that Mr Ross is inserting himself into the seat from which David Duguid was vacated yesterday. If so the Scottish Tories should be comprehensively pulverised.
What are the dynamics of seats that are straight fights between the Conservatives and SNP, where both parties are losing votes to Labour who aren't in contention?
🚨Defection Green to Conservative🚨myself and local colleagues are delighted to welcome Councillor Bernadette Donnelly to @solboroughcons. Bernadette will be a wonderful addition to our already dynamic and hard-working local team here in Solihull.
Comments
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/byron-donalds-nostalgia-jim-crow-00161786
...“During Jim Crow the Black family was together,” Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, and criticized decades-old policies from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson for promoting a culture of dependence. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were — not just conservative, because Black people always have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”..
The reason that this is clearly a Tory issue is that they had Treasury brain - so the benefits of spending if too intangible are just ignored. Infrastructure spending would increase economic growth, productivity, general health, etc etc. which would grow the economy. All Treasury sees is spending. This mindset needs to end.
There isn't a snowball in hell's chance of them having us back, and with good reason. Talk of rejoining is therefore poppycock. Why would anybody even raise it?
There are fewer more pro-EU posters on this site than me, and even I wouldn't support rejoining, not least because I am a believer in the idea that if you make the bed, you should lie in it. More kindly put, that means that we voted democratically to join and should abide by that decision, even if people like me think it was dumb. But since they won't have us back anyway, we don't even have to discuss it.
That doesn't mean we should develop a more constructive relationship with the EU. That's just common sense. I expect the EU would be up for that too, not least because they were partly to bame for the disater that was Brexit. But rejoin? That's fairyland, and nobody should think otherwise.
We could be just days away from a tipping point in the polls when Reform overtakes the Conservatives"
"Farage’s re-entry into British politics has set off a chain reaction with uncontrollable and unpredictable consequences. The Tories are on the verge of being sucked into a death spiral. The wets and other centrist-dad wannabes must face facts: they bear full responsibility for the possible demise of their once great party."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/05/tory-left-driving-party-to-annihilation-at-farage-hands/
Remember Cameron's "bonfire"? That was only worth £0.5 billion.
If you’re transiting through LAX, literally 4 hours on a two leg flight booking and (hope to God) not stepping outside the airport, would you apply for an ETSA waiver or a C1 transit visa?
(Passport all tickety boo and biometric)
Experienced answers appreciated, thanks. xx
Such as his donors.
I look forward to you commenting on the improvements in this area 1 year in.
Though not before we'd incurred most of the expense for none of the benefits.
I would expect us to rejoin eventually, perhaps c. 20 years, maybe less. The economic arguments will be compelling as will freedom of movement.
Unreformed for decades, with councils, both tory and labour, going under - property tax and council funding is a total f*cking mess.
We will no doubt end up with Lab matching this and another wasted five years of local government collapsing.
https://capx.co/quelling-our-quangos-could-save-billions/
They wholly embraced the idea that wishes were all that mattered. We have had enough of experts, and we can use alternative facts.
Reality beckons...
Nothing wrong with being old. You’ve paid your dues and done your bit. But don’t become so fossilised that you stop journeying.
Otherwise you’re left behind on the platform.
xx
I agree with @Alanbrooke that there must be room for increases in productivity and savings, especially after such a long period of rapid growth in spending, but I also think we need to be much more radical about how we cut current spending, not least to allow us to increase capital spending on infrastructure etc as you point out.
The Universal state pension is, to me, an obvious target. Anyone receiving other income of more than double average earnings, whether because they are still working or because of private or state pensions, should not be receiving it.
We need to make people pay for their care in old age rather than leave hundreds of thousands as inheritance after the State has picked up the tab.
Without fundamental changes like this there is no capacity for the likes of HS2 and therefore few opportunities to encourage future growth.
But it would leave one of the most interesting by election fights in years. A Tory party in turmoil and a Labour party of ‘change’ which has a huge majority. I suspect that both the Lib Dem’s and Reform would fancy it and at the right odds one of them having the constituency MP at Christmas 2024 would be an interesting bet.
Scottish Conservative leader
@Douglas4Moray
will stand in Aberdeenshire North and East Moray
A couple of million centre right voters plan to vote Labour this time. How many normally Labour floaters plan to vote Tory? Roughly zero. This is not because the Tories are too centrist or too competent for them.
Vibes got us out, and vibes will pull us back in. Nostalgia for a youth of war stories drove Brexit, nostalgia for a youth of school language exchanges is driving the yearning for Brejoin. We're all as irrational as each other.
If Brexit really were brilliant, that could have cemented it, but it isn't. In the meantime, we have to tiptoe round the subject, because otherwise Uncle Nigel will go off on one about how ungrateful the youth of today are after all the sacrifices he made.
And nobody really wants that.
Anyway, I suspect his return to leadership was peak Farage in the polls. He will decline as the Starmer v Sunak debates from which he is excluded continue and the Conservatives probably win back a few voters from Reform and the LDs if as is likely the Tory manifesto promises a big IHT cut
No new IT projects but productivity improvements - how the f*** does that work....
Thanks for confirming in 1 post my believe that you are absolutely f***ing clueless..
I don't see cutting things that help those who cannot work (the elderly) as a useful intervention. If anything we need more funding for that kind of work, as supporting those people is itself a job that needs doing and can be a source of pro social work. If you remove support for the elderly, their working age family are the ones who pick up the slack (as I well know) and that itself becomes a drag on productivity.
The UK can afford a robust social safety net system, robust social services, decent healthcare and public transport, without having to pick a group of people to immiserate. The wealth exists, it is in the hands of the exceedingly wealthy. Taxation on wealth and land, on empty or second (or third) homes, on financialised assets that do nothing but breed gold from barren gold - these are the places any sensible government would focus on. You will make the extremely wealthy marginally less wealthy - but not to the point of them being unable to cope.
Organisation cuts headcount, paying out redundancy.
Resultant workload pressures lead to experienced staff leave and/or take absence on long term stress.
Now with staff shortages they have little choice but to pay 2-3x salary to rehire the same people who have left as contractors.
Current salaried workforce get annoyed by the differentials on pay and go on strike, or become contractors themselves.
It just has cost us loads more, hence record investment in NHS but worse service, as one example. If we had seriously budgeted what we need, then paid for it we would be better off now than having a decade of top down austerity (a short burst was needed after the GFC). In parallel we should be working out sustainable ways of reducing costs (i.e. training 2x more doctors an obvious example, using more tech in healthcare another) - but those solutions come along as and when they do, not when politicians decide the budget looks better by reducing departmental budgets by 15% immediately.
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=376081
...The alliance was launched in response to the drug supply shortages experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Korea and the U.S. agreed to form the alliance during their dialogue on core emerging technologies in December, and expanded it to include Japan, India and the EU.
The £82 billion simply describes some public services provided via arms length organisations. And I am a massive fan of such organisations - they have a democratic mandate but avoid all the micro-meddling from politicians and civil servants, with all the confused objectives and values that comes with.
Lothian Buses my special favourite - provide good bus services, do not make an operating loss. Simple. Perfect.
Douglas Ross is standing as a conservative in your constituency
https://x.com/ianincyaak/status/1798623963960283277
Douglas Ross MSP
@Douglas4Moray ·9h
David Duguid has been a great MP, Government Minister and a true champion for his area.
As the neighbouring MP I worked closely with him and he was an excellent member of the Scottish Affairs Committee.
I wish him and his family all the very best for his continued recovery.
https://x.com/Douglas4Moray/status/1798473637496041867
I will probably have to pay some inheritance tax at some point when my grandparents pass away - they are splitting their only asset (their house) between 7 grandkids and my aunt. The house is only worth the ridiculous amount it is because it is within the M25 and the housing market is stupid. If we have to pay some tax - so be it. Again, I'd rather a functioning society than a bit more change in my pocket. The only people who really gripe about it are those who are already wedded to the "no such thing as society" mentality - the extremely wealthy who are all "I've got mine, Jack". If anything I think lots of people would be fine with inheritance tax increasing, especially on estates over £5 or £10 million.
As for the bed, it's part of being a voter in a democracy. You have to accept responsibility for your decisions if you are to avoid making them frivolously. Those of us who voted remain bear some responsibility for not making a better case. It's not just the fault of those who voted leave, entirely rationally in many instances. We all made the bed. We all have to lie in it, but by all means make it as comfortable as possible now that it is done.
https://x.com/RestIsPolitics/status/1798323366736388169
🚨 1st GE poll from @IpsosUK has Labour lead at +20 🚨
Labour 43%
Conservative 23%
Reform 9%
Greens 9%
Lib Dems 8%
Others 8%
1,014 GB adults interviewed by phone
Fieldwork dates 31st May - 4th June
So here we go. Brutally deselect your colleague to impose yourself. And then demand the loyalty of voters.
The accusation of double standards is on the money here.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/bbc-accused-of-monumental-double-standards-for-not-dropping-racist-cricket-pundit/ar-BB1nHjrf?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=e36013eb41ed424ab536870e78254e37&ei=18
GP practises are private businesses. Owned and managed by the partners and providing a service to the NHS. But, yeah, Tories.
Two questions arise from this regularly occurring sort of story.
Does anyone keep a record of for how long and how many times we have been told we have X (small number) of years to do Y (massive decrease/elimination) about CO2 to avert catastrophe. (I think this began in the 1990s)
At what point does everyone publicly agree that this isn't going to happen as 2023 was a record year for CO2 output and it isn't going to change much within X (small number) years and even when it does CO2 continues to accumulate, even if a bit slower.
@LiamThorpECHO
·
1h
It’s depressing how little child poverty is being spoken about in this election
In parts of Merseyside, more than two in three kids are living in poverty
https://x.com/LiamThorpECHO/status/1798602253944983743
Multitasker is wee Doogie.
That seems to me a perfectly sensible outlook, at least as sensible as leaving it all to The Dogs Trust (which would be the second contender.) It may not be a widely accepted view, but I doubt she is alone in thinking that way.
Even private health CEOs have told him it's no chance of working
Have you even read his Reform plan or is it bound to improve stuff cos he has a red rosette?
Do your homework scrutinise the plan then if you want to proclaim, let's talk
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visa-waiver-program.html
Either will work, but the transit visa appears to now require an interview in advance, whereas the VWP/ETSA doesn’t.
Pishy Rishi announcing it was hilarious
https://x.com/joshonyons/status/1798620880396026186?s=46
Meaningless of course but amusing.