Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
I heard a story like this from Australia. During WW2, two Australians crashed their plane off the northern coast of Australia. They made their way to shore, where for many days they survived off the land, in an area where many things can kill you. When they were near death, they came across a group of Aborigines.
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
Haven't multiple names been circulating? It would help if they clarified which one they mean.
From what I can see one of the names is obviously snd laughably wrong and another is probably right
I shall not trouble the mods by repeating either on here
Tho at some point the coppers may have to accept that speculation is actually worse than revelation: and confess the name
Many thousands already know it
At every point the coppers should follow the law.
The law forbids naming under-18s.
That will be a novel concept to many police here and even more in the us....following the law that is. Though at least we dont have the abomination of qualified immunity here
More importantly, the novel concept is that the press don't get inside access of confidential information, to further Police careers.
Until the pertussis vaccine, pertussis was the #1 killer of children worldwide. Trump says he'll cut all federal funds to any school that insists we vaccinate children against pertussis, diphtheria, mumps, measles, and polio. That is, basically, mass murder. https://x.com/deangloster/status/1817423719641252024
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Is there a (formal) way to bet on predictions of future polling? Lots of people are making them here in conversation.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
And where would Reform get the money from to pay for all the sweeties they promise/promised...
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
The Venezuelan opposition worked the last 24 hours to collect 73% of the tally sheets, and those added up to 67% for Edmundo Gonzalez vs 27% for Nicolas Maduro. They are building a website to show these sheets. Now the CNE must show theirs. https://x.com/jlynnmccoy/status/1818067741229695151
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
I heard a story like this from Australia. During WW2, two Australians crashed their plane off the northern coast of Australia. They made their way to shore, where for many days they survived off the land, in an area where many things can kill you. When they were near death, they came across a group of Aborigines.
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
Given the behaviour of white Australians towards First Australians, as late as WWII....
Well, I would have been staying well clear as well.
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
Dr Park was from the Scottish Borders, a Selkirk native. For w ahile He lived and worked in Peebles on the Tweed - the family house is still there and still marked with a plaque which I regularly note on one of our river walk/eat/shop days out. (Just round the corner, more or less, from the birthplace of William & Robert Chambers of publishing and 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' fame, by the way.)
Sure made a change from Africa, though he brought an African there, and couldn't resist the temptation to head out again.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
@PippaCrerar · 1m EXCL: Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff at her former government department
Just read it, its lots of the minister made me uncomfortable, was overly demanding and a meanie, but no formal complaints. Every Tory minister now seems to have had a similar story.
My take like Raab, is it is overblown and civil servants too quick to be offended by demands, but same time people like Raab weren't very good boss, but just saying your homework is piss poor do it again continuously.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
My wife has just discovered VAT on school fees. I told her in the run up to the election. But apparently she didn't think it "real", somehow.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Is there a (formal) way to bet on predictions of future polling? Lots of people are making them here in conversation.
I tried to formulate a bet the other day: when will the polls show Labour behind another party
The huge advantage Labour has is that the right is split completely in two
If this was a “more normal” time I’d be happy predicting a Labour polling deficit within 9 months
But with reform and the Tories splitting the opposition who knows
Remember, Labour are NOT popular and they are going to be brutally damaged by asylum/immigration. But who will benefit?
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
The Venezuelan opposition worked the last 24 hours to collect 73% of the tally sheets, and those added up to 67% for Edmundo Gonzalez vs 27% for Nicolas Maduro. They are building a website to show these sheets. Now the CNE must show theirs. https://x.com/jlynnmccoy/status/1818067741229695151
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
And after the warming feeling from your story one from Israel which will make you feel anything but warm. Israeli society is wrecked beyond repair.....
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
It is why Brown brought it in in 1997, when energy bills weren't as bad as now.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
And after the warming feeling from your story one from Israel which will make you feel anything but warm. Israeli society is wrecked beyond repair.....
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
My wife has just discovered VAT on school fees. I told her in the run up to the election. But apparently she didn't think it "real", somehow.
A Rondas Campesinas is now being assembled.
That is the perfect demonstration on how something that is obvious to us only becomes visible to other people far later on...
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
I heard a story like this from Australia. During WW2, two Australians crashed their plane off the northern coast of Australia. They made their way to shore, where for many days they survived off the land, in an area where many things can kill you. When they were near death, they came across a group of Aborigines.
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
No sure that "very racist" is correct. Did the Aborigines in question say they would NOT help a weak Japanese? Enemy or not? (Note that Australian authorities would prefer questioning a live Japanese.)
Sounds like they were being prudent, but NOT racist.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Over 80 pension only goes to those without a state pension due to insufficient NI and is far lower so well within Pension Credit level.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Oh the root problem is that there are only two ways of targetting the money
1) pay everyone who receives any form of state pension 2) pay those who receive pension credits.
Anything else would require major manual data collection exercises which simply won't work and really would cost billions.
Ideally we need a long term plan which may be the system being implemented so that pensioners only receiving the state pension don't pay tax. But that won't be around in time for this winter...
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Calm down, you're gonna give yourself a hernia by the time of the autumn budget at this rate.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Over 80 pension only goes to those without a state pension due to insufficient NI and is far lower so well within Pension Credit level.
I got a 25p a week uplift in my pension on my 80th birthday !!!!
It was initially reported it would effect 10 million OAPs.
11.4 Million get it now.
1.5 million will get it in future.
Probably it should have been about 5 million get it, 6.4 million don't to make it reasonable.
The problem is the cost of working out the 5 million would eat up most of the savings. They can cut off the 10 million reasonably effectively, but more careful means testing for something worth £100-300 would soon cost more than the benefit.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Over 80 pension only goes to those without a state pension due to insufficient NI and is far lower so well within Pension Credit level.
I got a 25p a week uplift in my pension on my 80th birthday !!!!
Did you celebrate by buying an extra finger of fudge?
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Over 80 pension only goes to those without a state pension due to insufficient NI and is far lower so well within Pension Credit level.
I got a 25p a week uplift in my pension on my 80th birthday !!!!
Did you celebrate by buying an extra finger of fudge?
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
You have pointed out what I held back from saying (due to not being 100% sure on the legailty), of the common link Rwanda has with both issues.
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
I heard a story like this from Australia. During WW2, two Australians crashed their plane off the northern coast of Australia. They made their way to shore, where for many days they survived off the land, in an area where many things can kill you. When they were near death, they came across a group of Aborigines.
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
No sure that "very racist" is correct. Did the Aborigines in question say they would NOT help a weak Japanese? Enemy or not? (Note that Australian authorities would prefer questioning a live Japanese.)
Sounds like they were being prudent, but NOT racist.
I was thinking of the suggestion that they would not be able to tell a 'white man' from a Japanese man. A difference which is probably obvious to us, but to them? They knew they were at war with the Japanese, and Japanese planes may appear in the area. They would have seen and known white men, but Japanese people would probably have been unknown to them.
I agree it was prudent. I've done a Google search, but I cannot easily find the story.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Over 80s get an additional benefit, don't they? Which is where the notion must come from.
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
Quite so. Actually I wasn't thinking of that so much as the Over 80 Pension which Ms Reeves might not have excvluded as a trigger for the WFP. Anyway we have to see what happens in terms of the details.
Over 80 pension only goes to those without a state pension due to insufficient NI and is far lower so well within Pension Credit level.
I got a 25p a week uplift in my pension on my 80th birthday !!!!
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
It was initially reported it would effect 10 million OAPs.
11.4 Million get it now.
1.5 million will get it in future.
Probably it should have been about 5 million get it, 6.4 million don't to make it reasonable.
The problem is the cost of working out the 5 million would eat up most of the savings. They can cut off the 10 million reasonably effectively, but more careful means testing for something worth £100-300 would soon cost more than the benefit.
Exactly the same error Gideon made with Child Benefit clawback (which I have not forgotten).
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
Arizona Georgia Michigan Nevada N Carolina Pennsylvania Wisconsin
Which ONE state would be your best bet for Dems win and which ONE state for Rep win.
I'm playing with the EC maths.
So am I. Big spreadsheet with EMA (Exponential Moving Average) by swing state on Harris/Trump. Not enough data points yet.
To answer your question I think Wisconsin is currently the best bet for a Harris win (her lead over Trump goes -1,0,2,1,0,-1. Best bet for Trump win is Arizona. Trump lead goes 9,6,8,6,5,8,3.
New poll 28 July for Pennsylvania has Harris/Trump 47/43. So I've switched to Penn being Harris's best bet. Her lead over Trump goes 1,0,-2,-3,-3,1,0,4. If she choses Shapiro she'll win it. I've just bet on her winning Penn on Betfair at evens (2.0). I think it's a value bet.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
And where would Reform get the money from to pay for all the sweeties they promise/promised...
Well they could save £6bn a year by refusing any more asylum seekers
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
You have pointed out what I held back from saying (due to not being 100% sure on the legailty), of the common link Rwanda has with both issues.
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
Perception is the issue here.
Sorry but you implied it because immigration and the utterly insane at £175m per person Rwanda scheme was completely irrelevant to this case as you well know. Hence me wondering why someone would bring it up which then brings me to the obvious other conclusion...
Heck the fact we have asylum seekers from Rwanda living in the UK tells you how safe that country really is...
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
My wife has just discovered VAT on school fees. I told her in the run up to the election. But apparently she didn't think it "real", somehow.
A Rondas Campesinas is now being assembled.
That is the perfect demonstration on how something that is obvious to us only becomes visible to other people far later on...
Yes, exactly.
Many years ago, a friend lived in Canada Water. It was a shithole.
The government announced that the Jubilee line extension was happening as part of the Canary wharf development. Nothing changed locally. They started digging the tunnel. Nothing The started building the local station. Nothing The week *after* the station opened, property prices started to rocket.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Pensioners now having to put up with the hugely inflated energy bills the rest of us have been suffering the last couple of winters? Cry me a river.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Pensioners now having to put up with the hugely inflated energy bills the rest of us have been suffering the last couple of winters? Cry me a river.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
Is that a function of global warming or the financial heat?
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
My wife has just discovered VAT on school fees. I told her in the run up to the election. But apparently she didn't think it "real", somehow.
A Rondas Campesinas is now being assembled.
That is the perfect demonstration on how something that is obvious to us only becomes visible to other people far later on...
Yes, exactly.
Many years ago, a friend lived in Canada Water. It was a shithole.
The government announced that the Jubilee line extension was happening as part of the Canary wharf development. Nothing changed locally. They started digging the tunnel. Nothing The started building the local station. Nothing The week *after* the station opened, property prices started to rocket.
Heh. Back in about 1994/5, I did a *tiny* (*) amount of work on the Jubilee Line Extension.
Some of the office staff were grouping up to buy properties along the route. The locals (and estate agents) were oblivious.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Your final paragraph is a remarkable leap. It is also quite disgusting that you have made that leap on the back of such a hideous atrocity.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
You have pointed out what I held back from saying (due to not being 100% sure on the legailty), of the common link Rwanda has with both issues.
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
Perception is the issue here.
Sorry but you implied it because immigration and the utterly insane at £175m per person Rwanda scheme was completely irrelevant to this case as you well know. Hence me wondering why someone would bring it up which then brings me to the obvious other conclusion...
Heck the fact we have asylum seekers from Rwanda living in the UK tells you how safe that country really is...
Both involve Rwanda for coincidental reasons. That is enough for millions who are already furious about the governments failure to stop a large number of mainly military age men entering the country and have just seen Starmer cancel the only scheme on the table to expel them. Whether the actualities are relevant is er totally irrelevant
Then there is the slight matter of using billions of taxpayers money to feed, clothe and house them while cutting winter fuel payment from single pensioners who have paid NI all their life with an income as low as £11,390 and couples with joint income as low as £17,320 to pay for it.
The PB right are so determined to put the boot on the other foot tonight. Its pretty sad to watch. Jumping on any hostile (to Labour) band wagon after a bare few days in office is really something. This naked partisanship is also on full display by the right wing press. As a fairly neutral observer I find it doesn't much change my view of Labour- they are going to do many things that I disapprove of. The shrill caperings of the thuggish right, on the other hand only increases my contempt for them. Not even ten minutes reflection and this bunch of shits go on the attack. It's a tawdry display and reminds me how utterly, utterly crap the last few years truly have been. No sense of decency, so sense of moderation or restraint, just the same old garbage you peddled in office. It's awful, and frankly, unless you tone it down, you will completely lose the country. Learn the lesson or lose, and lose worse next time.
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
What is Biden's swing like?
In my expert view: if he can hit the ball, then he's brilliant. Because I can't.
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
I used to be basically a scratch golfer. I have played with plenty of people who have terrible swings like Trump, yet get round with single figure handicap. Particularly with modern golf clubs if you can plonk it down the fairway vaguely straight, another one ending up near green side, stay out the big trouble,.rinse and repeat. On the flip side, seen plenty of kids with better looking swing, but go hard at every shot and when it goes wrong they are 40 yards off course in the trees etc and end up scoring more than the old bloke with half a swing who never hits more than 250 yards. When i was 13 i was that kid, 15 holes of near scratch, then an 6-7 on 3 holes and end up 9-10 over par.
@PippaCrerar · 1m EXCL: Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff at her former government department
Just read it, its lots of the minister made me uncomfortable, was overly demanding and a meanie, but no formal complaints. Every Tory minister now seems to have had a similar story.
My take like Raab, is it is overblown and civil servants too quick to be offended by demands, but same time people like Raab weren't very good boss, but just saying your homework is piss poor do it again continuously.
It’s gonna be Jenrick. I’m pretty convinced at this point.
Speaking of empathy, one of the greatest accounts of Empathy writ large - or perhaps just decent humanity - was in the writings of Mungo Park, intrepid British explorer of West Africa in general and the River Niger in particular at turn of 18th>19th centuries.
According to Park he had fled with just the clothes on his back, an district dominated by Muslim converts and/or slavers (significant cross-over back then) who viewed him with suspicion (to put it mildly). After wandering for some time, he stumbled (literally) into a small village. Where he promptly collapsed under a convenient palm tree.
A couple of locals spotted him, but (for some reason) kept their distance. Then an older woman came up to him, and he was able to communicate (he'd picked up some of local lingua franca) that he was a traveler and she could see for herself he was in need of traveler's aid.
So she summoned some villagers - turned out she was the village chief's mother - who helped carry the poor guy to her rather spacious hut. Where helped with other ladies to clean him up some, fed him, and gave him a place to crash for the night.
During which she staid awake, weaving with a group of local women who served as her chaperones, though MP was beyond much hanky-panky at that point.
As he drifted in and out of sleep, he could hear the women softly singing work songs, very soothing after what he'd been through. AND he knew just enough to understand the gist of the words they were singing. Which boiled down to something like this:
"Oh look at this poor White man! Tired and weary, beaten and bloody, hungry and thirsty, without possessions or provisions, far away from his home! Oh pity him sisters and brothers, and help him please God!
Direct quote from Mungo Park:
"whatever difference there is between the negro and European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature."
I heard a story like this from Australia. During WW2, two Australians crashed their plane off the northern coast of Australia. They made their way to shore, where for many days they survived off the land, in an area where many things can kill you. When they were near death, they came across a group of Aborigines.
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
No sure that "very racist" is correct. Did the Aborigines in question say they would NOT help a weak Japanese? Enemy or not? (Note that Australian authorities would prefer questioning a live Japanese.)
Sounds like they were being prudent, but NOT racist.
I was thinking of the suggestion that they would not be able to tell a 'white man' from a Japanese man. A difference which is probably obvious to us, but to them? They knew they were at war with the Japanese, and Japanese planes may appear in the area. They would have seen and known white men, but Japanese people would probably have been unknown to them.
I agree it was prudent. I've done a Google search, but I cannot easily find the story.
IIRC there were some Japanese fisherman and traders in coastal northern Australia?
As for telling the difference, would perhaps depend upon distance involved; sounds like the Aborigines here were keeping theirs.
Methinks Crocodile Dundee would approve this message!
The PB right are so determined to put the boot on the other foot tonight. Its pretty sad to watch. Jumping on any hostile (to Labour) band wagon after a bare few days in office is really something. This naked partisanship is also on full display by the right wing press. As a fairly neutral observer I find it doesn't much change my view of Labour- they are going to do many things that I disapprove of. The shrill caperings of the thuggish right, on the other hand only increases my contempt for them. Not even ten minutes reflection and this bunch of shits go on the attack. It's a tawdry display and reminds me how utterly, utterly crap the last few years truly have been. No sense of decency, so sense of moderation or restraint, just the same old garbage you peddled in office. It's awful, and frankly, unless you tone it down, you will completely lose the country. Learn the lesson or lose, and lose worse next time.
How can you, with a straight face, type that you are a “fairly neutral observer”. You have made it clear your hatred for the Tories.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Pensioners now having to put up with the hugely inflated energy bills the rest of us have been suffering the last couple of winters? Cry me a river.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
Is that a function of global warming or the financial heat?
A refusal to pay what I consider to be an unfair price.
When the price rose too high, I switched to a USB heated jacket, coupled with an electric blanket at night.
It really is a point of principle for me - two winters ago I was looking after my family's house, i.e. wasn't the bill payer, and my behaviour remained the same. I didn't switch the heating on even when I wasn't paying for it.
I accept that I'm an odd sort and something of an absolutist at times. But my point is that many people, not just pensioners, have struggled with heating bills over the last two winters, and haven't had a free government bung to help them out.
Arizona Georgia Michigan Nevada N Carolina Pennsylvania Wisconsin
Which ONE state would be your best bet for Dems win and which ONE state for Rep win.
I'm playing with the EC maths.
So am I. Big spreadsheet with EMA (Exponential Moving Average) by swing state on Harris/Trump. Not enough data points yet.
To answer your question I think Wisconsin is currently the best bet for a Harris win (her lead over Trump goes -1,0,2,1,0,-1. Best bet for Trump win is Arizona. Trump lead goes 9,6,8,6,5,8,3.
New poll 28 July for Pennsylvania has Harris/Trump 47/43. So I've switched to Penn being Harris's best bet. Her lead over Trump goes 1,0,-2,-3,-3,1,0,4. If she choses Shapiro she'll win it. I've just bet on her winning Penn on Betfair at evens (2.0). I think it's a value bet.
The Republicans have not yet found a coherent way to fight Harris.
They've tried various approaches - calling them strategies would be generous - but nothing seems to be gaining traction. There's a barely restrained need to mention her gender, her race. I reckon it is a certainty that some Republican will think the mic is off - and drop the N bomb. And Trump will seem incredibly insincere when berating the racist idiot.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Your final paragraph is a remarkable leap. It is also quite disgusting that you have made that leap on the back of such a hideous atrocity.
I watched the full video with Dechambeau, he has shocking looking swing, but is surprisingly effective, especially for somebody who is nearly 80. I can believe he is competitive with the OAPs.
My grandfather, who played his last game a week before he died age 86 to a handicap of 16, would have absolutely kicked his arse. Especially on the putting green.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
Most Americans don't play golf. If they see a video stating "Look at Trump playing brilliant golf!" they would probably believe it if they liked Trump.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
I used to be basically a scratch golfer. I have played with plenty of people who have terrible swings like Trump, yet get round with single figure handicap. Particularly with modern golf clubs if you can plonk it down the fairway vaguely straight, another one ending up near green side, stay out the big trouble,.rinse and repeat. On the flip side, seen plenty of kids with better looking swing, but go hard at every shot and when it goes wrong they are 40 yards off course in the trees etc and end up scoring more than the old bloke with half a swing who never hits more than 250 yards. When i was 13 i was that kid, 15 holes of near scratch, then an 6-7 on a hole.
I think I understood about two sentences in that post.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
My wife has just discovered VAT on school fees. I told her in the run up to the election. But apparently she didn't think it "real", somehow.
A Rondas Campesinas is now being assembled.
That is the perfect demonstration on how something that is obvious to us only becomes visible to other people far later on...
Yes, exactly.
Many years ago, a friend lived in Canada Water. It was a shithole.
The government announced that the Jubilee line extension was happening as part of the Canary wharf development. Nothing changed locally. They started digging the tunnel. Nothing The started building the local station. Nothing The week *after* the station opened, property prices started to rocket.
Totally tangential, this has me thinking, that somewhere in England there needs to be a "Canada Dry".
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
You have pointed out what I held back from saying (due to not being 100% sure on the legailty), of the common link Rwanda has with both issues.
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
Perception is the issue here.
Sorry but you implied it because immigration and the utterly insane at £175m per person Rwanda scheme was completely irrelevant to this case as you well know. Hence me wondering why someone would bring it up which then brings me to the obvious other conclusion...
Heck the fact we have asylum seekers from Rwanda living in the UK tells you how safe that country really is...
Both involve Rwanda for coincidental reasons. That is enough for millions who are already furious about the governments failure to stop a large number of mainly military age men entering the country and have just seen Starmer cancel the only scheme on the table to expel them. Whether the actualities are relevant is er totally irrelevant
Then there is the slight matter of using billions of taxpayers money to feed, clothe and house them while cutting winter fuel payment from single pensioners who have paid NI all their life with an income as low as £11,390 and couples with joint income as low as £17,320 to pay for it.
And all that can be laid at the hands of May, Bozo and Rishi who removed money from asylum claim processing which results in people being stuck in Limbo for years when ideally their claim should be processed (as it used to be) in months / 1 year max..
Now most people sit round doing nothing for 1+ year before any case worker starts looking at the claim..
And the fact you are so focussed on illegal migrants does confirm my original view of in the first post...
Three priests are in a boat in the middle of the lake when one realizes he needs to relieve himself. Being a decent man, he decides that he will go in the woods on the shore. This priest folds his hands and begins to say a prayer before leaving the boat. Miraculously he steps out of the boat onto the surface of the water and easily walks to the shore without getting wet. Once he returns, the second priest realized he forgot something on the shore, he bows, repeats the prayer and walks over the water to the shore and soon returns with a basket of food. Astonished, the third priest proclaims, "You have been given a gift of Jesus by saying a simple prayer!" After this proclamation the third priest says the prayer and jumps out of the boat into the water followed by a huge splash of cold water as he plunges beneath the surface. It is at this point that the first priest turns to the second and asks, "Do you think we should have told him about the stepping stones??"
The PB right are so determined to put the boot on the other foot tonight. Its pretty sad to watch. Jumping on any hostile (to Labour) band wagon after a bare few days in office is really something. This naked partisanship is also on full display by the right wing press. As a fairly neutral observer I find it doesn't much change my view of Labour- they are going to do many things that I disapprove of. The shrill caperings of the thuggish right, on the other hand only increases my contempt for them. Not even ten minutes reflection and this bunch of shits go on the attack. It's a tawdry display and reminds me how utterly, utterly crap the last few years truly have been. No sense of decency, so sense of moderation or restraint, just the same old garbage you peddled in office. It's awful, and frankly, unless you tone it down, you will completely lose the country. Learn the lesson or lose, and lose worse next time.
I was just as angry when Gideon imposed the hideously unfair means testing of Child Benefit and said so here.
This is worse than what Gideon did with Child Benefit.
Isn't bullying endemic amongst Conservative Ministers? Wasn't Patel another? A third of prospective candidates sounds like a trend.
It used to be that getting Malcolm Tuckered or a mobile to the head was not even seen as bullying. Now a funny look and being a meanie by being asked to redo your homework appears to be what a lot of these civil servants deem as bullying.
The claims of bullying is thrown around casually. I think a more correct criticism is they aren't very effective bosses as getting the best out of their staff.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Apart from the parents of the person arrested supposedly being from Rwanda - given that the person was born in the UK what has Rwanda got to do with anything?
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
You have pointed out what I held back from saying (due to not being 100% sure on the legailty), of the common link Rwanda has with both issues.
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
Perception is the issue here.
Sorry but you implied it because immigration and the utterly insane at £175m per person Rwanda scheme was completely irrelevant to this case as you well know. Hence me wondering why someone would bring it up which then brings me to the obvious other conclusion...
Heck the fact we have asylum seekers from Rwanda living in the UK tells you how safe that country really is...
Both involve Rwanda for coincidental reasons. That is enough for millions who are already furious about the governments failure to stop a large number of mainly military age men entering the country and have just seen Starmer cancel the only scheme on the table to expel them. Whether the actualities are relevant is er totally irrelevant
Then there is the slight matter of using billions of taxpayers money to feed, clothe and house them while cutting winter fuel payment from single pensioners who have paid NI all their life with an income as low as £11,390 and couples with joint income as low as £17,320 to pay for it.
Here's the thing though.
The previous government's approach was to put asylum seekers in legal limbo, but that still meant they were in the country. It's now clear that was costing a blooming fortune, which is one of the reasons the government finances are so borked.
And the backlog of people already on the country was enough to utterly swamp the Rwanda scheme on day one. Because the scheme was a fetish object; designed to elicit emotions but functionally useless.
This is pretty likely to help her with the membership. Not saying that's a good thing - it isn't - but her team will spin it as snowflake civil servants not like being pushed to pull their fingers out by a can-do minister, and members will lap it up.
Less so with MPs - it may help her rivals at the margins in the battle to be right-wing standard bearer.
The PB right are so determined to put the boot on the other foot tonight. Its pretty sad to watch. Jumping on any hostile (to Labour) band wagon after a bare few days in office is really something. This naked partisanship is also on full display by the right wing press. As a fairly neutral observer I find it doesn't much change my view of Labour- they are going to do many things that I disapprove of. The shrill caperings of the thuggish right, on the other hand only increases my contempt for them. Not even ten minutes reflection and this bunch of shits go on the attack. It's a tawdry display and reminds me how utterly, utterly crap the last few years truly have been. No sense of decency, so sense of moderation or restraint, just the same old garbage you peddled in office. It's awful, and frankly, unless you tone it down, you will completely lose the country. Learn the lesson or lose, and lose worse next time.
Why do you think anyone on here gives the tiniest iota of a fuck by a miniature tinker what you think about anything? Other than Ukraine?
These long witless bloviating screeds. It’s like listening to a spastic donkey orgasming over a dandelion
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Pensioners now having to put up with the hugely inflated energy bills the rest of us have been suffering the last couple of winters? Cry me a river.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Oh the root problem is that there are only two ways of targetting the money
1) pay everyone who receives any form of state pension 2) pay those who receive pension credits.
Anything else would require major manual data collection exercises which simply won't work and really would cost billions.
Ideally we need a long term plan which may be the system being implemented so that pensioners only receiving the state pension don't pay tax. But that won't be around in time for this winter...
It's the same dilemma that left us with child benefit being taken away from some families earning £80000 but other families earning £120000 keeping all of it. Policy sometimes has to follow the pre-existing structures.
This is pretty likely to help her with the membership. Not saying that's a good thing - it isn't - but her team will spin it as snowflake civil servants not like being pushed to pull their fingers out by a can-do minister, and members will lap it up.
Less so with MPs - it may help her rivals at the margins in the battle to be right-wing standard bearer.
Absolutely. Way it tends to be perceived by average voters, as opposed to colleagues, on this side of the Atlantic AND the Pacific.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Your final paragraph is a remarkable leap. It is also quite disgusting that you have made that leap on the back of such a hideous atrocity.
This place has become very unpleasant.
I explain it in my response to eek.
I found it to be a wholly inadequate and spurious explanation.
Carry on regardless, it's a free country, but such vile shite is not for me. Over and out.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Pensioners now having to put up with the hugely inflated energy bills the rest of us have been suffering the last couple of winters? Cry me a river.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
Rachel "Pensioner Freezer" Reeves.
Sir Kier Starver appeared on my local town Facepalm group
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Oh the root problem is that there are only two ways of targetting the money
1) pay everyone who receives any form of state pension 2) pay those who receive pension credits.
Anything else would require major manual data collection exercises which simply won't work and really would cost billions.
Ideally we need a long term plan which may be the system being implemented so that pensioners only receiving the state pension don't pay tax. But that won't be around in time for this winter...
It's the same dilemma that left us with child benefit being taken away from some families earning £80000 but other families earning £120000 keeping all of it. Policy sometimes has to follow the pre-existing structures.
Its a million times worse than child benefit. That only hit households with an income of £50k at 2010 prices.
This hits households with an income if £11,390 a year at 2024 prices.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Less than a month and you're already writing the epitaph.
To be fair, thanks to Covid, it took three years for the last Conservative Government to be utterly despised and they basically remained like that for the rest of their sorry time in office.
This is Starmer's first real test as a PM: heckled by sobbing parents and angry locals at the scene of a hideous atrocity
And the job doesn't get any easier from here, Skyr
That wasn't just catcalling it was poingnant questions. It all feeds into the cancellation of Rwanda and Bibby Stockholm.
Pulling the plug on Winter Fuel Payments for a single pensioner with an income of £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income of £17,320 is at a time like this quite incendiary. Even Gideon Osborne wasn't stupid enough to do something like this.
Both of these issues have cut through hugely.
Honeymoon Over. Expect Polls to start shifting with Reform not Tories benefitting from Labour falls.
Within 18 months Labour are going to be utterly despised.
Erm...
YouGov @YouGov · 45m Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments to pensioners in England and Wales will become means-tested, a move which the public supports by 47% to 38%
That is because a good chunk of the 47% think it only affects wealthy pensioners, wheras the reality is that it hits a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320.
Those who have worked it out are furious (as a casual look at local town facebook groups shows).
There have also been media reports wrongly stating that it dosen't apply to over 80s.
Yep.
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
Taking entitlements away is one thing, taking them away unfairly (by hitting a single pensioner with an income as low as £11,390 a year or a couple with joint income as low as £17,320) is another matter entirely.
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
Your final paragraph is a remarkable leap. It is also quite disgusting that you have made that leap on the back of such a hideous atrocity.
This place has become very unpleasant.
I explain it in my response to eek.
I found it to be a wholly inadequate and spurious explanation.
Carry on regardless, it's a free country, but such vile shite is not for me. Over and out.
I'm glad to see it wasn't just me who picked up on the racist shite....
Comments
... who had been following them most of the time, not knowing if they were Japanese or white man. They had been waiting for them to be weak before helping, in case they attacked. They wanted to help, but were unsure of who these strangers were.
Sounds very racist in retrospect, but also perhaps understandable.
(I think this story was in one of the survival shows by Ray Mears)
Until the pertussis vaccine, pertussis was the #1 killer of children worldwide. Trump says he'll cut all federal funds to any school that insists we vaccinate children against pertussis, diphtheria, mumps, measles, and polio.
That is, basically, mass murder.
https://x.com/deangloster/status/1817423719641252024
Many of my pals have been messaged by their generally apolitical fathers outraged at this.
Taking entitlements away is very painful. It will be downhill from here for the Labour VI....
But, yes. Mr Lewis is not happy.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24483708.martin-lewis-hits-chancellor-winter-fuel-payment/
https://x.com/JayinKyiv/status/1818262635613233463
Pippa Crerar
@PippaCrerar
·
1m
EXCL: Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff at her former government department
Well, I would have been staying well clear as well.
Sure made a change from Africa, though he brought an African there, and couldn't resist the temptation to head out again.
https://www.peeblesshirenews.com/news/16131260.nostalgia-mungo-parks-lasting-legacy-peebles/
My take like Raab, is it is overblown and civil servants too quick to be offended by demands, but same time people like Raab weren't very good boss, but just saying your homework is piss poor do it again continuously.
A Rondas Campesinas is now being assembled.
Perhaps TSE - or Leon - would like to weigh in ?
Josh Hawley says more men today are watching porn and playing video games because their masculinity has been criticized.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1455120663639953408
The huge advantage Labour has is that the right is split completely in two
If this was a “more normal” time I’d be happy predicting a Labour polling deficit within 9 months
But with reform and the Tories splitting the opposition who knows
Remember, Labour are NOT popular and they are going to be brutally damaged by asylum/immigration. But who will benefit?
I would just say some pensioners will be worried as the reason the benefit was called winter fuel allowance was designed to help pensioners pay the higher energy costs in winter, and whilst many wealthy pensioners do not need it, many ordinary not so wealthy do
I suspect that the root issue is that setting the bar at anything other than pension credit level would cost more than money saved.
So they have taken the "easy" option and in doing so both highlighted andnmagnified what is already the most unjust and iniquitous cliff edge off all.
They have demonstrated in doing so that they do not have the wit and competence to reform things properly and justly, so things will continue to get worse with a bigger price paid for less and less delivery.
This has cut through and revealed to the electorate that all that has been achieved in the election is resrranging the deckchairs on the titanic.
The terrible events in Southport have also cut through to Starmers decison to cancel Rwanda in the starkest and cruellest possible way.
It’s like the historical reputation is built into the urbanism, or somehow intertwined
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/7/30/protests-after-israeli-soldiers-detained-over-palestinian-abuse
Kemi Badenoch accused of ‘bullying and traumatising’ staff
Exclusive: At least three department officials allegedly felt pushed out by MP’s behaviour as business secretary
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/30/kemi-badenoch-accused-of-bullying-and-traumatising-staff
No Truss - it was the British people and the conservative party who were your victims , and your electorate showed you a straight red
When it comes to morality, you could not get a razer blade between you and @Leon.
Unless it's because of the racist cat-calling it allows you to make on here while pretending you are doing no such thing..
1.5 million will get it in future.
Probably it should have been about 5 million get it, 6.4 million don't to make it reasonable.
Sounds like they were being prudent, but NOT racist.
1) pay everyone who receives any form of state pension
2) pay those who receive pension credits.
Anything else would require major manual data collection exercises which simply won't work and really would cost billions.
Ideally we need a long term plan which may be the system being implemented so that pensioners only receiving the state pension don't pay tax. But that won't be around in time for this winter...
Some of the things I have heard about Starmer as a result of this, from people who normally go out of their way not to be prejudiced, are quite jaw dropping.
Perception is the issue here.
Mind you, as a proper old-school bank manager he'd probably have done that for other reasons!
I agree it was prudent. I've done a Google search, but I cannot easily find the story.
They watched and didn't learn.
Heck, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a great player and just an average one from a few clips. A terrible one from a great one; yes. But one who could actually hit the ball without a better player to compare against? Probably not.
So I've switched to Penn being Harris's best bet. Her lead over Trump goes 1,0,-2,-3,-3,1,0,4. If she choses Shapiro she'll win it. I've just bet on her winning Penn on Betfair at evens (2.0). I think it's a value bet.
Heck the fact we have asylum seekers from Rwanda living in the UK tells you how safe that country really is...
Many years ago, a friend lived in Canada Water. It was a shithole.
The government announced that the Jubilee line extension was happening as part of the Canary wharf development. Nothing changed locally.
They started digging the tunnel. Nothing
The started building the local station. Nothing
The week *after* the station opened, property prices started to rocket.
I only switched my heating on twice during the last year.
Is this the photo of the Paris 2024 Olympics?
https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/czrjz1zy3k1o
Oh, not that sort of swing?
He’s becoming the anti-Lineker
Some of the office staff were grouping up to buy properties along the route. The locals (and estate agents) were oblivious.
This place has become very unpleasant.
Then there is the slight matter of using billions of taxpayers money to feed, clothe and house them while cutting winter fuel payment from single pensioners who have paid NI all their life with an income as low as £11,390 and couples with joint income as low as £17,320 to pay for it.
As a fairly neutral observer I find it doesn't much change my view of Labour- they are going to do many things that I disapprove of. The shrill caperings of the thuggish right, on the other hand only increases my contempt for them.
Not even ten minutes reflection and this bunch of shits go on the attack. It's a tawdry display and reminds me how utterly, utterly crap the last few years truly have been.
No sense of decency, so sense of moderation or restraint, just the same old garbage you peddled in office.
It's awful, and frankly, unless you tone it down, you will completely lose the country. Learn the lesson or lose, and lose worse next time.
Ban the Olympics!
No. It's green belt.
Did they use 'so-called' as a qualifier before this government came in?
As for telling the difference, would perhaps depend upon distance involved; sounds like the Aborigines here were keeping theirs.
Methinks Crocodile Dundee would approve this message!
When the price rose too high, I switched to a USB heated jacket, coupled with an electric blanket at night.
It really is a point of principle for me - two winters ago I was looking after my family's house, i.e. wasn't the bill payer, and my behaviour remained the same. I didn't switch the heating on even when I wasn't paying for it.
I accept that I'm an odd sort and something of an absolutist at times. But my point is that many people, not just pensioners, have struggled with heating bills over the last two winters, and haven't had a free government bung to help them out.
They've tried various approaches - calling them strategies would be generous - but nothing seems to be gaining traction. There's a barely restrained need to mention her gender, her race. I reckon it is a certainty that some Republican will think the mic is off - and drop the N bomb. And Trump will seem incredibly insincere when berating the racist idiot.
Just to even things out.
Now most people sit round doing nothing for 1+ year before any case worker starts looking at the claim..
And the fact you are so focussed on illegal migrants does confirm my original view of in the first post...
This is worse than what Gideon did with Child Benefit.
The claims of bullying is thrown around casually. I think a more correct criticism is they aren't very effective bosses as getting the best out of their staff.
The previous government's approach was to put asylum seekers in legal limbo, but that still meant they were in the country. It's now clear that was costing a blooming fortune, which is one of the reasons the government finances are so borked.
And the backlog of people already on the country was enough to utterly swamp the Rwanda scheme on day one. Because the scheme was a fetish object; designed to elicit emotions but functionally useless.
https://x.com/nafisehkbbc/status/1818327698227261863
Less so with MPs - it may help her rivals at the margins in the battle to be right-wing standard bearer.
"Labour scraps dozens of planned railway lines in blow to small town Britain
Chancellor’s cost cutting feels like a ‘mini-Beeching’, say campaigners"
Including:
Aldridge Line Upgrade
Portishead
Fleetwood Line
Barrow Hill Line
Ivanhoe Line
Waterside Line (Fawley)
Mid Cornwall Metro
These long witless bloviating screeds. It’s like listening to a spastic donkey orgasming over a dandelion
Carry on regardless, it's a free country, but such vile shite is not for me. Over and out.
Unbelievably horrible.
(One has to wonder how many of these projects would have made it beyond the "line on a map" stage.)
This hits households with an income if £11,390 a year at 2024 prices.