I wonder how many more they would have got to the cricket if they weren't charging as much as £110 a ticket.
Most of the tickets are considerably cheaper than that I thought?
When I looked earlier in the week at going most were £60-70 if I remember correctly. I wonder if they had charged £50 max if they would have done better.
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The Triple Lock has added about £10-12 per week iirc over pure CPI linked since it was introduced in 2011 or whenever (last time I ran the numbers).
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
Trump: Barack Hussein Obama. He was nasty to me. Michelle was nasty. They are all nasty. I was surprised, I was sort of nice to him.. it didn’t matter.. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1827135454979747903
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.”
If you’re entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023 to 2024, you will get an extra £150 or £300 paid with your normal payment from November 2023.
It would be illogical to do so - the increase in the state pension takes into account inflation.
But if she doesn't then that's going to be another thing for the oldies to be upset about.
I see nothing about those payments 2024-2025. I think it's finished.
It was a one off
I believe it was a two off:
Pensioner Cost of Living Payment
If you’re entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2022 to 2023, you will get an extra £150 or £300 paid with your normal payment from November 2022. This is in addition to any Cost of Living Payment you get with your benefit or tax credits.
The amount of money the government handed out over the last two years is usually underestimated, often forgotten and quickly taken for granted.
Reeves will have to deal with the consequences of bringing it to an end.
I think she will just keep stum on that one unless someone else says something, but that we can expect the Winter Fuel Allowance package to be heavily nuanced in the budget.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The Triple Lock has added about £10-12 per week iirc over pure CPI linked since it was introduced in 2011 or whenever (last time I ran the numbers).
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
5% above CPI in just a decade is a not insignificant rise. Especially considering many other expenses have been subject to austerity in that time so risen less than CPI not above it.
That's approximately £6 billion cost per annum and guaranteed to only keep rising as long as the lock exists.
Would you say £30 billion over the lifetime of a Parliament is not huge?
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The Triple Lock has added about £10-12 per week iirc over pure CPI linked since it was introduced in 2011 or whenever (last time I ran the numbers).
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
5% above CPI in just a decade is a not insignificant rise. Especially considering many other expenses have been subject to austerity in that time so risen less than CPI not above it.
That's approximately £6 billion cost per annum and guaranteed to only keep rising as long as the lock exists.
Would you say £30 billion over the lifetime of a Parliament is not huge?
It is telling that the proponents of the triple lock never recommend it for anything else. Not education, not defence, not health, not taxes, not even other peoples benefits, just the ones for pensioners.
If you’re entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023 to 2024, you will get an extra £150 or £300 paid with your normal payment from November 2023.
It would be illogical to do so - the increase in the state pension takes into account inflation.
But if she doesn't then that's going to be another thing for the oldies to be upset about.
I see nothing about those payments 2024-2025. I think it's finished.
It was a one off
I believe it was a two off:
Pensioner Cost of Living Payment
If you’re entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2022 to 2023, you will get an extra £150 or £300 paid with your normal payment from November 2022. This is in addition to any Cost of Living Payment you get with your benefit or tax credits.
The amount of money the government handed out over the last two years is usually underestimated, often forgotten and quickly taken for granted.
Reeves will have to deal with the consequences of bringing it to an end.
I think she will just keep stum on that one unless someone else says something, but that we can expect the Winter Fuel Allowance package to be heavily nuanced in the budget.
Presumably the Budget will include the announcement for April 2025 increase. That will be based on inflation and earnings in the next few months. Unless things change suddenly and badly, that will be a non-trivial real-terms increase in pensions, boosted by all those horrid public sector increases.
Shout about that from the rooftops, then quickly move on.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
Boris is just dialling it in for the cash.
Isn’t the point rather that once society does resemble the world of 1984 in exact detail, it's a little late to complain about it?
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The Triple Lock has added about £10-12 per week iirc over pure CPI linked since it was introduced in 2011 or whenever (last time I ran the numbers).
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
5% above CPI in just a decade is a not insignificant rise. Especially considering many other expenses have been subject to austerity in that time so risen less than CPI not above it.
That's approximately £6 billion cost per annum and guaranteed to only keep rising as long as the lock exists.
Would you say £30 billion over the lifetime of a Parliament is not huge?
Government expenditure over a parliament is something like £6,000 Bn
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
His complaints would have a lot more credibility if his party hadn't created/enhanced the law and structures necessary to inhibit speech on an industrial basis.
The removal of the automatic right to the winter fuel allowance hasn't gone down too well with those who will end up a little worse off.
Of course, the hyperbole of "little old grannies freezing to death" is overdone considering those in real need are still going to receive the allowance but the more pertinent question is what can the Government do (if it's not going to be an automatic right) to ensure the 850,000 pensioners who do not currently claim pension credit and therefore the winter fuel allowance get that to which they are entitled. I'm told ignorance is one reason (that can be addressed) and "pride" another.
"Pride" is a difficult one - from where I sit, I'd rather be humble and warm than proud and cold but I know that's not how everyone sees it and there's a natural resistance to going through a means testing process - there's an analogy with the reaction ot proposed affordability checks on punters.
However, the public finances are in a parlous state and I'd like to think (though I see plenty of evidence to the contrary) handing out public money wholesale wouldn't be the preserve of an "Iron" Chancellor. We all know of course winning elections means thanking your friends and supporters whether they be big business via tax cuts or trade unions via wage increases.
Stodge's Eighth Law of Politics states annoying your enemies is fine, they'll never be your friends. Annoying your friends is a bad move because they stop being your friends and become your enemies and in politics you need all the friends you can get.
42% of those over 65 voted Conservative in July, only 23% voted Labour. If the worst result for the Conservatives since the introduction of universal suffrage still left Labour trailing by nearly 2-1 in the over 65 age group, I imagine labour may be thinking they'll never win in that age group and naturally will look to boosting their base among younger voters
To be brutal, there is little point in Labour chasing the grey vote. They will not out featherbed the Tories promises.
Favour the young, which includes everyone under 65 nowadays.
You're wrong there.
There are lots of people approaching retirement who are looking forward to all the pensioner handouts and aren't going to be happy if they're taken away before they get them.
A 60 year old is likely to lose out more from WFA being stopped than an 80 year old.
I'm 74 and have lots of reasonably unworried, mostly leftish, pensioner friends - we were all slightly embarrassed to get the full WFA, though we did take it. There will be Labour-voting people approaching pension age who will be disappointed but I shouldn't think it will move many votes.
The whole reason it came in in the first place was because it did move votes because of the annual stories of oldies freezing to death. And that was when energy bills were a lot lower. The PR at the time.for the government was terrible.
Back then you didnt have a quarter to a third of pensioners living in millionaire households either. Things change.
Where are you getting a quarter of pensioners are millionaires? And if it just because of their house, its irrelevant if you are asset rich, cash poor, particularly if as expected council tax is going to be going up.
Also, even in the 90s the number of pensioners actually dying from no heating will have been small, but it doesn't matter if media decide its a thing, every Maureen freezing to death becomes a scandal.
Living in millionaire households - actual individual millionaires will be lower.
"The latest statistics, from 2020, show that 27 percent of those 65 and over live in households with a total wealth of £1m or more. The data does not show whether these individuals are millionaires, and much of the wealth comes from house and pension value, rather than disposable financial wealth."
And that is from 2020, reasonable asset price inflation since then so I suspect it will be pushing a third now.
IIRC the state pension, by itself has a value of about £250k
Fidelity came up with £223k equivalent via an annuity. But its not included in wealth as its not guaranteed or ring fenced but a benefit at the whim of the govt....
I wonder what yield a triple locked index linked gilt would trade at?
The Triple Lock has added about £10-12 per week iirc over pure CPI linked since it was introduced in 2011 or whenever (last time I ran the numbers).
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
5% above CPI in just a decade is a not insignificant rise. Especially considering many other expenses have been subject to austerity in that time so risen less than CPI not above it.
That's approximately £6 billion cost per annum and guaranteed to only keep rising as long as the lock exists.
Would you say £30 billion over the lifetime of a Parliament is not huge?
Government expenditure over a parliament is something like £6,000 Bn
So £30 bn is 0.5% or so.
And nothing on the £130 billion lost from cuts to fuel duty since 2010, now approaching £20 billion per year.
It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
Mind you I wasn't very pleased when Starmer, in a moment of democratic peril, lied to the Monarch and prorogued the sovereign Parliament... what do you mean It wasn't Starmer? Then who was it?
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
There are plenty of strong arguments against UBI but cost is not one of them.
The challenge would be minimising the number of winners and losers during the transition, particularly at the bottom of the earnings scale. It's a fun modelling challenge and I've had some fun playing around with it previously.
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
It's more simple than that, no? Edwards as a long serving employee of the BBC's news operation would be on a very solid staff contract. The BBC handled it badly - God knows who signed off on that pay rise - but you can see why they were worried if they had sacked him and the charges didn't go to court, as he'd have taken them to the cleaners.
Jenas in contrast is a freelance presenter and pundit - so can be dropped like a hot potato the moment his continued employment is awkward.
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
It's more simple than that, no? Edwards as a long serving employee of the BBC's news operation would be on a very solid staff contract. The BBC handled it badly - God knows who signed off on that pay rise - but you can see why they were worried if they had sacked him and the charges didn't go to court, as he'd have taken them to the cleaners.
Jenas in contrast is a freelance presenter and pundit - so can be dropped like a hot potato the moment his continued employment is awkward.
I was being mischievous, although whether practical or otherwise the optics of the inconsistency smell rather rank. I am not defending Jenas but how they behaved with Edwards smacks of Savile a decade on. Lessons learned? Hmm.
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
It's more simple than that, no? Edwards as a long serving employee of the BBC's news operation would be on a very solid staff contract. The BBC handled it badly - God knows who signed off on that pay rise - but you can see why they were worried if they had sacked him and the charges didn't go to court, as he'd have taken them to the cleaners.
Jenas in contrast is a freelance presenter and pundit - so can be dropped like a hot potato the moment his continued employment is awkward.
I don't think he was freelance for the BBC. He was a permanent presenter on the One Show (that's paid through the BBC studios fiddle) and got another salary of £200k for his football work for them.
He then freelanced for Talk Sport, TNT sport and Formula-E.
All of which appear to have dropped him, plus his long term management. Which makes you think it perhaps a bit worse than drunk people after a boozy work do sending fruity text messages (which is the his side of the story in the Sun).
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
. It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
For a second, there, I wondered what you had against Jesus, and how the BBC ended up employing him.
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
For a second, there, I wondered what you had against Jesus, and how the BBC ended up employing him.
I believe he also goes by the name Gary Lineker.....
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
Boris is just dialling it in for the cash.
Isn’t the point rather that once society does resemble the world of 1984 in exact detail, it's a little late to complain about it?
Weren’t Orwell’s models for 1984 the totalitarian regimes of the inter war period? Little as I respect Starmer and his pals, difficult to see them as resembling pre Stalin Sovietniks or pre enabling act Nazis.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
Mind you I wasn't very pleased when Starmer, in a moment of democratic peril, lied to the Monarch and prorogued the sovereign Parliament... what do you mean It wasn't Starmer? Then who was it?
Yes, modern life in general seems a lot more at risk of heading brave new world than 1984...
Manhunt in France after terrorist attacks synagogue in La Grande-Mott.
Armed with a gun and draped in a Palestinian flag, the man masked with a keffiyeh detonated a gas cylinder and set the scene on fire with flammables. A policeman was wounded after a car exploded.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
Boris is just dialling it in for the cash.
Isn’t the point rather that once society does resemble the world of 1984 in exact detail, it's a little late to complain about it?
Weren’t Orwell’s models for 1984 the totalitarian regimes of the inter war period? Little as I respect Starmer and his pals, difficult to see them as resembling pre Stalin Sovietniks or pre enabling act Nazis.
It was a response to the Soviet Union's takeover of Eastern Europe, with Big Brother as a thinly disguised version of Stalin and Goldstein as a still more thinly disguised version of Trotsky.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
I'm on the side of asylum seekers who were threatened with being burnt alive. Which means I'm on the other side from Boris Johnson.
It is a shame that you felt the need to point us in the direction of this venal, bullshitting knob head.
I've just reread 1984. There is not a sliver of resemblance between the nightmarish world depicted there and "Starmer's Britain". Or indeed Sunak's or Truss's or Johnson's or anybody else's Britain. I'm sick of hackneyed hyperbolic references to this novel. Whenever I see yet another one I just write off the speaker or writer as not worth listening to.
In recent years, it's been conservatives who complain most about the hackneyed trope.
Boris is just dialling it in for the cash.
Isn’t the point rather that once society does resemble the world of 1984 in exact detail, it's a little late to complain about it?
Weren’t Orwell’s models for 1984 the totalitarian regimes of the inter war period? Little as I respect Starmer and his pals, difficult to see them as resembling pre Stalin Sovietniks or pre enabling act Nazis.
It was a response to the Soviet Union's takeover of Eastern Europe, with Big Brother as a thinly disguised version of Stalin and Goldstein as a still more thinly disguised version of Trotsky.
Also heavily influenced by the experience of other totalitarian regimes - Nazis and Imperial Japan. Part of the thesis is that the ideology is barely relevant in such systems. The system itself becomes the dominant force in society.
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
Abolishing the personal allowance and taxing from the 1st pound earned....to be revenue neutral that would amount to ubi of 2550 a person. UBI only works if it provides enough for people to live on even without work because one of the cost savings ubi proponents always try to claim is getting rid of all the admin for benefits.
Currently someone on uc, which most think inadequate, when you include housing benefit, and council tax benefit alone, is going to be about 12k for a single person.
So to fund ubi you are going to need (if restricted to adults which probably wont work but just as an example) 12000 x 45,000,000 = 540 billion
So you need to increase income tax and ni to bring in that much to remain revenue neutral
currently income tax plus employee ni raises around 440 billion....so you now have 100 billion gap immediately to fund. Giving every adult 12k a year wont be enough to remove all the admin....single parents with children , the disabled etc will need more than that so the admin will remain so don't claim it will make up the difference
Do you think 12k ubi is enough? Please don't claim its not enough as that will mean people who cant work/wont work would be on the streets starving it is the bare minimum you would need to pay
The problem with UBI is always a) is it very expensive, b) you need to be very tough on immigration / eligibility and the big one....c) politicians will be in charge of it....it would give it about 5 minutes before some group was found not to be able to live on it, so special extra top up is required*, and 10 years down the line its nowhere near a universal payment to all anymore.
* you could already see how somebody in the North would be much better off than somebody in the South due to housing costs alone. So you do you have a UBI premium for those in London or the South East?
Jeremy Clarkson's opened a pub in Witney constituency and immediately barred Keir Starmer. This has been celebrated by the right wing media but I wonder what the reaction would have been if say Carol Vorderman opened a pub and told the public that Kimi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick wasn't welcome over the threshold.
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
Clarkson's not particularly right wing. A Cameroon remainer Tory.
Yep, I expect he is doing it entirely for marketing reasons to make more money. A proper old fashioned Tory. A problem the 'new' right faces aswell though. Many of their most effective new media personalities ultimately want to end up stateside like Douglas Murray where the big bucks are.
Clarkson is a funny one. Since before Brexit I've just put him down as a standard Chipping Norton Cameronite liberal - the sort of left wing person who only really associates with the Tory Party in preference to the Labour Party because they'd be terrified if they ever had to meet a member of the working class. Brexit smoked a lot of these types away from the Tories.
Then there was his vile piece about Meghan Markle - that seemed to me in some odd way calculated to engender public sympathy in her favour - though at immense cost to Clarkson's own media career at that time.
But now he's supposedly a born-again right winger - even oddly made his peace with Brexit. I don't buy it or trust him, but I do welcome his support for free speech while it lasts.
I don't recall anything Clarkson ever said or did that would single him out as a 'liberal'.
I use the term in its losest sense. I wouldn't describe many left wing people these days as liberal.
I can't imagine barring SKS would go down too well in the Cotswolds. Seems a very poor marketing move. The downside strikes me as far greater thanthe upside.
I think SKS is wrong about plenty, but I'd give him a) my business and b) the time of day. Hell, I'd give Corbyn the time of day. Are there any politicians I wouldn't interact with? Probably only Gerry Adams and his associates. Actual mouthpieces for murderers and gangsters.
It's just conceivable that SKS has better things to do with his time than to queue for two hours to get into a bar.
Clarkson barring SKS from his pub is about as meaningful as me barring Scarlett Johansson from my bed.
If Ms Johansson is reading this, I know it must be a shock to be “cancelled” like this. Let me say you will always be welcome in my bed.
You are Jermaine Jenas AICMFP.
Jenus; entitled, misogynistic, unpleasant and sacked in an instant by the BBC. Edwards, charged for serious crimes, not sacked, the BBC paid his salary and in receipt of a forty grand pay rise. I wonder if there was a racial element to this inconsistency and the BBC didn't want to offend the Welsh?
. It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
£2 bus fares?
Slowed it down a bit, I believe. In real terms, motoring costs fell by about 10% between 2010 and 2020, while bus and rail travel went up by 26% and 6%, respectively. Lots of regional variation, depending on the provision of public transport and average commute lengths.
Rail and car travel is used by those on high and middle incomes, generally, but buses are absolutely essential for the lower income groups.
There is a lot of focus on this at the moment with the decision to bring back peak rail travel in Scotland. Glasgow - Edinburgh is now a £30 return, and given the unreliability of the service it's difficult to ever justify not using a car if you have one, and obviously screws anyone without.
1984 was of course inspired by totalitarian socialism. In its narrow application, comparisons are of course overblown, because we do not live under a totalitarian regime.
However, it is undeniable that things like newspeak and doublethink, the proliferation of lies in place of truth, unpersoning and the erasure of inconvenient truths and state surveillance etc are all themes that resonate today.
. It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
£2 bus fares?
Slowed it down a bit, I believe. In real terms, motoring costs fell by about 10% between 2010 and 2020, while bus and rail travel went up by 26% and 6%, respectively. Lots of regional variation, depending on the provision of public transport and average commute lengths.
Rail and car travel is used by those on high and middle incomes, generally, but buses are absolutely essential for the lower income groups.
There is a lot of focus on this at the moment with the decision to bring back peak rail travel in Scotland. Glasgow - Edinburgh is now a £30 return, and given the unreliability of the service it's difficult to ever justify not using a car if you have one, and obviously screws anyone without.
There are large parts of the country where public transport has never really been an option since Beeching in the 1960s though. We mentioned Wales only the other day. And there, if anything, cars tend to be used more by poorer people as they're the ones who need to get to work.
The problem with UBI is always a) is it very expensive, b) you need to be very tough on immigration / eligibility and the big one....c) politicians will be in charge of it....it would give it about 5 minutes before some group was found not to be able to live on it, so special extra top up is required*, and 10 years down the line its nowhere near a universal payment to all anymore.
* you could already see how somebody in the North would be much better off than somebody in the South due to housing costs alone. So you do you have a UBI premium for those in London or the South East?
A) It depends on how you understand "expense". It would undoubtedly increase the size of the state, but it would not actually change what the state provides given for most people it's just your own cash returning to pocket.
That's an issue we already have
C) Yes, that is the great weakness in it. It would take incredible balls to face that all down, and would lead to regional levelling (but not necessarily "up").
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
I wonder if a German version of Farage will speculate on the creed and status of those responsible after researching Andrew Tate's X account. That seems like the go-to source if Farage is to be believed.
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
I wonder if a German version of Farage will speculate on the creed and status of those responsible after researching Andrew Tate's X account. That seems like the go-to source if Farage is to be believed.
The German media have already reported on this. You don't need to go to a Pakistani fake news website to get the information.
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
I wonder if a German version of Farage will speculate on the creed and status of those responsible after researching Andrew Tate's X account. That seems like the go-to source if Farage is to be believed.
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
More information required, but no name, no photo....rather tricky to help. We are looking for a person, keep an eye out.
Its even worse when they famously asked for help with a man simply identified as "a man known locally as Dave", who wasn't called Dave.
IIRC there are some severe legal limits about publicly naming people as suspects in Germany.
Yes I know, that is why I said down thread they are doing their usual dance. It leads to this farcical situation where the public are asked for information about the unnamed invisible man.
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
Please show your working.
What workings are you after in particular? Not that I can reasonably be expected to produce them (it would take a treasury team weeks to do it and they have the info I don't have), but if you are making something fiscally neutral it obviously can be logically done.
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
More information required, but no name, no photo....rather tricky to help. We are looking for a person, keep an eye out.
Its even worse when they famously asked for help with a man simply identified as "a man known locally as Dave", who wasn't called Dave.
Bild reported earlier that descriptions were so varied police were unsure whether there was not a second attacker. They arrested one man identified by an eye-witness, who was quickly cleared. What do you want the police to say?
. It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
£2 bus fares?
Slowed it down a bit, I believe. In real terms, motoring costs fell by about 10% between 2010 and 2020, while bus and rail travel went up by 26% and 6%, respectively. Lots of regional variation, depending on the provision of public transport and average commute lengths.
Rail and car travel is used by those on high and middle incomes, generally, but buses are absolutely essential for the lower income groups.
There is a lot of focus on this at the moment with the decision to bring back peak rail travel in Scotland. Glasgow - Edinburgh is now a £30 return, and given the unreliability of the service it's difficult to ever justify not using a car if you have one, and obviously screws anyone without.
There are large parts of the country where public transport has never really been an option since Beeching in the 1960s though. We mentioned Wales only the other day. And there, if anything, they tend to be used more by poorer people as they're the ones who need to get to work.
Yep, hence the regional variation. Though MattW has previously reminded us that there are surprisingly large numbers of people in rural areas without cars, who must be exceptionally isolated by the cuts in bus provision.
Ideally we would replace all motoring taxation that actually targets that what harms the economy and society - parking and short journeys inside urban areas, air pollution, carbon emissions, heavy vehicles chewing up the roads, dangerous vehicles that cause serious injuries and fatalities.
Driving a small hatchback in the north of Scotland should be much, much cheaper, and that this would benefit me massively has not influenced my thinking on this at all .
As American journalists moved left, they became less and less fair to those who disagreed with them, less and less willing to give credit to Republican officials for their successes. For example, GHWB has a good claim to be the "environmental president", measured by the improvements in air and water quality he worked for.
He achieved by far the largest reduction of nuclear weapons of any president, and started a negotiation process that continued even through Obama, as inept as he is. (The Loser didn't try for further reductions, nor did Biden.)
And how much credit did GHWB get from our "mainstream" journalists for those achievements? Not much.
Nor have the Republican governors who have worked to improve education in their states received much credit for those achievements.
And this has meant, more and more, that moderates, and conservatives in the US have tuned out "mainstream" journalists. And become more and more "tribal" in their thinking.
Which means that large moves in American voting choices are far less likely than they once were. Unfortunately.
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
Abolishing the personal allowance and taxing from the 1st pound earned....to be revenue neutral that would amount to ubi of 2550 a person. UBI only works if it provides enough for people to live on even without work because one of the cost savings ubi proponents always try to claim is getting rid of all the admin for benefits.
Currently someone on uc, which most think inadequate, when you include housing benefit, and council tax benefit alone, is going to be about 12k for a single person.
So to fund ubi you are going to need (if restricted to adults which probably wont work but just as an example) 12000 x 45,000,000 = 540 billion
So you need to increase income tax and ni to bring in that much to remain revenue neutral
currently income tax plus employee ni raises around 440 billion....so you now have 100 billion gap immediately to fund. Giving every adult 12k a year wont be enough to remove all the admin....single parents with children , the disabled etc will need more than that so the admin will remain so don't claim it will make up the difference
Do you think 12k ubi is enough? Please don't claim its not enough as that will mean people who cant work/wont work would be on the streets starving it is the bare minimum you would need to pay
I don't know what enough is, but you and @Casino_Royale and @FrancisUrquhart are all falling into he same trap of thinking it is expensive. For all the issues of moving over to UBI the one thing that isn't an issue is cost (as @Eabhal points out) because you design it to be financially neutral
And in case you think I am relying on cost savings from the DWP I am not. Useful as that is it is a pittance compared to the cost of the UBI.
But all you are doing is rearranging the tax system. You eliminate Personal Allowance because that isn't needed anymore. You eliminate Benefits because they aren't needed anymore. So that has made up a chunk of your costs. You are now however almost certainly still in deficit so you introduce a more progressive tax system. Now people aren't keen on paying higher rates of tax but you have just given them a whole lot of free cash in the UBI to clawback where relevant. As much as possible you set up the rates and thresholds so that people are more or less in the same position as they were before (there will obviously be winners and losers). Hopefully the winners will be those who previously didn't claim benefits or were struggling on them. The losers may be those who played the system. Hopefully the saving in admin may make everyone, particularly those at the poorer end just a little better off.
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
Abolishing the personal allowance and taxing from the 1st pound earned....to be revenue neutral that would amount to ubi of 2550 a person. UBI only works if it provides enough for people to live on even without work because one of the cost savings ubi proponents always try to claim is getting rid of all the admin for benefits.
Currently someone on uc, which most think inadequate, when you include housing benefit, and council tax benefit alone, is going to be about 12k for a single person.
So to fund ubi you are going to need (if restricted to adults which probably wont work but just as an example) 12000 x 45,000,000 = 540 billion
So you need to increase income tax and ni to bring in that much to remain revenue neutral
currently income tax plus employee ni raises around 440 billion....so you now have 100 billion gap immediately to fund. Giving every adult 12k a year wont be enough to remove all the admin....single parents with children , the disabled etc will need more than that so the admin will remain so don't claim it will make up the difference
Do you think 12k ubi is enough? Please don't claim its not enough as that will mean people who cant work/wont work would be on the streets starving it is the bare minimum you would need to pay
I don't know what enough is, but you and @Casino_Royale and @FrancisUrquhart are all falling into he same trap of thinking it is expensive. For all the issues of moving over to UBI the one thing that isn't an issue is cost (as @Eabhal points out) because you design it to be financially neutral
And in case you think I am relying on cost savings from the DWP I am not. Useful as that is it is a pittance compared to the cost of the UBI.
But all you are doing is rearranging the tax system. You eliminate Personal Allowance because that isn't needed anymore. You eliminate Benefits because they aren't needed anymore. So that has made up a chunk of your costs. You are now however almost certainly still in deficit so you introduce a more progressive tax system. Now people aren't keen on paying higher rates of tax but you have just given them a whole lot of free cash in the UBI to clawback where relevant. As much as possible you set up the rates and thresholds so that people are more or less in the same position as they were before (there will obviously be winners and losers). Hopefully the winners will be those who previously didn't claim benefits or were struggling on them. The losers may be those who played the system. Hopefully the saving in admin may make everyone, particularly those at the poorer end just a little better off.
It depends on how to you measure "expensive". It terms of government taxation as a percentage GDP - yes, it would be very expensive.
But in terms of the actual, practical size of the state in terms of the role it plays in your life - no change. Indeed, it might be a bit smaller as DWP and other agencies can be disposed of.
I agree that the Tories spent far too much chasing the pensioner vote at the expense of the working population. But the way some talk about pensioners on here is as if they’re universally as rich as Croesus and raking it in with all these generous entitlements. The state pension is not (despite the cries of unfairness about the triple lock) a huge sum, and a significant amount of the pensioner class rely on it with limited private pensions/savings.
Labour will be onto a hiding to nothing if they manage to p*ss off pensioners to a significant degree. Two things to bear in mind: a lot of pensioners have children, who will never hear the end of any Labour unfairness from their parents, and plenty of people in their 50s (or younger!) already have one eye on their retirement. And I say that as someone who believes some careful recalibration is needed, and support the removal of some universal benefits (though as I have said before, pension credit was the wrong benchmark for the WFA).
I tend to agree with that. So I support the triple lock until state pensions reach an acceptable basic level. However a mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure people like me do not get things like the winter fuel allowance and Christmas bonus. Labour does seem to have taken the right approach, but it does need to get those not getting these benefits on to them
Has the £10 Christmas bonus been cut. It should be, if for no other reason £10 is ridiculous. I shouldn't get, but maybe those on benefits could do with £100.
The full triple-locked pension, even today, is under £1,000 a month but still extremely expensive, and probably unsustainable.
It just goes to show what a fantasy ideas of a UBI are.
I think a UBI is a brilliant idea, but it should be tax neutral. We are not talking magic money trees here. Firstly you abolish the Personal Allowance as that will no longer be needed and then you amend the tax rates to make it tax neutral. Benefits will largely be abolished overnight as will student loans, state pension, maternity payments, unemployment benefits, etc, etc. You will just about be able to wind up the DWP as it will have practically no purpose. The only benefits I can envisage are for capital items for disabled people.
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
Abolishing the personal allowance and taxing from the 1st pound earned....to be revenue neutral that would amount to ubi of 2550 a person. UBI only works if it provides enough for people to live on even without work because one of the cost savings ubi proponents always try to claim is getting rid of all the admin for benefits.
Currently someone on uc, which most think inadequate, when you include housing benefit, and council tax benefit alone, is going to be about 12k for a single person.
So to fund ubi you are going to need (if restricted to adults which probably wont work but just as an example) 12000 x 45,000,000 = 540 billion
So you need to increase income tax and ni to bring in that much to remain revenue neutral
currently income tax plus employee ni raises around 440 billion....so you now have 100 billion gap immediately to fund. Giving every adult 12k a year wont be enough to remove all the admin....single parents with children , the disabled etc will need more than that so the admin will remain so don't claim it will make up the difference
Do you think 12k ubi is enough? Please don't claim its not enough as that will mean people who cant work/wont work would be on the streets starving it is the bare minimum you would need to pay
I don't know what enough is, but you and @Casino_Royale and @FrancisUrquhart are all falling into he same trap of thinking it is expensive. For all the issues of moving over to UBI the one thing that isn't an issue is cost (as @Eabhal points out) because you design it to be financially neutral
And in case you think I am relying on cost savings from the DWP I am not. Useful as that is it is a pittance compared to the cost of the UBI.
But all you are doing is rearranging the tax system. You eliminate Personal Allowance because that isn't needed anymore. You eliminate Benefits because they aren't needed anymore. So that has made up a chunk of your costs. You are now however almost certainly still in deficit so you introduce a more progressive tax system. Now people aren't keen on paying higher rates of tax but you have just given them a whole lot of free cash in the UBI to clawback where relevant. As much as possible you set up the rates and thresholds so that people are more or less in the same position as they were before (there will obviously be winners and losers). Hopefully the winners will be those who previously didn't claim benefits or were struggling on them. The losers may be those who played the system. Hopefully the saving in admin may make everyone, particularly those at the poorer end just a little better off.
Well then set a figure then we can do a calculation and ask how you make it tax neutral....ubi advocates never seem to want to set a figure because when you do the calculation there is an obvious gap between the value of what you are giving as ubi and the current amount taxed
And how much credit did GHWB get from our "mainstream" journalists for those achievements? Not much.
George W Bush had crazy evangelical views. In French president Chirac's bio there's a section where he discussed how Bush started ranting at him about how he had to go to war in Iraq to bring about an endtimes apocalyptic biblical prophecy.
In short he was a religious maniac who you people decided to give access to nuclear weapons, who started an unsuccessful war. And you want us to praise him for his environmental policies?
Do you not see why people who are not left-wing would have a problem with that?
Comments
It's also surprisingly different by nation.
With that distribution, I'd probably suggest AB, which is still 45% in England, and 35% in Wales, as being closer to my thought.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/council-tax-stock-of-properties-2021/council-tax-stock-of-properties-statistical-summary#:~:text=Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show,C (5.4 million, 21.9%)
So not ta huge difference between triple locked and CPI linked.
That's approximately £6 billion cost per annum and guaranteed to only keep rising as long as the lock exists.
Would you say £30 billion over the lifetime of a Parliament is not huge?
Boris is just dialling it in for the cash.
Shout about that from the rooftops, then quickly move on.
So £30 bn is 0.5% or so.
It's probably the most regressive policy measure the Conservatives introduced, with most of the benefit going to the top income deciles even while the costs of public transport increased (or stopped being provided at all).
Tax rates would have to be quite progressive. As you have the UBI it can start on the very first pound earned, but you don't want to discourage work so needs to be progressive so that low income people don't get completely hammered.
What is not to like. Huge Government savings, nobody in poverty or falling through the cracks in the benefits system or too proud to claim it. No abuse possible as there is no system to play. True if you don't want to work you will get it, but there is no system to play to get you more.
The challenge would be minimising the number of winners and losers during the transition, particularly at the bottom of the earnings scale. It's a fun modelling challenge and I've had some fun playing around with it previously.
Jenas in contrast is a freelance presenter and pundit - so can be dropped like a hot potato the moment his continued employment is awkward.
He then freelanced for Talk Sport, TNT sport and Formula-E.
All of which appear to have dropped him, plus his long term management. Which makes you think it perhaps a bit worse than drunk people after a boozy work do sending fruity text messages (which is the his side of the story in the Sun).
Manhunt in France after terrorist attacks synagogue in La Grande-Mott.
Armed with a gun and draped in a Palestinian flag, the man masked with a keffiyeh detonated a gas cylinder and set the scene on fire with flammables. A policeman was wounded after a car exploded.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1827333662964101207
More Impressionist than Renaissance; very relaxing for a Saturday teatime.
Currently someone on uc, which most think inadequate, when you include housing benefit, and council tax benefit alone, is going to be about 12k for a single person.
So to fund ubi you are going to need (if restricted to adults which probably wont work but just as an example) 12000 x 45,000,000 = 540 billion
So you need to increase income tax and ni to bring in that much to remain revenue neutral
currently income tax plus employee ni raises around 440 billion....so you now have 100 billion gap immediately to fund. Giving every adult 12k a year wont be enough to remove all the admin....single parents with children , the disabled etc will need more than that so the admin will remain so don't claim it will make up the difference
Do you think 12k ubi is enough? Please don't claim its not enough as that will mean people who cant work/wont work would be on the streets starving it is the bare minimum you would need to pay
* you could already see how somebody in the North would be much better off than somebody in the South due to housing costs alone. So you do you have a UBI premium for those in London or the South East?
Germany, via BBC
The chief of police appeals to the public for more information and urges people not to speculate or share information on social media
Rail and car travel is used by those on high and middle incomes, generally, but buses are absolutely essential for the lower income groups.
There is a lot of focus on this at the moment with the decision to bring back peak rail travel in Scotland. Glasgow - Edinburgh is now a £30 return, and given the unreliability of the service it's difficult to ever justify not using a car if you have one, and obviously screws anyone without.
Its even worse when they famously asked for help with a man simply identified as "a man known locally as Dave", who wasn't called Dave.
However, it is undeniable that things like newspeak and doublethink, the proliferation of lies in place of truth, unpersoning and the erasure of inconvenient truths and state surveillance etc are all themes that resonate today.
C) Yes, that is the great weakness in it. It would take incredible balls to face that all down, and would lead to regional levelling (but not necessarily "up").
NEW THREAD
Ideally we would replace all motoring taxation that actually targets that what harms the economy and society - parking and short journeys inside urban areas, air pollution, carbon emissions, heavy vehicles chewing up the roads, dangerous vehicles that cause serious injuries and fatalities.
Driving a small hatchback in the north of Scotland should be much, much cheaper, and that this would benefit me massively has not influenced my thinking on this at all
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1457133671/annoy-the-media-re-elect-bush-bumper
As American journalists moved left, they became less and less fair to those who disagreed with them, less and less willing to give credit to Republican officials for their successes. For example, GHWB has a good claim to be the "environmental president", measured by the improvements in air and water quality he worked for.
He achieved by far the largest reduction of nuclear weapons of any president, and started a negotiation process that continued even through Obama, as inept as he is. (The Loser didn't try for further reductions, nor did Biden.)
And how much credit did GHWB get from our "mainstream" journalists for those achievements? Not much.
Nor have the Republican governors who have worked to improve education in their states received much credit for those achievements.
And this has meant, more and more, that moderates, and conservatives in the US have tuned out "mainstream" journalists. And become more and more "tribal" in their thinking.
Which means that large moves in American voting choices are far less likely than they once were. Unfortunately.
And in case you think I am relying on cost savings from the DWP I am not. Useful as that is it is a pittance compared to the cost of the UBI.
But all you are doing is rearranging the tax system. You eliminate Personal Allowance because that isn't needed anymore. You eliminate Benefits because they aren't needed anymore. So that has made up a chunk of your costs. You are now however almost certainly still in deficit so you introduce a more progressive tax system. Now people aren't keen on paying higher rates of tax but you have just given them a whole lot of free cash in the UBI to clawback where relevant. As much as possible you set up the rates and thresholds so that people are more or less in the same position as they were before (there will obviously be winners and losers). Hopefully the winners will be those who previously didn't claim benefits or were struggling on them. The losers may be those who played the system. Hopefully the saving in admin may make everyone, particularly those at the poorer end just a little better off.
But in terms of the actual, practical size of the state in terms of the role it plays in your life - no change. Indeed, it might be a bit smaller as DWP and other agencies can be disposed of.
In short he was a religious maniac who you people decided to give access to nuclear weapons, who started an unsuccessful war. And you want us to praise him for his environmental policies?
Do you not see why people who are not left-wing would have a problem with that?