Delves Lane Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219 BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620 HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276 HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386 STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461 TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
Two Lib Dem’s in Belmont now. Not a surprise.
Also two Reform in Trimdon.
Two more ReFukkers in Trimdon by a big margin.
Edit - and two more in Horden. And one more in Chilton by a big margin over an Indy.
Really not a surprise. The former Durham coalfield has been left to rot. An investment in warehouses and various transient manufacturing jobs. The community and the pride that used to exist in places like Trimdon are long gone but people want them back.
It looks like the lab and con have lost two thirds of their seats, the lib Dems have doubled their seats and reform have gone up by infinity!!!! Oh and greens have doubled as well.
ATKINSON Yvonne Labour and Co-operative Party 1,054 25.0% BAKER Lucille Conservative Party 452 10.7% GILLETT Holly Green Party 544 12.9% NEWCOMBE Vanessa Liberal Democrats 1,030 24.4% STEVENS Neil Reform UK 1,126 26.7%
My ward has gone Reform, Labour have won here every time since 1973. Fwiw I voted Labour, both candidates seemed credible though. No effort from the Tories.
It looks like the lab and con have lost two thirds of their seats, the lib Dems have doubled their seats and reform have gone up by infinity!!!! Oh and greens have doubled as well.
Must be a decent chance that the Tories are third and Labour fourth in seats.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
The Tories are buggered either way.
Come up with a strategy that wins back seats like Witney and Esher & Walton and also wins back the Stoke seats.
Two basic problems: 1) What are the Conservatives for? What do you stand for? Whats the big picture? 2) Proven to be utterly crap in office. Not just ineffectual, but catastrophically poor at governing
This can be fixed. But it means dropping "tactics" like going after Labour over woke issues and going back to "rebuild Britain through Business". And you'll only get away with that by accepting how catastrophic a job was done in government and changing direction.
Reform are out there saying Britain is Broken. At a fundamental level. And have some new ideas to go after. Tories seem to be claiming it isn't broken actually because you did a brilliant job actually but all the stuff that is broken actually is Labour's fault because actually that Keir Starmer was in charge from opposition.
Annfield Plain and Tanfield Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* ALLISON, Karen Reform UK 1404 Elected BRIGGS, Kevin John The Conservative Party Candidate 114 CHARLTON, Joyce Derwentside Independents 574 GRIMES, Darren Reform UK 1364 Elected MILBURN, Olga Labour Party 579 NICHOLSON, Joan Derwentside Independents 659 PHAL, Sopha Liberal Democrats 80 RICHARDSON, Garry The Conservative Party Candidate 77 STEPHENSON, Jeanette Theresa Labour Party 512 TWIGG, Sarah The Green Party 122
Not looked to see if the seats declared so far are typical, but if they are then Devon will be going LD control, with Reform as the official opposition. Currently (32/60 declared) it's LD 18(+12); Ref 7(+7); Con 3(-18); Green 3(+2); Ind 1(-); Lab 0(-3)
My ward has gone Reform, Labour have won here every time since 1973. Fwiw I voted Labour, both candidates seemed credible though. No effort from the Tories.
My Ash Ind councillor was saying at 9:30 last night that there were a couple he was confident about them holding. He was doing the rounds asking about turnouts.
AIs have lost both their Leader and Deputy Leader.
Delves Lane Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BOWERBANK, David Liberal Democrats 219 BROWN, Jane Labour Party 620 HANEY, Nazcat Stephen Liberal Democrats 276 HOPE, Kenny Reform UK 1272 Elected STERLING, Angela The Conservative Party Candidate 386 STEWART-PIERCY, Simon Andrew Labour Party 461 TEASDALE, Jacqueline Reform UK 1045 Elected WALTON, Michelle The Conservative Party Candidate 379
Two Lib Dem’s in Belmont now. Not a surprise.
Also two Reform in Trimdon.
Two more ReFukkers in Trimdon by a big margin.
Edit - and two more in Horden. And one more in Chilton by a big margin over an Indy.
Really not a surprise. The former Durham coalfield has been left to rot. An investment in warehouses and various transient manufacturing jobs. The community and the pride that used to exist in places like Trimdon are long gone but people want them back.
But they want the impossible - the only reason Trimdon exists is because it was close to a coal mine - apart from that mine there was no reason for the villages to exist.
And that’s a fundamental part of the problem in County Durham and elsewhere the only reason for xyz village started was because of the pit and pit closed 40 years ago
What on earth do the people who are voting Reform think they are going to get.
What do you think they would have got had they voted Tory?
I know I keep on banging this drum, but there has to be a recognition of reality before forward strategy can be shaped. And the Tories have left the country utterly broken. Not that the answer is Labour either - which is why Reform are smashing it in the north and the LDs are smashing it in the south.
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Which makes public sector pensions much less valuable, because there's a risk a MaxPB CofE could come in and simply abolish them.
If Parliament did any such thing, it would pretty well destroy any confidence in the pension system overnight. There would be all manner of consequences flowing from that, very few of them good.
Max seems to be flailing around every bit as much as our governments of the last couple of decades.
I would agree with him in that the new Labour government missed an opportunity to take some fairly drastic measures in their first six months, while blowing their political capital on the fiscal insignificance of the winter fuel payment. But he's not come up with any realistic alternative program.
The Democrats are really out of control. They have lost everything, especially their minds! These Radical Left Lunatics are into the "Impeachment thing" again. They have already got two "No Name," little respected Congressmen, total Whackjobs both, throwing the "Impeachment" of DONALD J. TRUMP around, for about the 20th time, even though they have no idea for what I would be Impeached. Maybe it should be for cleaning up the MESS that they left us on the Border, or the Highest Inflation in our Country's History or, perhaps, it should be the incompetent Withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Russia, Russia, Russia/Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, or the Attack of Israel on October 7th that only proceeded because they allowed Iran to regain Great Wealth. These Congressmen stated that, they didn't know why they would Impeach me but, "We just want to do it." The Republicans should start to think about expelling them from Congress for all of the crimes that they have committed, especially around Election time(s). These are very dishonest people that won't let our Country heal! Why do we allow them to continuously use Impeachment as a weapon against the President of the United States who, by all accounts, is working hard to SAVE OUR COUNTRY. It's the same playbook that they used in my First Term, and Republicans are not going to allow them to get away with it again. These are total LOWLIFES, who hate our Country, and everything it stands for. Perhaps we should start playing this game on them, and expel Democrats for the many crimes that they have committed — And these are REAL crimes. Remember, "Shifty" Adam Schiff demanded a Pardon, and they had to use the power of the Auto Pen, and a Full Pardon, for him and the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, to save them from Expulsion, and probably worse!
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
My executive managment theory - it is indeed a very senior role, but is it a particularly challenging one that can only be done well by the top 1% of senior managers? The hardest part of those roles is the self PR to get them in the first place - and those types often make extremely short termist decisions to the detriment of the organisations to help with their self PR.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has been designated as right-wing extremist by the country's federal office for the protection of the constitution.
A dark day for Germany. The former DDR has gone from having its democratic wishes suppressed from the East to having its democratic wishes suppressed from the West.
Well, no, that's complete bollocks. The AfD can still stand, people can still vote for them.
For now, the SPD though have said they want the Constitutional Court to ban them too which would be going too far in my view, beat them at the ballot box or they become dangerous martyrs
Just colossal Reform voting in and around Worksop really. Hana said they were going to audit the council's finances so fingers crossed !
"we've done an audit, and you won't believe how much of YOUR money is being spent on wasters. That ends now" erm, you can't actually do that, councillor. Legally "Bloody unelected officers telling us that we can't respect the vote" the law doesn't care who people vote for, these are statutory responsibilities "public protest against providing money to" [checks notes] "disabled children meets outside Spoons in Worksop at 2pm"
What on earth do the people who are voting Reform think they are going to get.
A legislative program of fuck all foreigners/fuck the environment.
And in total they’ll get fuck all, unless these newly minted legislators have time to massively increase the VE Day commemoration budget.
1. Refuse to fund anything like that - inc. the statutory stuff. 2. Get sued by the Gov 3. Add a few percent to the Ref national polling 4. Rince/Repeat.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
The problem is that decreasingly few people are interested in voting for woke warrior issues. Stick with her and slide rapidly into irrelevance.
The Reform revolution looks somewhat anemic this morning. If you can’t turn out a big protest vote at times like this, the general election is going to be challenging.
I profoundly disagree. Leave aside Runcorn - a seat Labour won by 35% a year ago - they've taken one mayoralty and have come perilously close to winning three more, all from pretty much a standing start. They were ahead of all other parties in councillor-count last I saw (early days, granted). They're far ahead of their main rival on the right-of-centre in all the mayoral contests.
Labour is talking itself into denial and complacency by setting Reform's bar ludicrously high.
Spot on. While it's possible the results are a short term phenomenon, and there will be a reversion to the previous status quo, that does't seem overwhelmingly likely. A trend towards Tory extinction could easily set in. That would make Labour's position much more precarious.
Are there any numbers which give an idea of differential turnout (as opposed to vote switching between parties) ?
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Hang'em Flog'em
EDIT - think of it. So many angry people out there on Facebook want Harsh Measures against the bad people with brown skin and or funny voices.
Have the Tories and Reform go after these votes and we're have proposals for public stonings from one of them.
A stoning! The perfect solution to a broken criminal justice system. Speed up the process - have the Obvious Criminal dragged into the street, tried by mob and swiftly executed before Spoons calls last orders.
Tories now taken a third seat in Newark and Sherwood. Sue Saddington holds her Farndon seat. Reform not making as much progress here as they might have hoped although they are marginally ahead in the vote share.
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
My executive managment theory - it is indeed a very senior role, but is it a particularly challenging one that can only be done well by the top 1% of senior managers? The hardest part of those roles is the self PR to get them in the first place - and those types often make extremely short termist decisions to the detriment of the organisations to help with their self PR.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
But is that any less true in the private sector?
I think it is the same for most stable big organisations. I suppose from a political perspective the difference is the taxpayer is overpaying rather than a shareholder and getting better value for the taxpayer is a fair part of politics.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Withdraw from the ECHR for instance which Jenrick backs and Badenoch won't commit to.
Though yes as I said I don't think any Tory leader will win significant votes from Farage before the next GE, he needs to be seen to have failed to beat Labour twice before right of centre voters flirting with Reform will consider the Tories again.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Hang'em Flog'em
Stupid program.
Flog them first. Flogging them after hanging them is pointless. The kind of performative governmental waste that we need to stamp out.
What on earth do the people who are voting Reform think they are going to get.
What do you think they would have got had they voted Tory?
I know I keep on banging this drum, but there has to be a recognition of reality before forward strategy can be shaped. And the Tories have left the country utterly broken. Not that the answer is Labour either - which is why Reform are smashing it in the north and the LDs are smashing it in the south.
The Cons presided over 2x black swan events. Brexit and Covid. Now, I'm not saying they handled it brilliantly but I doubt any other government would have emerged from Covid any differently and arguably (lock them down longer and harder Starmer) a lot worse.
They imo completely mismanaged Covid and at the time I made some of my thoughts known although it's only in hindsight that it has become obvious how bad the consequences have been.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
The Tories are buggered either way.
Come up with a strategy that wins back seats like Witney and Esher & Walton and also wins back the Stoke seats.
Two basic problems: 1) What are the Conservatives for? What do you stand for? Whats the big picture? 2) Proven to be utterly crap in office. Not just ineffectual, but catastrophically poor at governing
This can be fixed. But it means dropping "tactics" like going after Labour over woke issues and going back to "rebuild Britain through Business". And you'll only get away with that by accepting how catastrophic a job was done in government and changing direction.
Reform are out there saying Britain is Broken. At a fundamental level. And have some new ideas to go after. Tories seem to be claiming it isn't broken actually because you did a brilliant job actually but all the stuff that is broken actually is Labour's fault because actually that Keir Starmer was in charge from opposition.
What should the Tories be for?
Sound money, low inflation, no QE nonsense, a balanced budget, an improved trading situation; equality of opportunity, reward for effort and hard work (implying lower taxes), care with the public purse ensuring tax payers money is spent carefully and wisely; support and care for those that need it but with a priority, where appropriate, of encouraging people to provide for themselves and for their families; a strong defence; immigration that benefits UK plc by bringing in people with talents, investment and entrepreneurial drive; the rule of law and respect for institutions, home ownership, self sufficiency and self reliance; and a strong sense of the national interest over sectorial interests.
The problem is that if you mark the government from 2019 to 2024 out of 10 on that list you struggle to get a pass mark. And I really don't know if this matches Kemi's aspirations or not. I will not be voting Tory with any enthusiasm until I have had assurances about a lot of this.
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Which makes public sector pensions much less valuable, because there's a risk a MaxPB CofE could come in and simply abolish them.
If Parliament did any such thing, it would pretty well destroy any confidence in the pension system overnight. There would be all manner of consequences flowing from that, very few of them good.
Max seems to be flailing around every bit as much as our governments of the last couple of decades.
I would agree with him in that the new Labour government missed an opportunity to take some fairly drastic measures in their first six months, while blowing their political capital on the fiscal insignificance of the winter fuel payment. But he's not come up with any realistic alternative program.
Rishi calling an election in July rather than December rather threw Labour off their plan and revealed that they hadn’t done enough preparation
The Democrats are really out of control. They have lost everything, especially their minds! These Radical Left Lunatics are into the "Impeachment thing" again. They have already got two "No Name," little respected Congressmen, total Whackjobs both, throwing the "Impeachment" of DONALD J. TRUMP around, for about the 20th time, even though they have no idea for what I would be Impeached. Maybe it should be for cleaning up the MESS that they left us on the Border, or the Highest Inflation in our Country's History or, perhaps, it should be the incompetent Withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Russia, Russia, Russia/Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, or the Attack of Israel on October 7th that only proceeded because they allowed Iran to regain Great Wealth. These Congressmen stated that, they didn't know why they would Impeach me but, "We just want to do it." The Republicans should start to think about expelling them from Congress for all of the crimes that they have committed, especially around Election time(s). These are very dishonest people that won't let our Country heal! Why do we allow them to continuously use Impeachment as a weapon against the President of the United States who, by all accounts, is working hard to SAVE OUR COUNTRY. It's the same playbook that they used in my First Term, and Republicans are not going to allow them to get away with it again. These are total LOWLIFES, who hate our Country, and everything it stands for. Perhaps we should start playing this game on them, and expel Democrats for the many crimes that they have committed — And these are REAL crimes. Remember, "Shifty" Adam Schiff demanded a Pardon, and they had to use the power of the Auto Pen, and a Full Pardon, for him and the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, to save them from Expulsion, and probably worse!
ATKINSON Yvonne Labour and Co-operative Party 1,054 25.0% BAKER Lucille Conservative Party 452 10.7% GILLETT Holly Green Party 544 12.9% NEWCOMBE Vanessa Liberal Democrats 1,030 24.4% STEVENS Neil Reform UK 1,126 26.7%
Another win on basically a quarter of the vote.
The case for introducing PR is pretty overwhelming. The likelihood of any such thing happening is pretty slim.
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Hang'em Flog'em
Stupid program.
Flog them first. Flogging them after hanging them is pointless. The kind of performative governmental waste that we need to stamp out.
I added an edit - public stoning.
Think of the benefits! No longer will offenders get away with it. No longer will two tier justice prosecute people just because they called for people to be set on fire.
Tories lost control of Devon County Council. 20 losses so far.
East Devon (4/11) Axminister: Ind gain from Con Feniton & Honiton: LD gain from Con Otter Valley: Ind hold Seaton & Colyton: LD gain from Con
Exeter (5/9) Alphington & Cowick: Ref gain from Lab Duryard & Pennsylvania: LD gain from Con Pinhoe & Mincinglake: Ref gain from Lab St Sidwells & St James: Grn gain from Lab Wearside & Topsham: Con hold
Mid Devon (2/6) Cullompton & Bradninch: LD gain from Con Willand & Uffculme: LD gain from Con
North Devon (7/8) Barnstaple North: LD hold Barnstaple South: LD hold Braunton Rural: LD gain from Con Chulmleigh & Landkey: LD gain from Con Combe Martin Rural: Con hold Fremington Rural: LD gain from Ind Ilfracombe: Grn gain from Con
South Hams (6/7) Dartmouth & Marldon: LD gain from Con Ivybridge: LD gain from Con Kingsbridge: LD hold Salcombe: LD gain from Con South Brent & Yealmpton: LD hold Totnes & Dartington: Grn hold
Teignbridge (6/10) Ashburton & Buckfastleigh: Con hold Bovey Rural: LD gain from Con Chudleigh & Teign Valley: LD gain from Con Exminster & Haldon: LD hold Ipplepen & The Kerswells: Ref gain from LD Kingsteignton & Teign Estuary: Ref gain from Con
Torridge (5/5) Bideford East: Ref gain from Con Bideford West & Hartland: Ref gain from Con Holsworthy Rural: Ref gain from Con Northam: Con hold Torrington Rural: LD gain from Con
West Devon (3/4) Hatherleigh & Chagford: Ref gain from Con Okehampton Rural: Ref gain from Con Tavistock: Con hold
Also lots of comments along the line of Bobby J is a disreputable shit but he’s best to take on Farage.
So as this turns into a rout, she'll be gone?
I can understand why - the party are practically irrelevant in public discourse. And from what I read she is a terrible communicator even to her own office, never mind communicating "I have a cunning plan" back to the wider party.
Yes, they want to avoid next year being a bloodbath and also get supplanted by Reform in the devolved assemblies.
Their strategy for not being supplanted is to try and out-Reform Reform with Jenrick. I question whether that will work.
Nobody is going to out Farage Farage before the next GE.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
What does 'pivot right' actually mean? What could the Tories say that they're not saying already that would win votes from Farage?
Hang'em Flog'em
Stupid program.
Flog them first. Flogging them after hanging them is pointless. The kind of performative governmental waste that we need to stamp out.
I added an edit - public stoning.
Think of the benefits! No longer will offenders get away with it. No longer will two tier justice prosecute people just because they called for people to be set on fire.
Drag 'em outside in the name of St George.
So you are advocating punishment by immigrant? Bet he'd use imported stones.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
I do have some advice for the Cons. The way back for them mirrors how Lab did it post GE19. The core of the Lab strategy was to win the Red Wall back. This was essential to get them back in the game. Everything else was a 'nice to have'. For the Cons it's the Blue Wall. All those seats they lost in affluent parts of the south, mainly to the LDs. They must regain most of those to be competitive again.
So forget about chasing Ref voters. Attack Ref rather than ape it. Develop a serious, non-xenophobic, right-of-centre platform and pitch to those voters pushed away to the LDs (and to Lab) by the chaos, incompetence, corruption and self-indulgence of the Johnson/Truss years. It might not work, maybe nothing will now, but it's their best chance. And they need another leader (not Jenrick).
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Which makes public sector pensions much less valuable, because there's a risk a MaxPB CofE could come in and simply abolish them.
If Parliament did any such thing, it would pretty well destroy any confidence in the pension system overnight. There would be all manner of consequences flowing from that, very few of them good.
Max seems to be flailing around every bit as much as our governments of the last couple of decades.
I would agree with him in that the new Labour government missed an opportunity to take some fairly drastic measures in their first six months, while blowing their political capital on the fiscal insignificance of the winter fuel payment. But he's not come up with any realistic alternative program.
Rishi calling an election in July rather than December rather threw Labour off their plan and revealed that they hadn’t done enough preparation
They had a couple of years as clear favourites to prepare. They are at least one of, probably both, lacking in ideas and courage.
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
I do have some advice for the Cons. The way back for them mirrors how Lab did it post GE19. The core of the Lab strategy was to win the Red Wall back. This was essential to get them back in the game. Everything else was a 'nice to have'. For the Cons it's the Blue Wall. All those seats they lost in affluent parts of the south, mainly to the LDs. They must regain most of those to be competitive again.
So forget about chasing Ref voters. Attack Ref rather than ape it. Develop a serious, non-xenophobic, right-of-centre platform and pitch to those voters pushed away to the LDs (and to Lab) by the chaos, incompetence, corruption and self-indulgence of the Johnson/Truss years. It might not work, maybe nothing will now, but it's their best chance. And they need another leader (not Jenrick).
Boris get rid of all the potential leaders capable of delivering that.....
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
My executive managment theory - it is indeed a very senior role, but is it a particularly challenging one that can only be done well by the top 1% of senior managers? The hardest part of those roles is the self PR to get them in the first place - and those types often make extremely short termist decisions to the detriment of the organisations to help with their self PR.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
But is that any less true in the private sector?
I think it is the same for most stable big organisations. I suppose from a political perspective the difference is the taxpayer is overpaying rather than a shareholder and getting better value for the taxpayer is a fair part of politics.
We’re the ones overpaying when it happens in the private sector too.
The Cons have failed because they wanted to outflank Reform, which is an impossibility.
Inflank really, if that’s word, a more watery version of the Reform heady brew which misunderstands its appeal. See also Labour’s even more low alcohol version. Pretty sure they’ll both ramp up the Reform bs in response to a pretty crappy day for both of them.
Some interesting things happening in County Durham. Eye-test town goes Labour thanks to a split on the right(?)
Barnard Castle Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes* BEWLEY, Christopher Paul Reform UK 436 FOOTE-WOOD, Chris Labour Party 456 Elected HENDERSON, Ted Local Conservatives 421 HOGG, John Edward The Green Party 97 HUZZEY, Richard Liberal Democrat 63
victoria wood's brother has won apparently.
He used to be Mr Lib Dem locally, was a candidate for multiple GEs - I wonder when/why he switched?
Another Tory source contacts me with this upbeat assessment: "Don’t forget to pay attention to the West Country and South West. Yes Reform exist here, but it’s the Lib Dems we’re getting a f*****g pounding from".
Tory source warms to their Lib Dem theme: "The Lib Dems are like Japanese knot weed. Once they're in it takes a flamethrower and a crucifix to get rid of them".
From the Twitter feed of Dan Hodges.
I'm not sure what I'd advise the Tories to do, however, they already lost a load of seats to the Lib Dems last time. What seats they do have are more at risk from Reform than the Lib Dems.
I do have some advice for the Cons. The way back for them mirrors how Lab did it post GE19. The core of the Lab strategy was to win the Red Wall back. This was essential to get them back in the game. Everything else was a 'nice to have'. For the Cons it's the Blue Wall. All those seats they lost in affluent parts of the south, mainly to the LDs. They must regain most of those to be competitive again.
So forget about chasing Ref voters. Attack Ref rather than ape it. Develop a serious, non-xenophobic, right-of-centre platform and pitch to those voters pushed away to the LDs (and to Lab) by the chaos, incompetence, corruption and self-indulgence of the Johnson/Truss years. It might not work, maybe nothing will now, but it's their best chance. And they need another leader (not Jenrick).
They only way they would do that is to seek to reverse Brexit but all that would do is leak their still mostly Leave vote further to Reform while not winning over many bluewall voters who will stick with the LDs who have always been anti Brexit anyway
The Cons have failed because they wanted to outflank Reform, which is an impossibility.
Nope, if they had wanted to outflank Reform they would have elected Jenrick as their leader not Badenoch. Almost all the old Cameron and Rishi Tory and CCHQ establishment backed Kemi over Bobby J
I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.
How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?
Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.
Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .
It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.
I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...
What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.
There's no way a haircut to built up public sector pension entitlements would survive a court challenge. Some final salary public sector pensions were too generous, but those days are gone now (although the less generous career average DB pensions are still a draw). Still live recipients of those generous pensions, of course, but I don't think there's much to be done about that.
Cutting future pensions to be earned could work but only with substantial pay increases in many areas. I've looked at civil service roles a few times, but the pay is laughable in tech/science roles, coupled with the insistence of starting new entrants on the bottom of the scale. There's a post I looked at recently that had a range of. £55-£70k. £70k or even £65k would have had me apply, but the guidance was very clear it would be bottom of scale for me coming from outside and the path to pay progression was highly opaque. It was written in some ways as a more senior role, with more line management duties than I have at present, but would have been a pay cut for me. A the same time, I saw a 'lead python developer's post at the same place with the same pay range, which really is ridiculous. If they won't compete, they're not going to get good people and will end up spending more than funding a post properly - either lots of turnover as people gain experience and the leave or someone really mediocre who sits there doing not a great deal.
Parliament is sovereign, it can pass primary legislation to mandate a haircut for db pensions. It will of course make them wildly unpopular with people who lose out but it is absolutely possible.
I've also said many times that pension contributions should be cut and salaries increased in the public sector. People want the money today, not at some nebulous point in the future. A friend of mine was contacted to apply for senior on prem cybersecurity admin but the salary is well below market rate and they make it up in the pension, the overall package isn't dissimilar to what he might get elsewhere but he can't afford the pay cut so politely declined.
But aside from that, we just have too many people doing too little in that £40-60k band in the public sector. Lots of salary collectors creating micro bureaucracies around them to justify their roles. We should sweep the lot of them away and bank the saving, reduce the deficit and bank the subsequent drop in the interest bill as gilt prices increase and yields fall.
Public sector pensions are a scandal. It is interesting that those on the left bang on about "fairness" except when it comes to the imbalance between public sector and private sector pensions. The recently retired head of HMRC will be getting a pension that is paying him £107k a year for being idle.
I also read recently that the average council in England pays out one pound in every four they receive to prop up the gold-plated pension fund. Then they bleat on about "lack of resources". There would be "more resources" if they stopped thinking that there senior "public servants" should be able to retire on larger incomes than many people earn in full time jobs.
The former heard of HMRC is hardly typical of public sector pensions. Most people on public sector pensions are getting modest incomes, more modest than the people here who complain about them, I hazard.
As for the head of HMRC, that is clearly a very senior role. How are you going to attract someone to that job if you don't pay them something comparable to what they can earn/put into a pension in a private position?
My executive managment theory - it is indeed a very senior role, but is it a particularly challenging one that can only be done well by the top 1% of senior managers? The hardest part of those roles is the self PR to get them in the first place - and those types often make extremely short termist decisions to the detriment of the organisations to help with their self PR.
I suspect if you swapped the head of HMRC for a random manager a couple of salary levels lower down HMRC would be, on average, no worse off.
But is that any less true in the private sector?
I think it is the same for most stable big organisations. I suppose from a political perspective the difference is the taxpayer is overpaying rather than a shareholder and getting better value for the taxpayer is a fair part of politics.
We’re the ones overpaying when it happens in the private sector too.
As shareholders. I'm all for shareholder reform to give more scrutiny over executive pay - it has gone bonkers. But that is a separate issue to public sector pay. Happy to pay specialist doctors or key IT roles more there in exchange for less to generic senior managers who imo, tend to be pretty fungible.
Most Ref voters want left-wing economic policies, of the sort Callaghan was in favour of in the late 70s.
Those that voted Labour and now vote Reform maybe, with anti immigration and anti woke policies too.
Those that normally used to vote Conservative who have gone Reform want uber Thatcherism on steroids and have gone to Farage as they think the Tories are still too Cameroon and wet
This is hard to interpret. I think it's terrible for Labour in relation to winning the election, but worse for the Tories in terms of "existence".
Must be increasing chance of a Lib-Lab coalition in 2029. I can see Reform winning or coming second in almost all E&W constituencies except London, which is fast becoming a Conservative refuge.
Comments
Oh and greens have doubled as well.
@Pulpstar ?
Fwiw I voted Labour, both candidates seemed credible though. No effort from the Tories.
1) What are the Conservatives for? What do you stand for? Whats the big picture?
2) Proven to be utterly crap in office. Not just ineffectual, but catastrophically poor at governing
This can be fixed. But it means dropping "tactics" like going after Labour over woke issues and going back to "rebuild Britain through Business". And you'll only get away with that by accepting how catastrophic a job was done in government and changing direction.
Reform are out there saying Britain is Broken. At a fundamental level. And have some new ideas to go after. Tories seem to be claiming it isn't broken actually because you did a brilliant job actually but all the stuff that is broken actually is Labour's fault because actually that Keir Starmer was in charge from opposition.
Name of Candidate Description (if any) Number of votes*
ALLISON, Karen Reform UK 1404 Elected
BRIGGS, Kevin John The Conservative Party Candidate 114
CHARLTON, Joyce Derwentside Independents 574
GRIMES, Darren Reform UK 1364 Elected
MILBURN, Olga Labour Party 579
NICHOLSON, Joan Derwentside Independents 659
PHAL, Sopha Liberal Democrats 80
RICHARDSON, Garry The Conservative Party Candidate 77
STEPHENSON, Jeanette Theresa Labour Party 512
TWIGG, Sarah The Green Party 122
Two more of 'em!
AIs have lost both their Leader and Deputy Leader.
We'll see.
Labour leader on Durham Council, Carl Marshall, thrashed in his ward.
It’s a drubbing
And that’s a fundamental part of the problem in County Durham and elsewhere the only reason for xyz village started was because of the pit and pit closed 40 years ago
I know I keep on banging this drum, but there has to be a recognition of reality before forward strategy can be shaped. And the Tories have left the country utterly broken. Not that the answer is Labour either - which is why Reform are smashing it in the north and the LDs are smashing it in the south.
Meanwhile as other have pointed out Reform are winning everything else
That’s what it fundamentally comes down to.
Max seems to be flailing around every bit as much as our governments of the last couple of decades.
I would agree with him in that the new Labour government missed an opportunity to take some fairly drastic measures in their first six months, while blowing their political capital on the fiscal insignificance of the winter fuel payment. But he's not come up with any realistic alternative program.
https://x.com/trump_repost/status/1918263783442792654
The Democrats are really out of control. They have lost everything, especially their minds! These Radical Left Lunatics are into the "Impeachment thing" again. They have already got two "No Name," little respected Congressmen, total Whackjobs both, throwing the "Impeachment" of DONALD J. TRUMP around, for about the 20th time, even though they have no idea for what I would be Impeached. Maybe it should be for cleaning up the MESS that they left us on the Border, or the Highest Inflation in our Country's History or, perhaps, it should be the incompetent Withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Russia, Russia, Russia/Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, or the Attack of Israel on October 7th that only proceeded because they allowed Iran to regain Great Wealth. These Congressmen stated that, they didn't know why they would Impeach me but, "We just want to do it." The Republicans should start to think about expelling them from Congress for all of the crimes that they have committed, especially around Election time(s). These are very dishonest people that won't let our Country heal! Why do we allow them to continuously use Impeachment as a weapon against the President of the United States who, by all accounts, is working hard to SAVE OUR COUNTRY. It's the same playbook that they used in my First Term, and Republicans are not going to allow them to get away with it again. These are total LOWLIFES, who hate our Country, and everything it stands for. Perhaps we should start playing this game on them, and expel Democrats for the many crimes that they have committed — And these are REAL crimes. Remember, "Shifty" Adam Schiff demanded a Pardon, and they had to use the power of the Auto Pen, and a Full Pardon, for him and the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, to save them from Expulsion, and probably worse!
AHAHAH Beaten by the indy.
The best bet for the Tories in my view is to stick with Kemi or get Stride in as leader and if Farage fails again to win and become PM then they could pivot right after a general election defeat to try and win back voters lost to Reform
One of the successful candidates in Stanley has the middle name Stanley!
erm, you can't actually do that, councillor. Legally
"Bloody unelected officers telling us that we can't respect the vote"
the law doesn't care who people vote for, these are statutory responsibilities
"public protest against providing money to" [checks notes] "disabled children meets outside Spoons in Worksop at 2pm"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbctwo
2. Get sued by the Gov
3. Add a few percent to the Ref national polling
4. Rince/Repeat.
Think of it as insurrectionary lawfare.
I *think* this is relatively wealthy.
While it's possible the results are a short term phenomenon, and there will be a reversion to the previous status quo, that does't seem overwhelmingly likely. A trend towards Tory extinction could easily set in.
That would make Labour's position much more precarious.
Are there any numbers which give an idea of differential turnout (as opposed to vote switching between parties) ?
Flog'em
EDIT - think of it. So many angry people out there on Facebook want Harsh Measures against the bad people with brown skin and or funny voices.
Have the Tories and Reform go after these votes and we're have proposals for public stonings from one of them.
A stoning! The perfect solution to a broken criminal justice system. Speed up the process - have the Obvious Criminal dragged into the street, tried by mob and swiftly executed before Spoons calls last orders.
I don't think I recall local election results quite so bad for both major parties before.
But then he's probably for the Refukkers.
Though yes as I said I don't think any Tory leader will win significant votes from Farage before the next GE, he needs to be seen to have failed to beat Labour twice before right of centre voters flirting with Reform will consider the Tories again.
Flog them first. Flogging them after hanging them is pointless. The kind of performative governmental waste that we need to stamp out.
They imo completely mismanaged Covid and at the time I made some of my thoughts known although it's only in hindsight that it has become obvious how bad the consequences have been.
Sound money, low inflation, no QE nonsense, a balanced budget, an improved trading situation; equality of opportunity, reward for effort and hard work (implying lower taxes), care with the public purse ensuring tax payers money is spent carefully and wisely; support and care for those that need it but with a priority, where appropriate, of encouraging people to provide for themselves and for their families; a strong defence; immigration that benefits UK plc by bringing in people with talents, investment and entrepreneurial drive; the rule of law and respect for institutions, home ownership, self sufficiency and self reliance; and a strong sense of the national interest over sectorial interests.
The problem is that if you mark the government from 2019 to 2024 out of 10 on that list you struggle to get a pass mark. And I really don't know if this matches Kemi's aspirations or not. I will not be voting Tory with any enthusiasm until I have had assurances about a lot of this.
The likelihood of any such thing happening is pretty slim.
Think of the benefits! No longer will offenders get away with it. No longer will two tier justice prosecute people just because they called for people to be set on fire.
Drag 'em outside in the name of St George.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c39jedewxp8t
East Devon (4/11)
Axminister: Ind gain from Con
Feniton & Honiton: LD gain from Con
Otter Valley: Ind hold
Seaton & Colyton: LD gain from Con
Exeter (5/9)
Alphington & Cowick: Ref gain from Lab
Duryard & Pennsylvania: LD gain from Con
Pinhoe & Mincinglake: Ref gain from Lab
St Sidwells & St James: Grn gain from Lab
Wearside & Topsham: Con hold
Mid Devon (2/6)
Cullompton & Bradninch: LD gain from Con
Willand & Uffculme: LD gain from Con
North Devon (7/8)
Barnstaple North: LD hold
Barnstaple South: LD hold
Braunton Rural: LD gain from Con
Chulmleigh & Landkey: LD gain from Con
Combe Martin Rural: Con hold
Fremington Rural: LD gain from Ind
Ilfracombe: Grn gain from Con
South Hams (6/7)
Dartmouth & Marldon: LD gain from Con
Ivybridge: LD gain from Con
Kingsbridge: LD hold
Salcombe: LD gain from Con
South Brent & Yealmpton: LD hold
Totnes & Dartington: Grn hold
Teignbridge (6/10)
Ashburton & Buckfastleigh: Con hold
Bovey Rural: LD gain from Con
Chudleigh & Teign Valley: LD gain from Con
Exminster & Haldon: LD hold
Ipplepen & The Kerswells: Ref gain from LD
Kingsteignton & Teign Estuary: Ref gain from Con
Torridge (5/5)
Bideford East: Ref gain from Con
Bideford West & Hartland: Ref gain from Con
Holsworthy Rural: Ref gain from Con
Northam: Con hold
Torrington Rural: LD gain from Con
West Devon (3/4)
Hatherleigh & Chagford: Ref gain from Con
Okehampton Rural: Ref gain from Con
Tavistock: Con hold
After 37/60 seats declared
Reform: 9 (+9)
Liberal Democrats: 19 (+13)
Conservatives: 5 (-20)
Green: 3 (+2)
Labour: 0 (-3)
Independent: 2 (+0)
I don’t know if it was you, or someone else who said it, when discussing independents like the Derwentside Independents.
They got a drubbing in seats currently declared. They were the previous NOTA according to,the discussion, which was correct.
So forget about chasing Ref voters. Attack Ref rather than ape it. Develop a serious, non-xenophobic, right-of-centre platform and pitch to those voters pushed away to the LDs (and to Lab) by the chaos, incompetence, corruption and self-indulgence of the Johnson/Truss years. It might not work, maybe nothing will now, but it's their best chance. And they need another leader (not Jenrick).
Last time it was 60:20:20 approx Ash Ind: Lab: Con.
This time 50:30:10:5:5 Ref: Ash Ind: Lab: Con: Green.
Those that normally used to vote Conservative who have gone Reform want uber Thatcherism on steroids and have gone to Farage as they think the Tories are still too Cameroon and wet
Must be increasing chance of a Lib-Lab coalition in 2029. I can see Reform winning or coming second in almost all E&W constituencies except London, which is fast becoming a Conservative refuge.
"Your mansion in a golf course."
https://maps.app.goo.gl/av1WF6gAwhncLLe6A