What worries me about Europe going for the Rwanda deal and Labour not having the balls to push it through is that it will increase the pull factor for illegal immigrants to come to the UK if they believe that staying in the EU will result in a one way ticket to Rwanda.
Labour made a very poor decision to rule out offshore asylum seeker hosting and it may result reform breaching the 25% mark in the polls if Europe makes it work and we're not doing it.
Except it won’t be a one way ticket if it’s as currently proposed by several countries. In any case we only get a tiny fraction of the European flow anyway - generally people with relatives here or English speakers.
UK can do a lot to get its act together on asylum, speed up processing, speed deportations, rapidly integrate successful refugees into the labour market etc.
BBC report has some French people blaming the ease of work in the U.K. without checks etc as one of the bigger pulls. So easy to shut down too - ID card linked to NI number and proper checking of all those restaurants, car washes and Turkish barbers.
People working illegally are rarely small boat arrivals, more likely overstayed.
People claiming asylum are not allowed to work (at least for a year) and working illegally is quite a severely punishable breach. So mostly they just hang around, waiting for Godot in their accommodation,
Some on this board have claimed that the first choice of boat arrivals is to work illegaly, and claiming asylum is what they do when caught.
Does anyone have stats?
According to the Refugee Council 98% of arrivals in 2021 claimed asylum. I suspect the figure hasn't changed much.
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
I noted that earlier today, Jim. I'm a little surprised it didn't get all that much media attention.
More likely will Reeves still be CoE ? She's been fairly clumsy so far and SKS likes to remind us how ruthless he is, She'll fall on his sword before he does so himself.
In what way has she been 'clumsy'? She has been the opposite – sharp and ruthless. The idea that she should court popularity a few weeks into the parliament to support 'Alanbrooke', the bloke on the internet, and the Tory client vote is for the birds.
The contrast of giving the unions big pay rises and concurrently taking away the winter fuel allowance is clumsy at best and idiotic at worst.
Indeed it is really hard to see why the government prefers to have doctors, nurses and teachers working rather than striking when we could be paying that same money to retired millionaires instead as a little thank you bonus for winning the second world war.
I agree, I am in favour of taking away the WFA from the most selfish generation in history, but the optics look bad.
What they should have done is something like getting rid of the WFA but increasing the pension by that amount but changing the tax allowances for pensioners so the really poor ones would have got it tax free.
In practice, that's what happened. The inflation spike made the triple lock act strangely- pensions got the inflation boost two years ago and the subsequent pay boost last year. Double bubble as they say.
That windfall was was more than the WFA. Granny still has more money after inflation to pay her fuel bills than three years ago. But yes, the politics and optics were awful.
But with nearly five years until the election, that's not something to get excited about.
Whilst I agree with you, I wonder if it would have been any different without the triple lock? I assume that when they finally get the balls to get rid of it (as they should have long ago) they will revert to some tie to inflation. In which case the rises in pensions would have followed a similar trajectoory even if the triple lock had not been there.
Reeves does have the opportunity to do some serious rebalancing and rejigging over the next couple of budgets. Dumping the triple lock and making all income subject to the same tax regimes whilst at the same time getting rid of some of the stupid cliff edges would seem to me to be obvious and generally positive moves. Merging IC and NI would be a braver move but again one I would applaud. The trouble is I am not sure she is really interested in doing anything properly radical and just wants to tinker in favour of her own pressure groups just as the Tories did when they were in power with the pensioners.
Once you've made 'all income subject to the same tax regimes', merging ICT and NI is a piece of piss because it will affect no one.
I agree with you but I was talking in terms of the commonly perceived but incorrect notion that NI is not a tax (we have some adherents to this belief on here)
So the 'same tax regimes' initially would apply to all income - pensions, benefits, dividends, interest and everything else. All should have a tax free allowance, a normal rate and a higher rate just like ICT. That seems to me to be the easy sell - or at least easier. Once that is done, convincing the public - especially pensioners - that NI is just another tax that should be rolled in to ICT and applied to all income will be the harder sell. But I think it needs to be done. Certainly getting rid of the NI cut off at pension age should be a priority.
The essentialist fallacy in all its glory.
Say I take a dead sheep and write 30 on it in a red circle and stick it by the roadside, we could have a really heated debate about whether it was a dead mammal or a road sign but what would be the point? Because even if you win it's a hugely anomalous example of whichever you say it is. Most road signs don't get flyblown and smell bad, most dead mammals don't dictate a maximum speed for motor vehicles, and any dealings with it have to take those anomalies into account. What you are doing is stipulating that NI is a tax, and then in para 2 smuggling in the suggestion that there are no anomalies. If a thing is a tax, it is necessarily "just another" tax. This is not the case. Your harder sell is a fallacy which is why it's unsellable.
Not a fallacy, a fact. NI is just another tax. Everyone knows this but people still try to bleat about 'deserving' something because they 'paid in' for so many years. All they were actually doing was paying for the current pensioners with no gaurantee the system would still support them when it was there turn to retire. It is money taken by the Government to do with as they will. This will become all the more obvious as pension payouts exceed the revnue raised by NI.
The big problem for Harris atm is that although most of the polls are slightly moving in her direction, including most state polls and the national polls, her lead in PA is stubbornly sticking at around just 1% over Trump. And all those other leads probably won't be worth much if she can't win PA.
More likely will Reeves still be CoE ? She's been fairly clumsy so far and SKS likes to remind us how ruthless he is, She'll fall on his sword before he does so himself.
In what way has she been 'clumsy'? She has been the opposite – sharp and ruthless. The idea that she should court popularity a few weeks into the parliament to support 'Alanbrooke', the bloke on the internet, and the Tory client vote is for the birds.
The contrast of giving the unions big pay rises and concurrently taking away the winter fuel allowance is clumsy at best and idiotic at worst.
Indeed it is really hard to see why the government prefers to have doctors, nurses and teachers working rather than striking when we could be paying that same money to retired millionaires instead as a little thank you bonus for winning the second world war.
I agree, I am in favour of taking away the WFA from the most selfish generation in history, but the optics look bad.
What they should have done is something like getting rid of the WFA but increasing the pension by that amount but changing the tax allowances for pensioners so the really poor ones would have got it tax free.
In practice, that's what happened. The inflation spike made the triple lock act strangely- pensions got the inflation boost two years ago and the subsequent pay boost last year. Double bubble as they say.
That windfall was was more than the WFA. Granny still has more money after inflation to pay her fuel bills than three years ago. But yes, the politics and optics were awful.
But with nearly five years until the election, that's not something to get excited about.
Whilst I agree with you, I wonder if it would have been any different without the triple lock? I assume that when they finally get the balls to get rid of it (as they should have long ago) they will revert to some tie to inflation. In which case the rises in pensions would have followed a similar trajectoory even if the triple lock had not been there.
Reeves does have the opportunity to do some serious rebalancing and rejigging over the next couple of budgets. Dumping the triple lock and making all income subject to the same tax regimes whilst at the same time getting rid of some of the stupid cliff edges would seem to me to be obvious and generally positive moves. Merging IC and NI would be a braver move but again one I would applaud. The trouble is I am not sure she is really interested in doing anything properly radical and just wants to tinker in favour of her own pressure groups just as the Tories did when they were in power with the pensioners.
Once you've made 'all income subject to the same tax regimes', merging ICT and NI is a piece of piss because it will affect no one.
I agree with you but I was talking in terms of the commonly perceived but incorrect notion that NI is not a tax (we have some adherents to this belief on here)
So the 'same tax regimes' initially would apply to all income - pensions, benefits, dividends, interest and everything else. All should have a tax free allowance, a normal rate and a higher rate just like ICT. That seems to me to be the easy sell - or at least easier. Once that is done, convincing the public - especially pensioners - that NI is just another tax that should be rolled in to ICT and applied to all income will be the harder sell. But I think it needs to be done. Certainly getting rid of the NI cut off at pension age should be a priority.
The essentialist fallacy in all its glory.
Say I take a dead sheep and write 30 on it in a red circle and stick it by the roadside, we could have a really heated debate about whether it was a dead mammal or a road sign but what would be the point? Because even if you win it's a hugely anomalous example of whichever you say it is. Most road signs don't get flyblown and smell bad, most dead mammals don't dictate a maximum speed for motor vehicles, and any dealings with it have to take those anomalies into account. What you are doing is stipulating that NI is a tax, and then in para 2 smuggling in the suggestion that there are no anomalies. If a thing is a tax, it is necessarily "just another" tax. This is not the case. Your harder sell is a fallacy which is why it's unsellable.
According to international treaties, employees NI is defined as an income tax. By both the UK government and other governments.
Any definition I have ever seen in a treaty has expressly been for the purposes of that treaty only. Good luck telling the voters that their point that if you call something insurance, and make representations to the payer about benefits they can expect to receive commensurate with the payments, it looks a bit like insurance and a pension plan, sounds reasonable, but see appendix 3 to the Laccadive Islands dual taxation agreement 1958.
The Government were quite explict about this when they set it up after the war. We are not paying NI to cover our own pensions at some point in the future. We are paying now to cover pensions now. Pensions of other people. And there is the hope that by the time we retire the system will still be in place and will pay us similarly. But it is not assured and legally we would have no comeback if a future Government decided to abandon the system and, for example, means test the state pension.
What worries me about Europe going for the Rwanda deal and Labour not having the balls to push it through is that it will increase the pull factor for illegal immigrants to come to the UK if they believe that staying in the EU will result in a one way ticket to Rwanda.
Labour made a very poor decision to rule out offshore asylum seeker hosting and it may result reform breaching the 25% mark in the polls if Europe makes it work and we're not doing it.
I suspect someone, somewhere in Germany is flying a kite.
If the proposal is similar to the Priti Patel caper it is immoral whether sung as Deutschland Uber Alles or God Save the Queen.
Quite often PB Tories pick up some tabloid story and run with something completely different to justify Boris Johnson was right all along.
What does shock me are those penny-pinching PB Tories who claim they wouldn't want to pay idle feckless Junior Doctors yet are quite comfortable with the absurdly expensive Rwanda stunt ot the X millions spent on housing asylum seekers in Scampton, on the Bibby Stockholm or block booking a Holiday Inn.
What worries me about Europe going for the Rwanda deal and Labour not having the balls to push it through is that it will increase the pull factor for illegal immigrants to come to the UK if they believe that staying in the EU will result in a one way ticket to Rwanda.
Labour made a very poor decision to rule out offshore asylum seeker hosting and it may result reform breaching the 25% mark in the polls if Europe makes it work and we're not doing it.
I suspect someone, somewhere in Germany is flying a kite.
If the proposal is similar to the Priti Patel caper it is immoral whether sung as Deutschland Uber Alles or God Save the Queen.
Quite often PB Tories pick up some tabloid story and run with something completely different to justify Boris Johnson was right all along.
What does shock me are those penny-pinching PB Tories who claim they wouldn't want to pay idle feckless Junior Doctors yet are quite comfortable with the absurdly expensive Rwanda stunt ot the X millions spent on housing asylum seekers in Scampton, on the Bibby Stockholm or block booking a Holiday Inn.
The policy was in the EPP’s election manifesto for the recent Euro elections. It’s much more than someone flying a kite.
More likely will Reeves still be CoE ? She's been fairly clumsy so far and SKS likes to remind us how ruthless he is, She'll fall on his sword before he does so himself.
In what way has she been 'clumsy'? She has been the opposite – sharp and ruthless. The idea that she should court popularity a few weeks into the parliament to support 'Alanbrooke', the bloke on the internet, and the Tory client vote is for the birds.
The contrast of giving the unions big pay rises and concurrently taking away the winter fuel allowance is clumsy at best and idiotic at worst.
Indeed it is really hard to see why the government prefers to have doctors, nurses and teachers working rather than striking when we could be paying that same money to retired millionaires instead as a little thank you bonus for winning the second world war.
I agree, I am in favour of taking away the WFA from the most selfish generation in history, but the optics look bad.
What they should have done is something like getting rid of the WFA but increasing the pension by that amount but changing the tax allowances for pensioners so the really poor ones would have got it tax free.
In practice, that's what happened. The inflation spike made the triple lock act strangely- pensions got the inflation boost two years ago and the subsequent pay boost last year. Double bubble as they say.
That windfall was was more than the WFA. Granny still has more money after inflation to pay her fuel bills than three years ago. But yes, the politics and optics were awful.
But with nearly five years until the election, that's not something to get excited about.
Whilst I agree with you, I wonder if it would have been any different without the triple lock? I assume that when they finally get the balls to get rid of it (as they should have long ago) they will revert to some tie to inflation. In which case the rises in pensions would have followed a similar trajectoory even if the triple lock had not been there.
Reeves does have the opportunity to do some serious rebalancing and rejigging over the next couple of budgets. Dumping the triple lock and making all income subject to the same tax regimes whilst at the same time getting rid of some of the stupid cliff edges would seem to me to be obvious and generally positive moves. Merging IC and NI would be a braver move but again one I would applaud. The trouble is I am not sure she is really interested in doing anything properly radical and just wants to tinker in favour of her own pressure groups just as the Tories did when they were in power with the pensioners.
Once you've made 'all income subject to the same tax regimes', merging ICT and NI is a piece of piss because it will affect no one.
I agree with you but I was talking in terms of the commonly perceived but incorrect notion that NI is not a tax (we have some adherents to this belief on here)
So the 'same tax regimes' initially would apply to all income - pensions, benefits, dividends, interest and everything else. All should have a tax free allowance, a normal rate and a higher rate just like ICT. That seems to me to be the easy sell - or at least easier. Once that is done, convincing the public - especially pensioners - that NI is just another tax that should be rolled in to ICT and applied to all income will be the harder sell. But I think it needs to be done. Certainly getting rid of the NI cut off at pension age should be a priority.
The essentialist fallacy in all its glory.
Say I take a dead sheep and write 30 on it in a red circle and stick it by the roadside, we could have a really heated debate about whether it was a dead mammal or a road sign but what would be the point? Because even if you win it's a hugely anomalous example of whichever you say it is. Most road signs don't get flyblown and smell bad, most dead mammals don't dictate a maximum speed for motor vehicles, and any dealings with it have to take those anomalies into account. What you are doing is stipulating that NI is a tax, and then in para 2 smuggling in the suggestion that there are no anomalies. If a thing is a tax, it is necessarily "just another" tax. This is not the case. Your harder sell is a fallacy which is why it's unsellable.
According to international treaties, employees NI is defined as an income tax. By both the UK government and other governments.
Any definition I have ever seen in a treaty has expressly been for the purposes of that treaty only. Good luck telling the voters that their point that if you call something insurance, and make representations to the payer about benefits they can expect to receive commensurate with the payments, it looks a bit like insurance and a pension plan, sounds reasonable, but see appendix 3 to the Laccadive Islands dual taxation agreement 1958.
The Government were quite explict about this when they set it up after the war. We are not paying NI to cover our own pensions at some point in the future. We are paying now to cover pensions now. Pensions of other people. And there is the hope that by the time we retire the system will still be in place and will pay us similarly. But it is not assured and legally we would have no comeback if a future Government decided to abandon the system and, for example, means test the state pension.
I think it's simpler just to think of it in two parts 1) a tax (literally the dictionary definition of one) 2) eligibility criteria for social welfare.
I think the second part will likely be extended to other welfare and will be based on tax residence over a minimum proportion of your adult life (social care, UC, even the NHS), while the first part will be subsumed by income tax.
"A large majority of citizens want a fundamentally different migration policy. Very few consider the government to be competent in combating crime and asylum policy - the AfD does better here than all three traffic light parties combined."
Europe is about to shift brutally to the right on migration and asylum. Everyone will follow where Denmark led. I’ve been saying it on here for a while
Because the alternative is actual Nazis in power. Eventually the voters will rebel and they don’t care if you call them racist
Feeble Sir Keir means Britain will be last to the party
Surely it's weak to capitulate to the racist tendencies of the far right and strong to oppose it? Or did I misunderstand WW2?
Yes you did. If Hitler had kept his racist operations within his own borders, no WW2. Some jolly stern notes perhaps.
There is also the point that capitulating to the er.. Solutions of the Far Right is the problem. Not dealing with the *Problems*.
The Nazis were a reaction to the *Problem* of Germany in the Great Depression and after WWI.
Alternative *Solutions* to geneocide were available. See the US under FDR.
What do you think would have been a better solution to Germanys "Jewish Problem" and need for Lebensraum?
A little bit of Appeasement perhaps?
1) Not blaming the Jews for stuff they didn't do. 2) Educating the population on not being racist - see post WWII Germany. 3) Realising the problem was actually a shortage of workers, once the German economy got going. Realise, ahead of the game, that empires are not what you need. You don't need to steal resources. Trade is actually better. See the Japanese and German miracles, post war.
Everything that Germany and Japan achieved post war was possible before the war. They just needed a change in the management and the business plan.
In other words challenging the lies of the far right and rooting out its bigotry?
I certainly agree with that, and until 1929 it was working for Weimar too.
The real problem was Presidential rule of Hindenburg, and moderate Conservatives bringing the Far Right into government, initially in the states.
Moderate Conservative now should learn the lesson that you should not sup with the devil.
Sadly that lesson has clearly been forgotten across Europe. Macron and Barnier about to be the latest to seek far right support for a right wing government rather than form a coalition across the centre with the left.
Today’s choice nuggets from Radio Wacko (shows actually syndicated right across the US):
- Hamas wants Americans to vote for Harris - Harris and Walz are evil communists engaged in a revolution against the American way of life - The Feds and DoJ lie so often that the default response when anyone is charged should be that the offences are a set up
When people mock the paucity of talent in the Tory leadership election, remember that Slalom beat Rebecca Long-Bailey to win the Labour top job
Also, anyone who helped unseat a potential contender can keep their criticism to themselves.
I met up with a 'friend' from Portsmouth this week who had the temerity to suggest the race would've been a lot better if Penny Mordaunt was in it as he'd like to see her as LOTO. He voted Labour a few weeks ago in her (former) seat...
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
Why should a company be forbidden from buying back its own stock ?
I’m not certain that @IshmaelZ ’s return to PB has been an unalloyed success. Impenetrable rants and personal abuse aren’t my thing. YMMV.
Oh is he back?
I've been here since 2006 and seen a lot of odd characters come and go but he was the only one that actually made me concerned when he started abusing me...
Yes, he was/is a sinister figure. I fear he might walk among us again.
They’re using completely different methods and models, and you can agree or disagree with each for a whole load of reasons and prejudices, they’ll likely both be updated many times between now and the election.
Latest polling has Pennsylvania basically 50/50, it’s likely to be the Florida 2000 of this election, although hopefully it’s a little more decisive one way or the other on the night and doesn’t lead to weeks of fighting. I’d really hate to live in that state, for the amount of attention they’ll be getting from candidates and media in the next two months.
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
This one is going to be their first Parliamentary test of the new term.
I can understand what they’re trying to achieve, but IMHO they’ve drawn the line in the wrong place and will leave a lot of people short of money over the winter. There’s not as many “wealthy pensioners” in the country as there are in the media and in MPs social circles. The majority of pensioners aren’t on the gold plated public sector schemes that are now pretty much unattainable in the private sector.
Oh, and I’d love to ask Ed Miliband how high energy prices should be in order to justify his Net Zero targets? It’s clear he doesn’t want to see them come down appreciably from recent highs, and has held exactly the same view since he was LotO a decade and more ago. He’s tilting at windmills
When people mock the paucity of talent in the Tory leadership election, remember that Slalom beat Rebecca Long-Bailey to win the Labour top job
Also, anyone who helped unseat a potential contender can keep their criticism to themselves.
I met up with a 'friend' from Portsmouth this week who had the temerity to suggest the race would've been a lot better if Penny Mordaunt was in it as he'd like to see her as LOTO. He voted Labour a few weeks ago in her (former) seat...
Boris drove out a swathe of stronger MPs in the parliamentary Conservative party and most of you seemed happy with that. A large part of the remaining "talent" threw their hand rather than fight and lose their seat. Quit whining what you've got left is what you wanted, you shat your bed now lie in it.
I’m not certain that @IshmaelZ ’s return to PB has been an unalloyed success. Impenetrable rants and personal abuse aren’t my thing. YMMV.
Oh is he back?
I've been here since 2006 and seen a lot of odd characters come and go but he was the only one that actually made me concerned when he started abusing me...
Yes, he was/is a sinister figure. I fear he might walk among us again.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye out...
Mercator, FYI.
A thoroughly decent, pleasant, polite and intelligent man in real life (I’m not his mother) who likes a rumbunctious argument on here - many do.
I don’t think there is anyone on here who is an arsehole in real life and we come here to vent, test our brains, talk nonsense and learn things so I personally welcome Mercator’s provocative style, Leon’s wild ramblings, Roger’s “de haut en bas” leftism and all other voices.
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
Why should a company be forbidden from buying back its own stock ?
I'm not sure it should be forbidden, but it's at the expense of capital investment that could increase productivity so is generally not in the interests of all the shareholders. All it does is concentrate the remaining shares increasing their price, some underlying motivations are Directors bonus milestones and value of their share options.
They’re using completely different methods and models, and you can agree or disagree with each for a whole load of reasons and prejudices, they’ll likely both be updated many times between now and the election.
Latest polling has Pennsylvania basically 50/50, it’s likely to be the Florida 2000 of this election, although hopefully it’s a little more decisive one way or the other on the night and doesn’t lead to weeks of fighting. I’d really hate to live in that state, for the amount of attention they’ll be getting from candidates and media in the next two months.
At the moment, Harris could still win without Pennsylvania. There are, at any rate, credible pathways for her to do so. So I doubt if it will be as decisive as Florida 2000.
She is, of course, not storming clear but Trump still faces major headwinds. Lack of money. Court cases. Poor polling in key states. Abortion referendums. Most of all, he is clearly becoming more and more confused and incoherent and that’s bound to cause him problems even if they’re not decisive ones.
Silver is arguing Harris should have got more of a convention bounce. I’m dubious about that argument because in effect the convention happened earlier with the coronation process culminating in the selection of Walz. But we will see.
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
This one is going to be their first Parliamentary test of the new term.
I can understand what they’re trying to achieve, but IMHO they’ve drawn the line in the wrong place and will leave a lot of people short of money over the winter. There’s not as many “wealthy pensioners” in the country as there are in the media and in MPs social circles. The majority of pensioners aren’t on the gold plated public sector schemes that are now pretty much unattainable in the private sector.
Oh, and I’d love to ask Ed Miliband how high energy prices should be in order to justify his Net Zero targets? It’s clear he doesn’t want to see them come down appreciably from recent highs, and has held exactly the same view since he was LotO a decade and more ago. He’s tilting at windmills
I thought you were all in favour of self-sufficiency? Solar, wind and tidal are all a step towards that for the UK and the technology is still developing so will get cheaper. If vested interests hadn't been trying to block renewables for the last 3 decades there might even have been UK companies at the forefront of manufacturing renewables.
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
This one is going to be their first Parliamentary test of the new term.
I can understand what they’re trying to achieve, but IMHO they’ve drawn the line in the wrong place and will leave a lot of people short of money over the winter. There’s not as many “wealthy pensioners” in the country as there are in the media and in MPs social circles. The majority of pensioners aren’t on the gold plated public sector schemes that are now pretty much unattainable in the private sector.
Oh, and I’d love to ask Ed Miliband how high energy prices should be in order to justify his Net Zero targets? It’s clear he doesn’t want to see them come down appreciably from recent highs, and has held exactly the same view since he was LotO a decade and more ago. He’s tilting at windmills
I thought you were all in favour of self-sufficiency? Solar, wind and tidal are all a step towards that for the UK and the technology is still developing so will get cheaper. If vested interests hadn't been trying to block renewables for the last 3 decades there might even have been UK companies at the forefront of manufacturing renewables.
Moving fully - or even significantly - to renewables would do wonders for our balance of payments.
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
This one is going to be their first Parliamentary test of the new term.
I can understand what they’re trying to achieve, but IMHO they’ve drawn the line in the wrong place and will leave a lot of people short of money over the winter. There’s not as many “wealthy pensioners” in the country as there are in the media and in MPs social circles. The majority of pensioners aren’t on the gold plated public sector schemes that are now pretty much unattainable in the private sector.
Oh, and I’d love to ask Ed Miliband how high energy prices should be in order to justify his Net Zero targets? It’s clear he doesn’t want to see them come down appreciably from recent highs, and has held exactly the same view since he was LotO a decade and more ago. He’s tilting at windmills
It is the richest cohort in the country, richer than their parents were and richer than their children will be. Close to a third live in millionaire households. A lot of their wealth is in property extracting rents from the younger generations. Wealthy pensioners is a very real thing, just as pensioner poverty was a far bigger problem thirty years ago when measures to help them started being added, rightly at the time but now out of date.
Starmer stays as long as he likes. It's much harder to get rid of a leader (or Deputy Leader) than the Conservatives, so we won't get the same psychodrama.
It isn't impossible that he decides to retire. He is no spring chicken and may feel that his job is done by 2028, and time to freshen up in favour of our own Kamala.
With the end* of the strikes and unrest there has been an acceleration of delivery, with treatment teams going gangbusters while management is busy supporting that process rather than firefighting rota gaps from strikes etc. The brakes are off and it's pedal to the metal.
I suspect that by the anniversary of the election there will be a noticeable reduction in waiting lists noticed by individuals as well as in the figures. I wonder how well other public services and parts of the NHS are doing.
The UK has a mainly large C and small c conservative leaning electorate. If Labour does a good job then in 5 years the small c tendency may hold sway. Otherwise it'll be back to the chaos and decline.
Chris Harris says he called for a meeting with the head of health and safety at the BBC, three months before Flintoff’s crash, because he was convinced there was going to be a big accident on the show - and the BBC ignored him.
He was fired the day they paused the show, and he has only been able to see parts of one of the two BBC reports into the incident.
The Germans are actually proposing to use the Rwanda facilities intended for Britain
I have my doubts they will follow through but there is grave danger for Starmer here. If the Germans *do* Rwanda and it works then Starmer is the idiot who collapsed a policy which was about to solve the boats crisis
Their proposal looks like offshore processing, similar to what a number of other EU countries have looked at with other countries. If that's the case, then there may well be the same question marks over its cost-effectiveness and the conditions under which it is run (i.e. is Rwanda a safe location), but it is within existing norms.
The UK plan was a one-way ticket meaning you would end up in Rwanda with no right to settle in the UK even if your asylum claim was upheld. That, in the absence of any meaningful legal routes to asylum here, was completely unfair and a derogation of our international responsibilities.
lol. Voters won’t notice or care about that. They will just see that “Rwanda worked for Germany and Starmer dumped it for Britain. And still the boats come”. Disastrous for Labour
Eventually some country in Europe will seriously attempt something like this. And if it works all the other countries will hastily follow
You should publish your rubbish predictions as some sort of anthology. Possible title: “surprises on the upside”?
I’ve just realised, as you travel around America, that you’re basically Humbert Humbert - but with a dog
Are you sure he took the dog?
This is something about which the Yanks seem to have a bee in their bonnet, and it is not easy.
They always have strange obsessions - preventing incoming haggises is another one.
I was hoping to travel round America with my pet haggis but alas that last item on my bucket list will have to remain unrealized for now. Haggises don't respond well to being put in kennels, either. We came back from holiday last month to find wee Hamish looking very tatty and covered in Burns.
The Germans are actually proposing to use the Rwanda facilities intended for Britain
I have my doubts they will follow through but there is grave danger for Starmer here. If the Germans *do* Rwanda and it works then Starmer is the idiot who collapsed a policy which was about to solve the boats crisis
Their proposal looks like offshore processing, similar to what a number of other EU countries have looked at with other countries. If that's the case, then there may well be the same question marks over its cost-effectiveness and the conditions under which it is run (i.e. is Rwanda a safe location), but it is within existing norms.
The UK plan was a one-way ticket meaning you would end up in Rwanda with no right to settle in the UK even if your asylum claim was upheld. That, in the absence of any meaningful legal routes to asylum here, was completely unfair and a derogation of our international responsibilities.
lol. Voters won’t notice or care about that. They will just see that “Rwanda worked for Germany and Starmer dumped it for Britain. And still the boats come”. Disastrous for Labour
Eventually some country in Europe will seriously attempt something like this. And if it works all the other countries will hastily follow
You should publish your rubbish predictions as some sort of anthology. Possible title: “surprises on the upside”?
I’ve just realised, as you travel around America, that you’re basically Humbert Humbert - but with a dog
Are you sure he took the dog?
This is something about which the Yanks seem to have a bee in their bonnet, and it is not easy.
They always have strange obsessions - preventing incoming haggises is another one.
I was hoping to travel round America with my pet haggis but alas that last item on my bucket list will have to remain unrealized for now. Haggises don't respond well to being put in kennels, either. We came back from holiday last month to find wee Hamish looking very tatty and covered in Burns.
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
Why should a company be forbidden from buying back its own stock ?
I'm not sure it should be forbidden, but it's at the expense of capital investment that could increase productivity so is generally not in the interests of all the shareholders. All it does is concentrate the remaining shares increasing their price, some underlying motivations are Directors bonus milestones and value of their share options.
I think US Companies are keen on share buyback as executive renumeration is heavily weighted to stock prices and options, so buyback rather than dividends.
This is pretty extreme language from a Labour MP just 2 months after a landslide winning election for the party.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
Why should a company be forbidden from buying back its own stock ?
I missed that but at the end of Jim's otherwise sensible post.
It shouldn't.
He's right about taking a look at 'carried interest', though it's not that simple to address.
They’re using completely different methods and models, and you can agree or disagree with each for a whole load of reasons and prejudices, they’ll likely both be updated many times between now and the election.
Latest polling has Pennsylvania basically 50/50, it’s likely to be the Florida 2000 of this election, although hopefully it’s a little more decisive one way or the other on the night and doesn’t lead to weeks of fighting. I’d really hate to live in that state, for the amount of attention they’ll be getting from candidates and media in the next two months.
At the moment, Harris could still win without Pennsylvania. There are, at any rate, credible pathways for her to do so. So I doubt if it will be as decisive as Florida 2000.
She is, of course, not storming clear but Trump still faces major headwinds. Lack of money. Court cases. Poor polling in key states. Abortion referendums. Most of all, he is clearly becoming more and more confused and incoherent and that’s bound to cause him problems even if they’re not decisive ones.
Silver is arguing Harris should have got more of a convention bounce. I’m dubious about that argument because in effect the convention happened earlier with the coronation process culminating in the selection of Walz. But we will see.
“Subjectively this seemed to me like a decent day of polling for Kamala Harris, but she was hurt by this series of polls from a Democratic group that showed her exactly tied with Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Our polling averages apply a relatively harsh ‘house effects’ adjustment to partisan-sponsored polls, so it interprets ties in partisan polls as losing. And PA/MI/WI polls are really important to the forecast.
But we’re now finally starting to get some post-Labor Day polls, which look decent for Harris, and those will be subject to less of a convention bounce adjustment than polls that went into the field immediately after the DNC. So we’ll see what the next several days bring.”
I think Silver's model is probably too sophisticated with too many adjustments, but I wonder if 538's model has too much uncertainty (for an election where I think most people have already made up their minds) eg it gives Harris a 24% chance of winning Texas https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/texas/
The Germans are actually proposing to use the Rwanda facilities intended for Britain
I have my doubts they will follow through but there is grave danger for Starmer here. If the Germans *do* Rwanda and it works then Starmer is the idiot who collapsed a policy which was about to solve the boats crisis
Their proposal looks like offshore processing, similar to what a number of other EU countries have looked at with other countries. If that's the case, then there may well be the same question marks over its cost-effectiveness and the conditions under which it is run (i.e. is Rwanda a safe location), but it is within existing norms.
The UK plan was a one-way ticket meaning you would end up in Rwanda with no right to settle in the UK even if your asylum claim was upheld. That, in the absence of any meaningful legal routes to asylum here, was completely unfair and a derogation of our international responsibilities.
lol. Voters won’t notice or care about that. They will just see that “Rwanda worked for Germany and Starmer dumped it for Britain. And still the boats come”. Disastrous for Labour
Eventually some country in Europe will seriously attempt something like this. And if it works all the other countries will hastily follow
You should publish your rubbish predictions as some sort of anthology. Possible title: “surprises on the upside”?
I’ve just realised, as you travel around America, that you’re basically Humbert Humbert - but with a dog
Are you sure he took the dog?
This is something about which the Yanks seem to have a bee in their bonnet, and it is not easy.
They always have strange obsessions - preventing incoming haggises is another one.
I was hoping to travel round America with my pet haggis but alas that last item on my bucket list will have to remain unrealized for now. Haggises don't respond well to being put in kennels, either. We came back from holiday last month to find wee Hamish looking very tatty and covered in Burns.
Plus they need mountains to run round. Otherwise their legs start growing back to level, and they fall over when they get home.
Interestingly, in the Southern Hemisphere, they run (or try to) round the mountains anti-clockwise....
"A large majority of citizens want a fundamentally different migration policy. Very few consider the government to be competent in combating crime and asylum policy - the AfD does better here than all three traffic light parties combined."
Europe is about to shift brutally to the right on migration and asylum. Everyone will follow where Denmark led. I’ve been saying it on here for a while
Because the alternative is actual Nazis in power. Eventually the voters will rebel and they don’t care if you call them racist
Feeble Sir Keir means Britain will be last to the party
Given the problem in Britain is primarily with irregular migration from that war-torn hellscape not fit for human habitation, France, that might just solve Sir Keir's problem without him having to actually do anything.
C’est vrait
Starmer might get incredibly lucky if and when the EU gets brutal on migration as, perforce, that means far fewer will reach the channel
My bet is he’ll still allow masses of legal migration however, so I don’t think this issue is going away even then
A mighty storm is brewing in Europe
C'est vrait?
French for “it’s true”.
With a 't"?
The French add extra letters to words all the time: no one will notice…
Off topic, but probably of interest to many here: "Vice President Harris made a policy break from President Biden on Wednesday by calling for a lower tax increase on capital gains than what the president had proposed.
Although higher than the current level, 28 percent is a very "Republican" level, going all the way back to 1980.
(For the record: I'd be inclined to support that, especially if it were combined with closing the "carried interest" loophole, and forbidding companies from buying their own stock.)
Why should a company be forbidden from buying back its own stock ?
I missed that but at the end of Jim's otherwise sensible post.
It shouldn't.
He's right about taking a look at 'carried interest', though it's not that simple to address.
Stock buybacks have been a part of the financialisation of companies - Boeing famously spent enough on this to have developed a brand new replacement for the 737. And a couple of other aircraft as well.
They are not essential to this process - see Thames Water.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
That's saying it's expected, isn't it? National Savings are offering 4.1 percent over five years. And if that fails, the government really is in trouble.
Yes, if that fails Starmer will be long gone.
I was going to say that the bet might pay out a lot sooner than 2029, but depending on the exact wording it may not. Would you lose if Starmer steps down as PM but then is reappointed before the next GE ? If so, your money is probably tied up for 4-5 years.
I've never used LinkedIn. Which seems like a good choice.
I've just discovered that Linkedin shares the phone number you give it *for two-factor authentication* with other people who have Premium so they can cold call you. Insane. https://x.com/s8mb/status/1831986221720936694
A bright notion from the principal stockholder of DJT.
Trump: Why don’t we have a wealth fund? Other countries have wealth funds. We have nothing. We are going to have a sovereign wealth fund. We will put tremendous amounts of money through all this money will be taking in through tariffs https://x.com/Acyn/status/1831742086481326332
After four decades of Reaganomics, it's apparently time for moronomics.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
That route has been tried before, many times.
Especially suing gun manufacturers.
Not for a couple of decades. It's time to revisit making manufacturers and owners bear some responsibility for dangerous products.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
This is dependent afaics on a Harris victory at the Election, on Chump being put away thereafter as due process will be able to proceed, and further squeezing.
My photo quota today is a graph of the USA vs the rest of the developed world for firearm homicide rates. Source wiki.
I think that for this to be fixed does require severe restrictions on gun availability, which may potentially be started if we have a Harris administration. I'd say that eventually it will require essentially a complete ban on handguns and semi-automatic and up rifles.
But that the more pernicious problem is the acceptance and toleration of violence as an acceptable tactic in the mass of the population, and that will take 3, 4 or 5 decades to be grown out of the national culture - even with consistent policy.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
This is dependent afaics on a Harris victory at the Election, on Chump being put away thereafter as due process will be able to proceed, and further squeezing.
My photo quota today is a graph of the USA vs the rest of the developed world for firearm homicide rates. Source wiki.
I think that for this to be fixed does require severe restrictions on gun availability, which may potentially be started if we have a Harris administration. I'd say that eventually it will require essentially a complete ban on handguns and semi-automatic and up rifles.
But that the more pernicious problem is the acceptance and toleration of violence as an acceptable tactic in the mass of the population, and that will take 3, 4 or 5 decades to be grown out of the national culture - even with consistent policy.
On a slightly less negative note, there does appear to be a modest drop in USA gun mass killings this year - down to 385 so far (to 5 September) from an annual average of ~620 each year since 2020, after a big jump in Trump's last year as President. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41488081
(Note that's no of occasions on which 4 or more people have been killed with guns.)
A bright notion from the principal stockholder of DJT.
Trump: Why don’t we have a wealth fund? Other countries have wealth funds. We have nothing. We are going to have a sovereign wealth fund. We will put tremendous amounts of money through all this money will be taking in through tariffs https://x.com/Acyn/status/1831742086481326332
After four decades of Reaganomics, it's apparently time for moronomics.
Jesus, Harris may not be great but she’s got to win.
Comments
I'm a little surprised it didn't get all that much media attention.
This is explained pretty well by Fullfact.
https://fullfact.org/economy/money-national-insurance-contributions/
If the proposal is similar to the Priti Patel caper it is immoral whether sung as Deutschland Uber Alles or God Save the Queen.
Quite often PB Tories pick up some tabloid story and run with something completely different to justify Boris Johnson was right all along.
What does shock me are those penny-pinching PB Tories who claim they wouldn't want to pay idle feckless Junior Doctors yet are quite comfortable with the absurdly expensive Rwanda stunt ot the X millions spent on housing asylum seekers in Scampton, on the Bibby Stockholm or block booking a Holiday Inn.
I think the second part will likely be extended to other welfare and will be based on tax residence over a minimum proportion of your adult life (social care, UC, even the NHS), while the first part will be subsumed by income tax.
- Hamas wants Americans to vote for Harris
- Harris and Walz are evil communists engaged in a revolution against the American way of life
- The Feds and DoJ lie so often that the default response when anyone is charged should be that the offences are a set up
Also, anyone who helped unseat a potential contender can keep their criticism to themselves.
I met up with a 'friend' from Portsmouth this week who had the temerity to suggest the race would've been a lot better if Penny Mordaunt was in it as he'd like to see her as LOTO. He voted Labour a few weeks ago in her (former) seat...
Lichtman says Harris will win:
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/harris-will-beat-trump-says-election-prediction-legend-allan-lichtman/5766929/
While Silver calls Trump the favourite:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nate-silver-s-election-model-showzillows-donald-trump-surging/ar-AA1q0NT6
They’re using completely different methods and models, and you can agree or disagree with each for a whole load of reasons and prejudices, they’ll likely both be updated many times between now and the election.
Latest polling has Pennsylvania basically 50/50, it’s likely to be the Florida 2000 of this election, although hopefully it’s a little more decisive one way or the other on the night and doesn’t lead to weeks of fighting. I’d really hate to live in that state, for the amount of attention they’ll be getting from candidates and media in the next two months.
"Pensioners will die because of winter fuel payments cut, warns Labour rebel
Rachael Maskell says being exposed to low temperatures could increase risk of stroke, heart attacks and hypothermia"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/05/pensioners-will-die-winter-fuel-payments-cut-labour-rebel/
I can understand what they’re trying to achieve, but IMHO they’ve drawn the line in the wrong place and will leave a lot of people short of money over the winter. There’s not as many “wealthy pensioners” in the country as there are in the media and in MPs social circles. The majority of pensioners aren’t on the gold plated public sector schemes that are now pretty much unattainable in the private sector.
Oh, and I’d love to ask Ed Miliband how high energy prices should be in order to justify his Net Zero targets? It’s clear he doesn’t want to see them come down appreciably from recent highs, and has held exactly the same view since he was LotO a decade and more ago. He’s tilting at windmills
https://x.com/sanmarino_fa/status/1831796746202276156?s=61
Chris Harris, Joe Rogan Experience. The untold story of Freddie Flintoff and the end of Top Gear.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Kx0S2Y6hJI It’s three hours long btw.
Quit whining what you've got left is what you wanted, you shat your bed now lie in it.
I don’t think there is anyone on here who is an arsehole in real life and we come here to vent, test our brains, talk nonsense and learn things so I personally welcome Mercator’s provocative style, Leon’s wild ramblings, Roger’s “de haut en bas” leftism and all other voices.
She is, of course, not storming clear but Trump still faces major headwinds. Lack of money. Court cases. Poor polling in key states. Abortion referendums. Most of all, he is clearly becoming more and more confused and incoherent and that’s bound to cause him problems even if they’re not decisive ones.
Silver is arguing Harris should have got more of a convention bounce. I’m dubious about that argument because in effect the convention happened earlier with the coronation process culminating in the selection of Walz. But we will see.
Chris Harris says he called for a meeting with the head of health and safety at the BBC, three months before Flintoff’s crash, because he was convinced there was going to be a big accident on the show - and the BBC ignored him.
He was fired the day they paused the show, and he has only been able to see parts of one of the two BBC reports into the incident.
NEW THREAD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachael_Maskell
Yes, Starmer's got a problem, no Maskell isn't really evidence of it, yes The Telegraph would normally portray her as a hard left nitwit.
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
And repeal this absurd legislation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
It shouldn't.
He's right about taking a look at 'carried interest', though it's not that simple to address.
Donald Trump was asked today what he’d do about child care if elected president.
This is what he said, in its entirety:..
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1831833470450237602
https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/05/trump-holds-edge-in-latest-forecast/
“Subjectively this seemed to me like a decent day of polling for Kamala Harris, but she was hurt by this series of polls from a Democratic group that showed her exactly tied with Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Our polling averages apply a relatively harsh ‘house effects’ adjustment to partisan-sponsored polls, so it interprets ties in partisan polls as losing. And PA/MI/WI polls are really important to the forecast.
But we’re now finally starting to get some post-Labor Day polls, which look decent for Harris, and those will be subject to less of a convention bounce adjustment than polls that went into the field immediately after the DNC. So we’ll see what the next several days bring.”
538's model has Harris at 57%.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
I think Silver's model is probably too sophisticated with too many adjustments, but I wonder if 538's model has too much uncertainty (for an election where I think most people have already made up their minds) eg it gives Harris a 24% chance of winning Texas
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/texas/
Interestingly, in the Southern Hemisphere, they run (or try to) round the mountains anti-clockwise....
They are not essential to this process - see Thames Water.
Especially suing gun manufacturers.
The guy (imo) is a patsy and a crook, and has been bought and paid for with undeclared gifts.
But I believe the only remedy is be impeachment, in a Congress which also has a significant quota of patsies and crooks.
It would be fun if a District Court Judge (say Cannon) could just issue an arrest warrant and drag him to her Hazzard County court in a black maria.
Which seems like a good choice.
I've just discovered that Linkedin shares the phone number you give it *for two-factor authentication* with other people who have Premium so they can cold call you. Insane.
https://x.com/s8mb/status/1831986221720936694
Trump: Why don’t we have a wealth fund? Other countries have wealth funds. We have nothing. We are going to have a sovereign wealth fund. We will put tremendous amounts of money through all this money will be taking in through tariffs
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1831742086481326332
After four decades of Reaganomics, it's apparently time for moronomics.
It's time to revisit making manufacturers and owners bear some responsibility for dangerous products.
My photo quota today is a graph of the USA vs the rest of the developed world for firearm homicide rates. Source wiki.
I think that for this to be fixed does require severe restrictions on gun availability, which may potentially be started if we have a Harris administration. I'd say that eventually it will require essentially a complete ban on handguns and semi-automatic and up rifles.
But that the more pernicious problem is the acceptance and toleration of violence as an acceptable tactic in the mass of the population, and that will take 3, 4 or 5 decades to be grown out of the national culture - even with consistent policy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41488081
(Note that's no of occasions on which 4 or more people have been killed with guns.)