Weren’t some PB Tories complaining this morning that the doctors had settled for an offer only a fraction above what the previous government was offering ?
I must say I was surprised to find you were in your 60s.
You thought someone my age couldn’t be so callow in their judgment ?
Are you retired or on the long slog to 67 ?
I wish. I’ll retire when I can afford it, which is a while off yet.
The scrapping of the universal winter fuel payment doesn’t bring in that much and is going to annoy a lot of people .
Not sure why Reeves decided on that .
As I mentioned previously, the danger with a lot of these small benefits are that the cost of means testing them can often eat up a huge chunk of the savings. In theory, this one should be easier, but we will see.
It is a reason why Gordon Brown didn't go around trying to mean testing stuff like weather fuel payments, free bus passes and tv licences (although the free tv licence scheme was on its own actually very expensive to administer, it would have been much way easier to just say you won't get done if you are a pensioner, no licence required).
Its often just a lot easier to fiddle around edges of tax bands, state pension, pension credits and get your money that way than just means testing who gets a bus pass.
It would be simpler and less admin-intensive to just reduce the 40% income tax threshold for pensioners by sufficient to offset the cost their fuel payments.
That wouldn't be simpler. It would have been simpler to make it and free bus passes taxable benefits
Now all bus journeys are capped at a maximum of £2, is there any real need for free bus passes?
O/T but has anyone modelled the cost to society of pensioners crashing their Jazz into everyone and everything, while getting in everyone's way V the cost of free bus passes?
True story: I need to own a truck for towing purposes but in my 50s I calculated (probably wrongly) that it was worth running an Astra too. I quickly learned that if you drift off in a small car (too slow, wrong lane, forget to indicate) you get immediate outrage and hate whereas if you are in a defender or Hilux you can do no wrong. So I will probably keep a truck forever, making 80 year old me about 5 times as lethal as I would be in a jazz.
I am pretty angry tonight. Wes Streeting specifically was asked about Dilnot and he said 2025 would go ahead as planned. "I am not in the business of tearing down stuff" was the quote to Laura K I think two weeks before election.
I think the "big idea" is to take what money is left over after cuts and tax rises and stick it on investment, banking on that delivering a bonanza in later years. Unfortunately I've heard absolutely nothing that makes me think Labour are even remotely inclined to take the sort of decisions that would unlock higher growth. I expect the government to waste an awful lot of money on relatively low growth, low risk, and in many cases unnecessary investments. Don't expect a British Google or Apple to suddenly appear out of the mists.
No sane person would give Ed Miliband £11 billion.
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
Alternatively, she has acknowledged that staff cost what they cost.
If the electorate decides it doesn't want so much stuff done, so it doesn't need so many people, fine. Let's see some proposals for that.
Otherwise, it comes down to reality vs. fantasy. And from what we've heard today, the dying months of the last government were all about fantasy numbers.
what a load of evasive crap. Reeves is simply saying one thing while doing the opposite - crying austerity while feather bedding her mates. She now looks plain shifty, Her honey moon period is fast coming to an end.
The Sunak government had these recommendations before the election was called, and sat on them.
That's evasive crap.
It's called saving money and it's pretty common across the private sector.
Not making decisions is not saving any money. A decision had to be made.
And across the private sector pay is rising, quite appropriately because we have full employment so pay SHOULD rise. Across the board. 👍
No decisions dont have to be made, stretching time is part of wage negotiations, I take it there youve never had to settle a pay round.
And you dont just hand out pay rises because a third party says so. You concentrate each year on productivity and pay what you can afford. The public sector has had no productivity gains.
No you don't.
The private sector is not five-to-six percent more productive than last year, yet that is the current rate of pay growth across the economy.
Employers pay what they need to in order to get the staff they require. Same as they do for other things. The public sector isn't immune to that.
When your milkman puts up his prices, do you get this cross with him?
You are not completely wrong, but the difference is that most people in the private sector do not demand that they, as a group of individuals, should automatically all have the same pay rise. What the public sector does is demand that all of a particular category (eg our modern entitled aristocracy, aka the medical profession) is given a pay rise en masse.
This generally doesn't happen in the private sector. If individual doctors were able to move around the country and individually argue for higher rates of pay (for the NHS that is, not their private work that they miraculously find time for), depending on where they live and the relative scarcity of their skills, then that would be good. The BMA though want to continue to have salaries that are higher than many comparable professions, the safest job security in the known universe and pensions that will give a monthly income that is three times higher than the average person earns
I am a civil servant. I live next door to a couple who are both health service workers. We do not got the same pay rises. Though we shop at the same shops, and therefore have the same "cost of living".
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
Alternatively, she has acknowledged that staff cost what they cost.
If the electorate decides it doesn't want so much stuff done, so it doesn't need so many people, fine. Let's see some proposals for that.
Otherwise, it comes down to reality vs. fantasy. And from what we've heard today, the dying months of the last government were all about fantasy numbers.
what a load of evasive crap. Reeves is simply saying one thing while doing the opposite - crying austerity while feather bedding her mates. She now looks plain shifty, Her honey moon period is fast coming to an end.
The Sunak government had these recommendations before the election was called, and sat on them.
That's evasive crap.
It's called saving money and it's pretty common across the private sector.
Not making decisions is not saving any money. A decision had to be made.
And across the private sector pay is rising, quite appropriately because we have full employment so pay SHOULD rise. Across the board. 👍
No decisions dont have to be made, stretching time is part of wage negotiations, I take it there youve never had to settle a pay round.
And you dont just hand out pay rises because a third party says so. You concentrate each year on productivity and pay what you can afford. The public sector has had no productivity gains.
No you don't.
The private sector is not five-to-six percent more productive than last year, yet that is the current rate of pay growth across the economy.
Employers pay what they need to in order to get the staff they require. Same as they do for other things. The public sector isn't immune to that.
When your milkman puts up his prices, do you get this cross with him?
You are not completely wrong, but the difference is that most people in the private sector do not demand that they, as a group of individuals, should automatically all have the same pay rise. What the public sector does is demand that all of a particular category (eg our modern entitled aristocracy, aka the medical profession) is given a pay rise en masse.
This generally doesn't happen in the private sector. If individual doctors were able to move around the country and individually argue for higher rates of pay (for the NHS that is, not their private work that they miraculously find time for), depending on where they live and the relative scarcity of their skills, then that would be good. The BMA though want to continue to have salaries that are higher than many comparable professions, the safest job security in the known universe and pensions that will give a monthly income that is three times higher than the average person earns
It is common for everyone working for the same employer to demand they all have the same pay rise. That's the same here: single employer in NHS England.
We live in a free society. If being a doctor is great, become a doctor. Tell your kids to become doctors. The pay's good, but it's tough work, can be very long hours, you're going to get sued, you have to make life-or-death decisions...
How did Tommy Robinson just get on the EuroStar, especially with much increased pre-departure checks?
He was stopped by police, but apparently they weren't allowed to stop him! :shrugemoji:
I thought he had just been arrested under terrorism legislation? I presumed that would be bail with condition not to be leaving the country and that you can't just walk onto EuroStar if that's the case?
The court heard the police officers who had held Yaxley-Lennon had no power to stop him leaving the UK.
Arhh so the court deemed he has basically been falsely arrested again. The use of counter-terrorism powers did seem extreme, I presumed there was more going on, but sounds like the police messed up again.
I don't see how you reach that conclusion. The police made a decision. I'm not aware of the court inputting into that decision, but IANAL.
The meltdown of Tory PBers shocked by the audacity of a Labour government governing is a sight to behold this evening.
If you had been paying attention you would have noticed Tory posters on here expressing displeasure with Tory governments since at latest 1985, so before the site or the internet existed. Whereas you're the one who thinks Labour = FUCK YEAH and that that viciously amoral shit Blair murdering brownies is AOK because it was a Labour murder, whereas a bunch of Dutch farmers making black people sit at the back of the bus on a different continent proves that UK conservatives are inherently evil because completely unfathomable reasons (they once ate a Cape golden delicious?)
Oh do fuck off. I never supported the Iraq war (unlike the Conservative Party), and I am not a Labour Party member (I voted LD this time) so why you insist on bringing this up every time I post is rather bizarre.
What is interesting is that you do not say: I never supported Tony Blair, nor: I ceased to support him after Iraq. Feel free to remedy the omission, and I will desist.
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
Alternatively, she has acknowledged that staff cost what they cost.
If the electorate decides it doesn't want so much stuff done, so it doesn't need so many people, fine. Let's see some proposals for that.
Otherwise, it comes down to reality vs. fantasy. And from what we've heard today, the dying months of the last government were all about fantasy numbers.
what a load of evasive crap. Reeves is simply saying one thing while doing the opposite - crying austerity while feather bedding her mates. She now looks plain shifty, Her honey moon period is fast coming to an end.
The Sunak government had these recommendations before the election was called, and sat on them.
That's evasive crap.
It's called saving money and it's pretty common across the private sector.
Not making decisions is not saving any money. A decision had to be made.
And across the private sector pay is rising, quite appropriately because we have full employment so pay SHOULD rise. Across the board. 👍
No decisions dont have to be made, stretching time is part of wage negotiations, I take it there youve never had to settle a pay round.
And you dont just hand out pay rises because a third party says so. You concentrate each year on productivity and pay what you can afford. The public sector has had no productivity gains.
No you don't.
The private sector is not five-to-six percent more productive than last year, yet that is the current rate of pay growth across the economy.
Employers pay what they need to in order to get the staff they require. Same as they do for other things. The public sector isn't immune to that.
When your milkman puts up his prices, do you get this cross with him?
You are not completely wrong, but the difference is that most people in the private sector do not demand that they, as a group of individuals, should automatically all have the same pay rise. What the public sector does is demand that all of a particular category (eg our modern entitled aristocracy, aka the medical profession) is given a pay rise en masse.
This generally doesn't happen in the private sector. If individual doctors were able to move around the country and individually argue for higher rates of pay (for the NHS that is, not their private work that they miraculously find time for), depending on where they live and the relative scarcity of their skills, then that would be good. The BMA though want to continue to have salaries that are higher than many comparable professions, the safest job security in the known universe and pensions that will give a monthly income that is three times higher than the average person earns
It is common for everyone working for the same employer to demand they all have the same pay rise. That's the same here: single employer in NHS England.
We live in a free society. If being a doctor is great, become a doctor. Tell your kids to become doctors. The pay's good, but it's tough work, can be very long hours, you're going to get sued, you have to make life-or-death decisions...
I see the average salary of a junior doctor is £41 000, which isn't starvation wages, but isn't particularly compelling compared with what ambitious and less well trained counterparts can earn in the private sector.
The meltdown of Tory PBers shocked by the audacity of a Labour government governing is a sight to behold this evening.
If you had been paying attention you would have noticed Tory posters on here expressing displeasure with Tory governments since at latest 1985, so before the site or the internet existed. Whereas you're the one who thinks Labour = FUCK YEAH and that that viciously amoral shit Blair murdering brownies is AOK because it was a Labour murder, whereas a bunch of Dutch farmers making black people sit at the back of the bus on a different continent proves that UK conservatives are inherently evil because completely unfathomable reasons (they once ate a Cape golden delicious?)
Big load of bat shit from you tonight. Especially you spewing that Benpointer supported Blair's Iraq War.
I believe in low taxes, but if taxes are being spent then our taxes paying the wages of people who are working for a living is a more productive and appropriate use than paying to ensure someone gets an inheritance, or paying benefits to those who don't need them.
If you're upset you lose an expected inheritance or benefit then get a job.
I don't disagree with you. My argument about Reeves was that she was saying that there was a £22 billion black hole because of the Tories when in fact almost half of that is due to her own political decision to increase pay for the public sector. And indeed I suspect that looking at the news tonight that may be an underestimate as now all the other public sector workers are asking for the same.
This is not an argument about whther is is justified or not but it is clear that Reeeves and Starmer are making a decision to accept these recommendations ( and additionally to give the doctors 22%) and so they cannot reasonably claim it is a 'black hole'.
This is all irrespective of the other discussion on private sector pay.
I was going to say that I disagreed with you and that he is a slimeball but then I realised that you had already said the same thing just in a different way.
How did Tommy Robinson just get on the EuroStar, especially with much increased pre-departure checks?
He was stopped by police, but apparently they weren't allowed to stop him! :shrugemoji:
I thought he had just been arrested under terrorism legislation? I presumed that would be bail with condition not to be leaving the country and that you can't just walk onto EuroStar if that's the case?
The court heard the police officers who had held Yaxley-Lennon had no power to stop him leaving the UK.
Arhh so the court deemed he has basically been falsely arrested again. The use of counter-terrorism powers did seem extreme, I presumed there was more going on, but sounds like the police messed up again.
I don't see how you reach that conclusion. The police made a decision. I'm not aware of the court inputting into that decision, but IANAL.
Sorry I misread that it was his lawyers were claiming this, although the court have delayed any arrest warrant for now, so obviously they don't deem it was necessary to have him arrested.
The initial reporting was weird about being arrested under terrorism legislation combined with the (delayed) arrest warrant for the other case, so how would anybody be able to just then walk onto a train. It sounds like he was being a dick about stop and search, but then police realising they shouldn't really have arrested him under that legislation and hence why no bail conditions, and could leave on the Eurostar back to where ever he lives these days (I think Majorca).
For a bankrupt that hasn't had a job for years, he seems to live a very luxury life unencumbered by money worries.
I believe in low taxes, but if taxes are being spent then our taxes paying the wages of people who are working for a living is a more productive and appropriate use than paying to ensure someone gets an inheritance, or paying benefits to those who don't need them.
If you're upset you lose an expected inheritance or benefit then get a job.
I don't disagree with you. My argument about Reeves was that she was saying that there was a £22 billion black hole because of the Tories when in fact almost half of that is due to her own political decision to increase pay for the public sector. And indeed I suspect that looking at the news tonight that may be an underestimate as now all the other public sector workers are asking for the same.
This is not an argument about whther is is justified or not but it is clear that Reeeves and Starmer are making a decision to accept these recommendations ( and additionally to give the doctors 22%) and so they cannot reasonably claim it is a 'black hole'.
This is all irrespective of the other discussion on private sector pay.
You can't perpetually go on with public sector pay rises (or private sector ones) below inflation. You have to pay doctors, nurses, prison officers etc.
I believe in low taxes, but if taxes are being spent then our taxes paying the wages of people who are working for a living is a more productive and appropriate use than paying to ensure someone gets an inheritance, or paying benefits to those who don't need them.
If you're upset you lose an expected inheritance or benefit then get a job.
I don't disagree with you. My argument about Reeves was that she was saying that there was a £22 billion black hole because of the Tories when in fact almost half of that is due to her own political decision to increase pay for the public sector. And indeed I suspect that looking at the news tonight that may be an underestimate as now all the other public sector workers are asking for the same.
This is not an argument about whther is is justified or not but it is clear that Reeeves and Starmer are making a decision to accept these recommendations ( and additionally to give the doctors 22%) and so they cannot reasonably claim it is a 'black hole'.
This is all irrespective of the other discussion on private sector pay.
Given its standard practice to accept the independent pay review recommendations, which were held under the terms and conditions set up by the prior government, reported under it too, then I think its reasonable to consider it the prior government's legacy.
If the last government wanted to reject the pay reviews recommendations then they could have done, before the election, but they didn't. Simply not publishing the reviews then pretending it was nothing to do with them isn't responsible governance.
How did Tommy Robinson just get on the EuroStar, especially with much increased pre-departure checks?
He was stopped by police, but apparently they weren't allowed to stop him! :shrugemoji:
I thought he had just been arrested under terrorism legislation? I presumed that would be bail with condition not to be leaving the country and that you can't just walk onto EuroStar if that's the case?
The court heard the police officers who had held Yaxley-Lennon had no power to stop him leaving the UK.
Arhh so the court deemed he has basically been falsely arrested again. The use of counter-terrorism powers did seem extreme, I presumed there was more going on, but sounds like the police messed up again.
I don't see how you reach that conclusion. The police made a decision. I'm not aware of the court inputting into that decision, but IANAL.
Sorry I misread that it was his lawyers were claiming this, although the court have delayed any arrest warrant for now, so obviously they don't deem it was necessary to have him arrested.
The initial reporting was weird about being arrested under terrorism legislation combined with the (delayed) arrest warrant for the other case, so how would anybody be able to just then walk onto a train. It sounds like he was being a dick about stop and search, but then police realising they shouldn't really have arrested him under that legislation and hence why no bail conditions, and could leave on the Eurostar back to where ever he lives these days (I think Majorca).
For a bankrupt that hasn't had a job for years, he seems to live a very luxury life unencumbered by money worries.
He was released on bail (albeit unconditional bail). If the police had realised that "they shouldn't really have arrested him under that legislation", wouldn't he just have been released fully?
I should point out Rachel Reeves hasn't done anything yet. The purpose of today is to pin as much blame for subsequent pain as she can on her predecessors, who I have to say are make that job easy for her.
Erhh she did do quite a lot today. 10 million won't get their winter fuel payment anymore, social care reform junked, loads of infrastructure projects canned and signed off significant public sector pay increases. That is quite a busy day at the office.
Oh and Sunak new A-Levels that I think even he had forgotten about were sent to the glue factory.
As one of the ten million, Francis, I'd like you to appreciate precisely what the removal of the payment means to me. It means I will be able to afford one less losing bet this year.
You feel my pain?
This sandwich lunch you still owe me:
WTF do you think will be in the sandwiches if they cost £300?!!
The meltdown of Tory PBers shocked by the audacity of a Labour government governing is a sight to behold this evening.
If you had been paying attention you would have noticed Tory posters on here expressing displeasure with Tory governments since at latest 1985, so before the site or the internet existed. Whereas you're the one who thinks Labour = FUCK YEAH and that that viciously amoral shit Blair murdering brownies is AOK because it was a Labour murder, whereas a bunch of Dutch farmers making black people sit at the back of the bus on a different continent proves that UK conservatives are inherently evil because completely unfathomable reasons (they once ate a Cape golden delicious?)
Big load of bat shit from you tonight. Especially you spewing that Benpointer supported Blair's Iraq War.
No. I didn't say that. I said that he 1. supported Blair who 2. was responsible for Blair's war. Different claim altogether.
The two most disgusting things done in this country this century are Iraq, and IPP indefinite prison sentences. Both producing death and despair on an industrial scale. So when I find lefties sniping at conservatives I like to remind them that the fuzzy illusion that the Tories are the nasty party, even if economically competent, is an illusion. Any examples of Tory actions equal to either of those two would be welcome, but what we normally get is OK Tone wiped out 100,000 civilians on our tax dollar, but Theresa May sent out vans with a really rude message.
Thinks Churchill was a soldier politician, Attlee was a politician, Eden was ?, Macmillan was a soldier and publisher, D-H was a lord, Wilson was a don and statistician, Callaghan was a sailor, Thatcher a scientist and barrister, Major a banker, Blair a barrister, Brown a lecturer, Cameron in the media, May a banker, Johnson a commentator, Truss an accountant(!), Sunak a merchant banker
So you need a soldier or a scientist. Who's the closest?
PB Tories can now officially say 'THIS IS THE WORST GOVERNMENT OF MY LIFETIME'. Feels great, we haven't been able to say that since early 2010!!
I did try and warn everyone this would happen a few weeks ago.
Few wanted to listen.
I said the same. But I also said that in the extremely unlikely event that the Tories won the results would have been the same. The reality is that our public finances are in a truly chronic state. Hunt tried to pretend otherwise. During the election Reeves avoided the issue by claiming growth was magically going to make this go away. But whoever won this was the reality that we were facing.
I don't agree with Reeves in the detail that she has cut investment and infrastructure spending because she was too scared to cut current spending, indeed she has increased it. But I do agree that she has moved a little closer to reality than we have had since Covid. Its a serious mess.
Anywhere you can bet on which year the IMF will be called in and order savage Greek type cuts.
(Upon which SKS/Reeves will blame the Tories for leaving them a mess and say the nasty bankers at the IMF made us do the cuts).
I may be tempting fate but the government gilts and bonds markets haven't careered down the ravine like they did in 2022 under a - checks notes- Conservative Government, yet.
It won't happen yet.
When the benefits and other spending bills go up a result of 5%+pay/pension/benefits rises and the tax take goes down because businesses relocate abroad due to too much tax or workers work less or not at all for the same reason, then the merde will hit the fan.
If pension tax relief at 40% goes, I am handing in my notice and retiring as the difference between earnings and early pension just won't be worth the bother.
Are you leaving the country as well?...
If I was in my 20s I probably would, but too many family ties.
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
The scrapping of the universal winter fuel payment doesn’t bring in that much and is going to annoy a lot of people .
Not sure why Reeves decided on that .
As I mentioned previously, the danger with a lot of these small benefits are that the cost of means testing them can often eat up a huge chunk of the savings. In theory, this one should be easier, but we will see.
It is a reason why Gordon Brown didn't go around trying to mean testing stuff like weather fuel payments, free bus passes and tv licences (although the free tv licence scheme was on its own actually very expensive to administer, it would have been much way easier to just say you won't get done if you are a pensioner, no licence required).
Its often just a lot easier to fiddle around edges of tax bands, state pension, pension credits and get your money that way than just means testing who gets a bus pass.
It would be simpler and less admin-intensive to just reduce the 40% income tax threshold for pensioners by sufficient to offset the cost their fuel payments.
Brown's basic view is that universal benefits mean that those who need them who don't claim them if means-tested means that people don't miss out. He is a very driven anti-poverty campaigner.
I doubt he is a happy bunny tonight.
But Dilnot will be many times more furious.
Rightly so. You could probably make some sort of decent argument for VAT on school fees, or ending univeral benefits, but social care is an area where real reform and a national care service is long overdue. At best Labour have delayed things by a couple more years, at worst they have no political will to tackle the issue properly.
I get the feeling people are going to become quite disenchanted with Labour sooner than would be expected.
I am pretty angry tonight. Wes Streeting specifically was asked about Dilnot and he said 2025 would go ahead as planned. "I am not in the business of tearing down stuff" was the quote to Laura K I think two weeks before election.
All the public wanted was a set of politicians who would do conservative policies, do them efficiently, and not lie to them
I believe in low taxes, but if taxes are being spent then our taxes paying the wages of people who are working for a living is a more productive and appropriate use than paying to ensure someone gets an inheritance, or paying benefits to those who don't need them.
If you're upset you lose an expected inheritance or benefit then get a job.
The government never pays for someone to get an inheritance but just doesn’t take money from them
Wrong, paying for people's care and living costs that they can afford to pay themselves, in order to then ensure that someone gets an inheritance is paying for someone to get an inheritance.
Not wrong, just misinterpreted your poorly expressed thought as relating to inheritance tax
Not a bunch of stuff you didn’t write
Inheritance tax is something I didn't write and hasn't changed today.
What has changed, which @HYUFD objected to and I responded to, is fewer people will have their inheritances paid by the taxpayer.
Not a penny of taxes should go to fund anyone's inheritance. Get a damned job instead of demanding that.
Labour will raise taxes to fund their base, higher public sector pay, higher benefits and their crusade nationalisations.
Nothing else will change. Long-term investment will suffer.
"paying for people's care and living costs"
The Dilnot cap did not cover "living costs" i.e. accommodation, energy bills etc in the care home. It only covered actual care costs. Probably 50:50. i.e. when the cap was £85K it actually meant more like £160K as only actual care costs were to be metered.
Plus if social services are paying for a care home under present system then you are expected to contribute any pension and other benefits towards "living costs". You get to keep a few £ a week for sundries such as newspapers.
And they will not pay the full fees anyway unless its a cheap hole little better than a concentration camp
I dont wish to comment on Huw Edwards but this definition of making indecent images is just a bit disturbing in terms of the last sentence imho -(on the bbc site atm ) According to the CPS website, "making indecent images can have a wide definition in the law and can include opening an email attachment containing such an image, downloading one from a website, or receiving one via social media, even if unsolicited and even if part of a group.”
So anyone who uses social media is vulnerable to being a convicted peado?
How many potentially indecent images do you see on social media, realistically? Yes, this could happen - but I don't think it would. And there has to be some common sense anyway because I can invent a file format where "01" is an indecent image and the whole world is a peadophile... iow while I'm not 100% sure about this I don't think the thing is strict liability, i.e. it needs mens rea. A lawyer can correct me.
As I said it's the extreme porn one you need to worry about. Anyone who enjoys banter is vulnerable.
There's a real conspiracy of silence around this. Largely cause "legalise extreme porn" is quite a, erm, brave political position to take...
As I said it is a very useful law for the government and the spooks.
Much easier and less messy to destroy someone using this than throw them out of a top floor window
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
Alternatively, she has acknowledged that staff cost what they cost.
If the electorate decides it doesn't want so much stuff done, so it doesn't need so many people, fine. Let's see some proposals for that.
Otherwise, it comes down to reality vs. fantasy. And from what we've heard today, the dying months of the last government were all about fantasy numbers.
what a load of evasive crap. Reeves is simply saying one thing while doing the opposite - crying austerity while feather bedding her mates. She now looks plain shifty, Her honey moon period is fast coming to an end.
What feather bedding - she is simply paying what the independent pay review says because not paying it this year simply kicks the issue another year down the line where the next recommendation would include the bit not paid this year.
And the reason why the figures are so high this year is because they include a part of the bit that wasn't paid last year.
And the payments are in line with private sector pay too.
I don't agree with the 22% pay rise for doctors, but ~5.5% for police/teachers/nurses etc when private sector pay is up 5.6% seems entirely within reason.
The private sector figures are distorted by the huge legally imposed far above inflation minimum wage increases.
I believe in low taxes, but if taxes are being spent then our taxes paying the wages of people who are working for a living is a more productive and appropriate use than paying to ensure someone gets an inheritance, or paying benefits to those who don't need them.
If you're upset you lose an expected inheritance or benefit then get a job.
I don't disagree with you. My argument about Reeves was that she was saying that there was a £22 billion black hole because of the Tories when in fact almost half of that is due to her own political decision to increase pay for the public sector. And indeed I suspect that looking at the news tonight that may be an underestimate as now all the other public sector workers are asking for the same.
This is not an argument about whther is is justified or not but it is clear that Reeeves and Starmer are making a decision to accept these recommendations ( and additionally to give the doctors 22%) and so they cannot reasonably claim it is a 'black hole'.
This is all irrespective of the other discussion on private sector pay.
You can't perpetually go on with public sector pay rises (or private sector ones) below inflation. You have to pay doctors, nurses, prison officers etc.
And yet many of us do exactly that and get by with pay cuts.
She's nonetheless one of the least incompetent of her cohort. The potential alternatives (Dodds, Bryant, Rayner, Lammy etc.) would likely be worse.
In all of history there have been precisely two Labour chancellors who didn't look hopelessly out of their depth in the role, and both of them had an almost schizoid tendency to only see what they wanted to see. (There's possibly a case to add Healey to this list but I'd take a lot of convincing.)
She's already set off polcies which will blow up in her face,
This week while inventing a £20bn black hole she has somehow found the money to fund £4.5 bn of public sector pay rises. And having green lighted big pay rises everyone else will demand their share. All of which ill add to inflation, falling public sector productivity and infrastructure budgets getting slashed.
Whatever Labours big plan was its dead in the water.
Alternatively, she has acknowledged that staff cost what they cost.
If the electorate decides it doesn't want so much stuff done, so it doesn't need so many people, fine. Let's see some proposals for that.
Otherwise, it comes down to reality vs. fantasy. And from what we've heard today, the dying months of the last government were all about fantasy numbers.
what a load of evasive crap. Reeves is simply saying one thing while doing the opposite - crying austerity while feather bedding her mates. She now looks plain shifty, Her honey moon period is fast coming to an end.
The Sunak government had these recommendations before the election was called, and sat on them.
That's evasive crap.
It's called saving money and it's pretty common across the private sector.
Not making decisions is not saving any money. A decision had to be made.
And across the private sector pay is rising, quite appropriately because we have full employment so pay SHOULD rise. Across the board. 👍
No decisions dont have to be made, stretching time is part of wage negotiations, I take it there youve never had to settle a pay round.
And you dont just hand out pay rises because a third party says so. You concentrate each year on productivity and pay what you can afford. The public sector has had no productivity gains.
No you don't.
The private sector is not five-to-six percent more productive than last year, yet that is the current rate of pay growth across the economy.
Employers pay what they need to in order to get the staff they require. Same as they do for other things. The public sector isn't immune to that.
When your milkman puts up his prices, do you get this cross with him?
No. Just ditch him and buy from the supermarket instead.
How did Tommy Robinson just get on the EuroStar, especially with much increased pre-departure checks?
He was stopped by police, but apparently they weren't allowed to stop him! :shrugemoji:
I thought he had just been arrested under terrorism legislation? I presumed that would be bail with condition not to be leaving the country and that you can't just walk onto EuroStar if that's the case?
The court heard the police officers who had held Yaxley-Lennon had no power to stop him leaving the UK.
Arhh so the court deemed he has basically been falsely arrested again. The use of counter-terrorism powers did seem extreme, I presumed there was more going on, but sounds like the police messed up again.
Reading the piece carefully, one comes to the conclusion that any police stop and search at a border is under the anti-terrorism legislation, as opposed to just this particular individual. They stopped him, searched him, but didn’t have a reason to detain him (he hadn’t actually missed a court appearance and wasn’t officially wanted) so let him leave.
He’ll probably show up on TV watching the Olympic swimming tomorrow.
Comments
I’ll retire when I can afford it, which is a while off yet.
Marks him down as a bad judge of character.
We live in a free society. If being a doctor is great, become a doctor. Tell your kids to become doctors. The pay's good, but it's tough work, can be very long hours, you're going to get sued, you have to make life-or-death decisions...
We'd be lucky to have him.
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1817568733583245746
This is not an argument about whther is is justified or not but it is clear that Reeeves and Starmer are making a decision to accept these recommendations ( and additionally to give the doctors 22%) and so they cannot reasonably claim it is a 'black hole'.
This is all irrespective of the other discussion on private sector pay.
The initial reporting was weird about being arrested under terrorism legislation combined with the (delayed) arrest warrant for the other case, so how would anybody be able to just then walk onto a train. It sounds like he was being a dick about stop and search, but then police realising they shouldn't really have arrested him under that legislation and hence why no bail conditions, and could leave on the Eurostar back to where ever he lives these days (I think Majorca).
For a bankrupt that hasn't had a job for years, he seems to live a very luxury life unencumbered by money worries.
If the last government wanted to reject the pay reviews recommendations then they could have done, before the election, but they didn't. Simply not publishing the reviews then pretending it was nothing to do with them isn't responsible governance.
NEW THREAD
WTF do you think will be in the sandwiches if they cost £300?!!
The two most disgusting things done in this country this century are Iraq, and IPP indefinite prison sentences. Both producing death and despair on an industrial scale. So when I find lefties sniping at conservatives I like to remind them that the fuzzy illusion that the Tories are the nasty party, even if economically competent, is an illusion. Any examples of Tory actions equal to either of those two would be welcome, but what we normally get is OK Tone wiped out 100,000 civilians on our tax dollar, but Theresa May sent out vans with a really rude message.
found a £22 billion black hole that was the fault of the previous thread, apparently.
Thinks
Churchill was a soldier politician, Attlee was a politician, Eden was ?, Macmillan was a soldier and publisher, D-H was a lord, Wilson was a don and statistician, Callaghan was a sailor, Thatcher a scientist and barrister, Major a banker, Blair a barrister, Brown a lecturer, Cameron in the media, May a banker, Johnson a commentator, Truss an accountant(!), Sunak a merchant banker
So you need a soldier or a scientist. Who's the closest?
I don't agree with Reeves in the detail that she has cut investment and infrastructure spending because she was too scared to cut current spending, indeed she has increased it. But I do agree that she has moved a little closer to reality than we have had since Covid. Its a serious mess.
See the problem?
Much easier and less messy to destroy someone using this than throw them out of a top floor window
He’ll probably show up on TV watching the Olympic swimming tomorrow.