We need to get back to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me". That's what we were taught at primary school, and I was still there in the early 1990s.
That's still by and large where we are, I'd say. The potential criminalisation comes where the two things (words and actions) overlap - ie incitement to violence.
This is not to say I agree or disagree with any particular case. But the principle, that incitement to violence is not protected free speech, this I do agree with.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
“Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live”
Guardian
We are belatedly moving closer to the realisation that “actually we CAN put them all in tents in a massive cold field on the Isle of Grain for two years and make sure it’s miserable but safe”
And then they will stop coming. Finally
This is from the Guardian
Cooper suggests asylum seekers being moved out of hotels could be housed in warehouses instead Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has suggested that warehouses could be used to house some of the asylum seekers currently being put up in hotels.
The government has repeatedly said it wants to stop the use of hotels for asylum seekers by the end of this parliament, but ministers have not given details of what replacement housing might be used.
In an interview with LBC this morning, asked what alternative accommodation might be used, Cooper said:
I think it’s a mix of things. First of all, you actually have to shrink the whole asylum system. So we actually need to have fewer people in the asylum system in the first place, fewer people needing accommodation. That has to be at the core of this. It’s been allowed to expand in a way that is out of control.
And then, yes, we do also want to see alternative sites, more appropriate sites, including looking at military and industrial sites as well.
Asked what she meant by “industrial sites”, Cooper said the Home Office would provide further details in due course. When the presenter, Nick Ferrari, pressed her repeatedy to say if this could mean asylum seekers being housed in warehouses, Cooper eventually replied:
That’s one of the things that’s been looked at. But we will provide updates when we’ve got the practical plans.
Cooper also said she did not want to announce measures before she knew if she could deliver them because that was “what the previous government did”.
Do we think that if the Tories had suggested before the election they were looking at Industrial sites and warehouses as places to put up asylum seekers Yvette and co would have nodded in agreement and said it makes perfect sense to look at these as a solution?
Or do we think they would have deemed it a disgraceful way to treat people and infringes their dignity/human rights?
"Baker is the subject of a life sentence for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate she attacked when in prison serving a sentence for kidnapping and torturing her stepmother's 19-year-old brother."
She appears to be a psychopath.
Am I reading this correctly? Surely this person wasn't let out of nick to attend a jolly?
Baker is the subject of a life sentence for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate she attacked when in prison serving a sentence for kidnapping and torturing her stepmother's 19-year-old brother. Baker was recalled to prison following the events at the rally.
No. I think this is a reference to how life sentences work. Unless you have a whole life tariff, you'd ultimately be released at some point, but it's always conditional and you can be recalled to prison for a breach of conditions following release.
“Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live”
Guardian
We are belatedly moving closer to the realisation that “actually we CAN put them all in tents in a massive cold field on the Isle of Grain for two years and make sure it’s miserable but safe”
And then they will stop coming. Finally
This is from the Guardian
Cooper suggests asylum seekers being moved out of hotels could be housed in warehouses instead Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has suggested that warehouses could be used to house some of the asylum seekers currently being put up in hotels.
The government has repeatedly said it wants to stop the use of hotels for asylum seekers by the end of this parliament, but ministers have not given details of what replacement housing might be used.
In an interview with LBC this morning, asked what alternative accommodation might be used, Cooper said:
I think it’s a mix of things. First of all, you actually have to shrink the whole asylum system. So we actually need to have fewer people in the asylum system in the first place, fewer people needing accommodation. That has to be at the core of this. It’s been allowed to expand in a way that is out of control.
And then, yes, we do also want to see alternative sites, more appropriate sites, including looking at military and industrial sites as well.
Asked what she meant by “industrial sites”, Cooper said the Home Office would provide further details in due course. When the presenter, Nick Ferrari, pressed her repeatedy to say if this could mean asylum seekers being housed in warehouses, Cooper eventually replied:
That’s one of the things that’s been looked at. But we will provide updates when we’ve got the practical plans.
Cooper also said she did not want to announce measures before she knew if she could deliver them because that was “what the previous government did”.
Do we think that if the Tories had suggested before the election they were looking at Industrial sites and warehouses as places to put up asylum seekers Yvette and co would have nodded in agreement and said it makes perfect sense to look at these as a solution?
Or do we think they would have deemed it a disgraceful way to treat people and infringes their dignity/human rights?
Cooper is under threat from Reform in her constituency, and she appears to auditioning to stand for Reform there at the next GE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
"Baker is the subject of a life sentence for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate she attacked when in prison serving a sentence for kidnapping and torturing her stepmother's 19-year-old brother."
She appears to be a psychopath.
Am I reading this correctly? Surely this person wasn't let out of nick to attend a jolly?
Baker is the subject of a life sentence for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate she attacked when in prison serving a sentence for kidnapping and torturing her stepmother's 19-year-old brother. Baker was recalled to prison following the events at the rally.
No. I think this is a reference to how life sentences work. Unless you have a whole life tariff, you'd ultimately be released at some point, but it's always conditional and you can be recalled to prison for a breach of conditions following release.
Thanks! I do think they need to ditch the 'life sentence' terminology though, as it's really just a kind of linguistic relic and completely misleading. Perhaps change it to something like 'sentence imposed for maximum naughtiness'.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
For going on Rogan’s podcast and talking about freedom of speech?
For three tweets that trans-activists thought were a bit 'hurty'
Is there a reason people need to be arrested, in this case on arrival at an airport, for these types of complaints rather than being invited in to be questioned?
Seems like a huge waste of resources for a starter.
Deranged trans activists use plod to enact publicly their vendettas
Surely it’s still the Police who decide whether Linehan is a major criminal who needs to be met off a plane by five officers and arrested to stop him going off on a wild rampage then fleeing the country on a fellow criminal’s light aircraft at night or whether he’s a comedy writer/activist who could be instructed to attend a police station at a certain time to be questioned and if necessary formally arrested.
The police are becoming completely ridiculous; they are already perceived as hideously biased. As a result they are losing the consent of the British people
This is an exceptionally dangerous road
Most people want them to spend 95% of their time catching burglars, thieves, robbers, and fare dodgers.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
We have a Labour government that has no brains and no ideas, is led by utter fools, and is comprised of MPs so spineless and wet they won’t even countenance a cut of 3bn in public spending when actually we need cuts of £30bn. Or £90bn
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
Oh, for fuck's sake. I thought this was a satire of Lab Operation Patriot, but no.
Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth Asked if she's got a flag on display in her home, the Home Secretary says she has Union Jack bunting, St Georges flags, St Georges bunting, and Union Jack flags and tablecloths.
Nothing wrong with it in itself but it doesn't sound authentic. It's as if Jacob Rees-Mogg expressed admiration for Pink Floyd or a fondness for standing on the terraces at Accrington Stanley.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
The skeptical parrot on my shoulder says that this is the last gasp SNP administration laying an egg for the following administration to deal with, but that would be too cynical surely?
The Scottish government reintroduced peak fares not that long ago only to find that rail use cratered. Now they are making a big song and dance about cancelling the increases they put in place in the hope that traffic picks up again.
What has been noticeable in recent years is the increase in intercity buses such as Ember is substantially undercutting the cost of trains and has been growing quite rapidly. Scotrail provides a truly shocking service, internet on their trains is very much the exception as indeed is sockets that actually work. I think, rather than causing problems for the next administration, the cut in fares is an uncharacteristic nod to the economic reality.
The BBC Scotchland disagrees with you
An evaluation of the first nine months of the trial found passenger levels increased by a maximum of about 6.8%. This represented around four million extra rail journeys, of which two million are journeys that would previously have been made by private car. However, the scheme required a 10% rise to be self-financing.
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
We have a Labour government that has no brains and no ideas, is led by utter fools, and is comprised of MPs so spineless and wet they won’t even countenance a cut of 3bn in public spending when actually we need cuts of £30bn. Or £90bn
"This is England’s first ODI since tweaks to the ICC playing conditions earlier this year. The most significant is a change of the rules around the balls that are used.
As has been the case for a while, two white balls (one at each end) will be used from the start of each innings but now after 34 overs the fielding captain can choose one to continue with for the rest of the innings.
The ICC hopes this will help bring bowlers back into the game."
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
Trump.
Trump is part of it, but if you read today's reports Starmer's reshuffle yesterday has not gone down well and doubts are emerging that Reeves cannot reduce spending
Have we done Robert Jenrick's near miss for Contempt of Court?
An "appalling" social media post from the account of top Tory politician Robert Jenrick was feared to pose a threat to the fairness of the Lenny Scott murder trial. The ECHO can reveal how a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, was brought before the presiding high court judge by both the prosecution and defence due to fears over a possible contempt of court.
The post, made by the shadow justice secretary and shadow lord chancellor on July 1, around a week into the criminal proceedings, was called "appalling, outrageous and egregious" by senior defence counsel Caroline Goodwin KC. Ms Goodwin, who represented the gunman Elias Morgan during the trial, added the post "put [Mr Jenrick's] political ambitions first and the requirements of justice second". ... Mr Jenrick's X post said: "Lenny exposed corruption and took on the gangster controlling a prison wing. He received threats to his life, but he was left unsupported. Four years later he was shot dead. That will enrage any decent person. We need radical change, now."
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
I wonder if the plan is to get a somewhat unpleasant budget passed and then for her to go?
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
The skeptical parrot on my shoulder says that this is the last gasp SNP administration laying an egg for the following administration to deal with, but that would be too cynical surely?
The Scottish government reintroduced peak fares not that long ago only to find that rail use cratered. Now they are making a big song and dance about cancelling the increases they put in place in the hope that traffic picks up again.
What has been noticeable in recent years is the increase in intercity buses such as Ember is substantially undercutting the cost of trains and has been growing quite rapidly. Scotrail provides a truly shocking service, internet on their trains is very much the exception as indeed is sockets that actually work. I think, rather than causing problems for the next administration, the cut in fares is an uncharacteristic nod to the economic reality.
The BBC Scotchland disagrees with you
An evaluation of the first nine months of the trial found passenger levels increased by a maximum of about 6.8%. This represented around four million extra rail journeys, of which two million are journeys that would previously have been made by private car. However, the scheme required a 10% rise to be self-financing.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
The skeptical parrot on my shoulder says that this is the last gasp SNP administration laying an egg for the following administration to deal with, but that would be too cynical surely?
The Scottish government reintroduced peak fares not that long ago only to find that rail use cratered. Now they are making a big song and dance about cancelling the increases they put in place in the hope that traffic picks up again.
What has been noticeable in recent years is the increase in intercity buses such as Ember is substantially undercutting the cost of trains and has been growing quite rapidly. Scotrail provides a truly shocking service, internet on their trains is very much the exception as indeed is sockets that actually work. I think, rather than causing problems for the next administration, the cut in fares is an uncharacteristic nod to the economic reality.
The BBC Scotchland disagrees with you
An evaluation of the first nine months of the trial found passenger levels increased by a maximum of about 6.8%. This represented around four million extra rail journeys, of which two million are journeys that would previously have been made by private car. However, the scheme required a 10% rise to be self-financing.
Yoon spectacles (yoonacles?)
cratered = 6.8% increase.
Not quite - there was a 6.8% increase because of the cheaper fares, but that wasn't deemed value for money. Until now.
Those numbers make sense to me because I think availability and reliability are far bigger issues for ScotRail than prices. (Though I've only ever been delayed significantly once and that was due to a suicide.)
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
Yes, QT presumably has the opposite impact to the original QE.
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
We have a Labour government that has no brains and no ideas, is led by utter fools, and is comprised of MPs so spineless and wet they won’t even countenance a cut of 3bn in public spending when actually we need cuts of £30bn. Or £90bn
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
Trump.
Trump is part of it, but if you read today's reports Starmer's reshuffle yesterday has not gone down well and doubts are emerging that Reeves cannot reduce spending
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
So a man telling women what to do, then?
A comic writer making a comical point. Hardly the same. Plenty of men on here telling women what to think on the trans issue. The mansplaining is ace.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
Advocating physical violence against a protected minority is still a crime in this country. Who would have thought?
As we know from the very many arrests of the many men who have publicly threatened violence against women in demonstrations, outside Parliament and online in recent years.
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
How much influence/power does the Treasury have over this? And isn't this quite immaterial anyway compared with the broader issues of tariffs + confidence in our fiscal position?
The skeptical parrot on my shoulder says that this is the last gasp SNP administration laying an egg for the following administration to deal with, but that would be too cynical surely?
Has to be a good thing, they are trying to get more people to use trains rather than cars , what can be bad about it. Has been talked about since they nationalised it, had a pilot where I think it did cost them money but have implemented it. Do you think London subsidising bus fares is laying an egg for next mayor
I entirely agree with that sentiment but my view is always that investing in infrastructure (stations, lines, trains) will get more people out of their cars than cheaper tickets, particularly when the rail network is often at capacity (particularly Waverley).
Pricing is crazy , If 4 of us go to Edinburgh , train is £120+, if I take car it is 3 gallons of diesel plus parking so even at extreme under £40
The skeptical parrot on my shoulder says that this is the last gasp SNP administration laying an egg for the following administration to deal with, but that would be too cynical surely?
Has to be a good thing, they are trying to get more people to use trains rather than cars , what can be bad about it. Has been talked about since they nationalised it, had a pilot where I think it did cost them money but have implemented it. Do you think London subsidising bus fares is laying an egg for next mayor
Still, great to see the BBC who were pelting the SNP for the end of the suspended peak fare pilot scheme (vox pops with pissed off commuters and everything) now trying to frame permanently abolished peak fares as a bad thing.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
If he sacks Reeves it won't be to impress the markets. The markets didn't like the tears because it raised fears of her going. Once it became clear she wasn't they settled down.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
You have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as containing a joke about height, I have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as not containing a joke (funny or not) about height, each to their own.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
No one else is pursuing the hair shirt policy to the same extent, and the banks could well afford the hit to the outsize profits they're making from the current policy.
It would also give the government about £20bn of headroom they don't now have.
If they were to use that for productive investment (far from a given) it would be a win/win/win in economic terms.
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
Trump.
Trump is part of it, but if you read today's reports Starmer's reshuffle yesterday has not gone down well and doubts are emerging that Reeves cannot reduce spending
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
You have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as containing a joke about height, I have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as not containing a joke (funny or not) about height, each to their own.
Yes each to their own. Fair.
But I ask you again - does this merit five armed police arresting him at the airport?
The United States is now Putin's deportation partner.
Russian political refugees who sought safety in the U.S. are being returned on charter flights. Upon return, they face hours-long interrogations by security services.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
You have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as containing a joke about height, I have interpreted a tweet not mentioning height as not containing a joke (funny or not) about height, each to their own.
I assume you need everything in comedy explained to you as you go?
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
What about post op? Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
What's the main reason for 30 year bonds being so high?
Trump.
Trump is part of it, but if you read today's reports Starmer's reshuffle yesterday has not gone down well and doubts are emerging that Reeves cannot reduce spending
She can’t. Her idiot backbenchers won’t allow it
Nor will the idiot voters.
What's to do?
Get an external body like the IMF to force the issue I guess
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
What about post op? Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
And does he deserve or need to be arrested in such a manner? You seem unwilling to answer that question.
At some point surely the conversation has to get around to an increase in one of the “forbidden” taxes and/or spending cuts being an absolute necessity (pensions and the triple lock being the low hanging fruit).
There may come a point where although these things are politically toxic, they are practically necessary to stabilise the markets?
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
What about post op? Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
And does he deserve or need to be arrested in such a manner? You seem unwilling to answer that question.
Yeah, apart from
James B @piercepenniless Graham Linehan is an unpleasant character whose pathological loathing of trans people has destroyed his own life. His online presence is a sordid gutter of monomania. Detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
Keir Starmer’s approval rating sinks to record low - Freshwater Strategy
Keir Starmer’s net approval ratings have dropped to a record low ahead of a difficult Autumn Budget.
Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have hit a record low, a City AM/Freshwater Strategy poll has shown, as pressure mounts on the government ahead of the Budget.
Research by City AM and the advisory firm Freshwater Strategy has highlighted the growing discontent among voters over the UK government’s poor performance after a year in office.
Starmer’s net approval hit a record low of minus 41 while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s approval dropped by two points to minus 17.
The monthly poll, which began in January, also showed Nigel Farage’s approval ratings to be in negative territory as it slipped to minus six.
The drop in approval ratings exposes the intense pressure Labour faces ahead of this year’s autumn Budget as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is poised to raise at least £20bn in taxes in order to rebuild her fiscal buffer.
The majority of voters (57 per cent) said they would rather the government made tax and spending cuts while nearly one third (32 per cent) said they would prefer tax increases to fund public services.
Half of Labour voters (51 per cent) said they would prefer tax cuts over more spending.
But desires did not match with expectations as three quarters of voters said they were anticipating tax hikes, with around four in five (78 per cent) claiming they feared the damage taxes could do to the UK economy.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
What about post op? Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
And does he deserve or need to be arrested in such a manner? You seem unwilling to answer that question.
Yeah, apart from
James B @piercepenniless Graham Linehan is an unpleasant character whose pathological loathing of trans people has destroyed his own life. His online presence is a sordid gutter of monomania. Detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian.
Five armed police? Why not just one or two? FFS. Hate the man - that's your right. Disagree with his views - that's your right. But agree that he deserves arresting in this way for a trivial post? Get a grip.
A microcosm of a couple of questions Reform UK have to manage around their relationship with the extreme Right. Here "extreme" means extreme - white nationalist / neo-fascist.
Orla Minihane is a RefUK County Council candidate. When various people pointed it out with evidence she dismissed it as "this nonsense".
Sarah White is a Reform Branch Chair, and has appeared as one of the "travelling local people".
Callum Barker is a key activist for the Homeland Party, who with his acquaintances have been driving the demonstrations in Epping - I pointed him out here on July 20th.
In other news, photos are around of 5 Reform Kent Councillors standing beaming next to a self-identified "proud to be called a Nazi" gentleman wrapped in a British Movement flag, with a knuckleduster tattoo on his face,and a string of convictions. BM later became the British National Socialist Movement (BNSM), and have their roots in the 1960s.
That has potential to blow up Farage's normal "we don't associate with extremists" tactic. He needs to assert control for his own sake.
It's notable that no Reform bigwigs have gone to Epping (unless I missed it). It's possibly an isolated, or patchy, issue - I'm not aware of any similar direct association in Ashfield, for example.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
I'm not too upset by grossly overpaid footballers being caught out by their own greed.
I read today that Raheem Sterling is being paid £325,000 a week for, er, not playing for Chelsea. He could buy a modest house every week, or a mansion every month.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
At the risk of inflaming you further, where does the differential size thing come into the tweet? I mean it would be pisspoor comedically, but the 'joke' doesn't even exist.
The point being that the woman cant punch in the face because the man is so much taller.
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
The point being he has balls. Which shouldn't be there.
What about post op? Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
And does he deserve or need to be arrested in such a manner? You seem unwilling to answer that question.
Yeah, apart from
James B @piercepenniless Graham Linehan is an unpleasant character whose pathological loathing of trans people has destroyed his own life. His online presence is a sordid gutter of monomania. Detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian.
Five armed police? Why not just one or two? FFS. Hate the man - that's your right. Disagree with his views - that's your right. But agree that he deserves arresting in this way for a trivial post? Get a grip.
Fucking hell, have you suffered a brain injury?
What part of 'detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian' don't you understand?
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention albatross still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
A train full of old Russian T-55 tanks, heading off to refight the early years of the Cold War - except that they’ll be up against modern Western tanks and MANPADS.
That lot will barely last a day or two on the front line, yet more proof if it were needed that the enemy is now at the point of raiding museums for weapons of war.
They'll most likely be used as very poor short-range artillery, rather than pushed up to the front line to be vapourised.
Russian tank (and APC) losses have slowed right down. There are three main reasons why this might be.
1. Their protection or tactical use has improved, so they're better surviving combat. 2. They're not being used because they're being concentrated for a future offensive. 3. There are almost none left.
I think there are two other possible reasons:
4. Russia is chronically short, not of armoured vehicles, but of skilled CREWS, having expended so many. Tank crews take much longer to train than your average single-use infantryman and without a crew, an armoured vehicle is just an expensive metal box, 5. It could have dawned on even the Russian military that £5m tanks are basically sitting ducks for £500 drones.
These aren't mutually exclusive: my guess is a combination of mostly 3, with 4 and 5 to a more limited extent.
Whatever, it's an amazing achievement by the Ukrainians to have fought the armoured divisions that kept us awake at night in the 80s to a standstill, despite many military pundits (including at least one on here) saying they didn't stand a chance.
A Russian tank-er will have worse survival odds than WW2 German U-boat crew.
I suspect 3 is correct - there has been very little footage of Russian tanks escaping the battlefield. Mines and drones do the job of wiping them out, with an occassional accurate artillery round bumping up the numbers.
Putin went all in with his kit, expecting Trump coming to his aid when he was being counted out.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
I am not willing it on at all, as it would be a dreadful situation, but you cannot argue with the financial observations today and evidence that the government is losing the market's confidence
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention albatross still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
No Tories are "willing it on".
We all hope that Labour is not that disastrous for the nation to have to endure that outcome.
Again.
But there is a severe risk.
I can see why Labour are utterly fearful of it though.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
I am not willing it on at all, as it would be a dreadful situation, but you cannot argue with the financial observations today and evidence that the government is losing the market's confidence
Worst since 1998. Who was PM in 1998, a year into a new Government? How did they do in the next election? (I am not suggesting history will be repeated at the next election mind).
I'm not too upset by grossly overpaid footballers being caught out by their own greed.
I read today that Raheem Sterling is being paid £325,000 a week for, er, not playing for Chelsea. He could buy a modest house every week, or a mansion every month.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
I am not willing it on at all, as it would be a dreadful situation, but you cannot argue with the financial observations today and evidence that the government is losing the market's confidence
Worst since 1998. Who was PM in 1998, a year into a new Government? How did they do in the next election? (I am not suggesting history will be repeated at the next election mind).
Bad news is easier to ride out when you have a poll lead of between 19% and 26% than when you’re in the doldrums and people are speculating about the future of you and your chancellor.
I think this has already been posted, but the replies to it are mental. If I held the UK in any regard I'd really be hoping this is a Russian bot campaign rather than genuine Brits.
It’s getting both silly and sinister. There’s a chilling effect on public discourse when there is only one permitted view on a topic as seems to be the case
I've seen the tweets in question. You can understand why an outside observer might start to question free speech in the UK.
Advocating violence, ah, but it was a joke so that makes it ok. You may be right that this is an absurd overreaction but is it remarkably different from what Lucy Connolly posted about asylum hotels?
Presumably it's for the 'punch them' bit. Looks a bit daft, but then he's also a living example of David Cameron's comment about Twitter, it seems.
The 'armed police arrest' thing is presumably because it was at Heathrow. Are there many unarmed police knocking around Heathrow?
"If a man is in an all women area punch them in the bollocks". I have no issue with that.
Careful now
It does raise the question of why all these men wanting to punch the trannies in the bollocks are in an all women area.
Which men? Linehan was suggesting in a comic way (punch in the bollocks due to the size differential, pace Peggie vs Upton) that women may respond to men being in the women's changing room.
So a man telling women what to do, then?
A comic writer making a comical point. Hardly the same. Plenty of men on here telling women what to think on the trans issue. The mansplaining is ace.
Talking about matters trans, the Sullivan Report is being discussed in the RSS Conference in about a hour. If anybody has any questions for the discussants, let me know by 3pm
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
I am not willing it on at all, as it would be a dreadful situation, but you cannot argue with the financial observations today and evidence that the government is losing the market's confidence
Worst since 1998. Who was PM in 1998, a year into a new Government? How did they do in the next election? (I am not suggesting history will be repeated at the next election mind).
Starmer is no Blair and I voted for him again after 1997 !!!!!!!!
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention albatross still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
Before it gets to that the political and economic realities would likely have forced a government to try and get emergency tax/spending measures through the HoC.
At that point government backbenchers have the choice of a few more years employment and the chance of ‘something’ miraculous turning up, or ducking the issue and forcing an election.
Reform UK's former deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council is under police investigation over allegations he tried to influence voters. Councillor Joseph Boam is accused of giving away ice creams outside a polling station for this year's local elections.
The 22-year-old, who left both his deputy leader and adult social care cabinet role last month, was filmed in May this year allegedly handing out ice creams during his and Reform UK's local election campaign in North West Leicestershire. The ice cream van is reportedly family-owned, with Leicestershire Police confirming it had received a third-party report about the van's proximity to the polling station.
As much as I think her performance had been poor and her decisions bad, I have to feel a twinge of sympathy for Reeves. Her job would be a smidgen easier if her backbenchers had given the mildest indication that they might have been open minded enough to reduce spending at even a modest level.
Reform UK's former deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council is under police investigation over allegations he tried to influence voters. Councillor Joseph Boam is accused of giving away ice creams outside a polling station for this year's local elections.
The 22-year-old, who left both his deputy leader and adult social care cabinet role last month, was filmed in May this year allegedly handing out ice creams during his and Reform UK's local election campaign in North West Leicestershire. The ice cream van is reportedly family-owned, with Leicestershire Police confirming it had received a third-party report about the van's proximity to the polling station.
And yet Farage is riding high in the polls, which is simply a testament to Starmer, Reeves and labour's perceived failure in government
Also Birmingham bin workers have voted to continue their strike to March 2026
Reform UK's former deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council is under police investigation over allegations he tried to influence voters. Councillor Joseph Boam is accused of giving away ice creams outside a polling station for this year's local elections.
The 22-year-old, who left both his deputy leader and adult social care cabinet role last month, was filmed in May this year allegedly handing out ice creams during his and Reform UK's local election campaign in North West Leicestershire. The ice cream van is reportedly family-owned, with Leicestershire Police confirming it had received a third-party report about the van's proximity to the polling station.
LOL. That is literally the plot of the Minder episode where Arthur Daley stands in a council by-election (except with chocolates rather than ice cream so not literally literally).
As much as I think her performance had been poor and her decisions bad, I have to feel a twinge of sympathy for Reeves. Her job would be a smidgen easier if her backbenchers had given the mildest indication that they might have been open minded enough to reduce spending at even a modest level.
Quite. The problem is the current Labour majority have no experience of govt, and act like the whole thing is some utopia where they don’t have to make any “tough” decisions, can continue as they are and blame the rich / wealthy.
Government approval sits at 11/70 - 11 equals the lowest Rishis government hit (3 times in 2022 in the aftermath of Truss) and is in line with the fag end of Mays premiership. Catastrophic ratings a year after a landslide
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Neither will the other parties even though they know it is needed
I am not saying this will happen but if nobody breaks the logjam the IMF will
The IMF (non) intervention albatross still hangs around the neck of the Labour Party since the Healey chancellorship almost half a century ago. I don't believe they will be going cap in hand to the IMF unless as a final, final, last resort, however much PB Tories are willing it on.
If Britain went to the IMF, the IMF would have to go to the US, asking for money to bail out the British. What do you reckon Trump would say?
Government approval sits at 11/70 - 11 equals the lowest Rishis government hit (3 times in 2022 in the aftermath of Truss) and is in line with the fag end of Mays premiership. Catastrophic ratings a year after a landslide
II% government approval is just terrible for Starmer
I notice on some of the comments their ambition is to hit zero !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see below the comment re Reeves "You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. "
PBers may care to remember that actually what the markets didn't like was that her being upset made it seem more likely that she was heading for the exit, and that she would be replaced by someone LESS conscious of the realities of the bond markets. Markets recovered somewhat as it became clear she was staying for the time being.
She's not great, she's not really up to the job, but she's still better - from a fiscal continence point of view - than many of the alternatives.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Anyone sensible would slash public spending , cut triple lock , benefits etc, raise the tax thresholds and increase income tax,. Lowest earners spend all their money.
I think this has already been posted, but the replies to it are mental. If I held the UK in any regard I'd really be hoping this is a Russian bot campaign rather than genuine Brits.
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Has Rachel “tiny tears” Reeves thought about openly crying in public for half an hour? Again? That should inject some much needed confidence
I doubt she will survive as Chancellor beyond Christmas and certainly if the bond markets lose all confidence in her we are back at Truss crisis levels
Yes. She surely has to go. She should have gone ASAFP after the tiny tears breakdown blubfest. You simply can’t have your finance minister crying in public. Markets don’t like it. They lose confidence. Who can blame them?
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
How does sacking Reeves help anybody in the government?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
Anyone sensible would slash public spending , cut triple lock , benefits etc, raise the tax thresholds and increase income tax,. Lowest earners spend all their money.
Comments
This is not to say I agree or disagree with any particular case. But the principle, that incitement to violence is not protected free speech, this I do agree with.
Or do we think they would have deemed it a disgraceful way to treat people and infringes their dignity/human rights?
At what point does a gasket blow
Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.
The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government's finances.
There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.
On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.
Governments borrow money from investors by selling them bonds - which is a loan the government promises to pay back at the end of an agreed time.
The yield on 30-year UK government bonds - known as gilts - has been rising for some months, and this makes it more expensive for the government to borrow money due to higher interest payments.
The government's official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.
When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing - that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.
Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The UK Chancellor is facing highly difficult choices in the upcoming Budget, and she's been dealt a warning by gilt investors.
"They are selling off UK government debt, clearly concerned that the government may be losing its grip on the public finances."
Starmer is running out of options fast but that’s one lever he can pull. Sack the CotE and get anyone else in. There must be someone with a brain who doesn’t look like a lesbian worzel gummidge
It probably won’t save them and it’s probably too late. We are going to hit the fiscal iceberg. But drowning men and straws etc
An evaluation of the first nine months of the trial found passenger levels increased by a maximum of about 6.8%.
This represented around four million extra rail journeys, of which two million are journeys that would previously have been made by private car.
However, the scheme required a 10% rise to be self-financing.
https://julianhjessop.substack.com/p/how-could-a-bond-market-crisis-unfold
Although bear in mind he worked for Truss in 2022.
"This is England’s first ODI since tweaks to the ICC playing conditions earlier this year. The most significant is a change of the rules around the balls that are used.
As has been the case for a while, two white balls (one at each end) will be used from the start of each innings but now after 34 overs the fielding captain can choose one to continue with for the rest of the innings.
The ICC hopes this will help bring bowlers back into the game."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/clyqe4ljew9t#player
An "appalling" social media post from the account of top Tory politician Robert Jenrick was feared to pose a threat to the fairness of the Lenny Scott murder trial. The ECHO can reveal how a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, was brought before the presiding high court judge by both the prosecution and defence due to fears over a possible contempt of court.
The post, made by the shadow justice secretary and shadow lord chancellor on July 1, around a week into the criminal proceedings, was called "appalling, outrageous and egregious" by senior defence counsel Caroline Goodwin KC. Ms Goodwin, who represented the gunman Elias Morgan during the trial, added the post "put [Mr Jenrick's] political ambitions first and the requirements of justice second".
...
Mr Jenrick's X post said: "Lenny exposed corruption and took on the gangster controlling a prison wing. He received threats to his life, but he was left unsupported. Four years later he was shot dead. That will enrage any decent person. We need radical change, now."
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/tory-robert-jenrick-slammed-appalling-32389007
I'm no-one to give this government the benefit of any doubt. But I'm not entirely joining the current panic about long-term gilt yields for an important reason: we are currently engaged in the largest programme of quantitative tightening in our history. The Bank of England is essentialy dumping £75 billion of gilts, mostly but not entirely long-dated, on the bond market every year. This is a formidable headwind for that market, even if we had a government with a clue what it is doing (we don't).
Here is a fairly technical but not completely incomprehensible article on the Bank of England's website about it.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2025/june/catherine-l-mann-fireside-chat-at-the-federal-reserve-board-of-governors
For those that can't be bothered to read the whole article, it estimates, quoting other research, that QT of around £80 billion in a year, roughly our current rate, raises 10-year yields by 25 basis points. As we've been doing this for three years, and will do it for several more, and as the ECB is much earlier in its QT cycles, it is clear that the higher interest rates we see are not entirely due to the Reeves "moron premium". And also that the government could influence the Bank to postpone its QT programme if it got into desperate straits, certainly before calling in the IMF or whoever.
A further piece of evidence in favour of the theory that QT is a powerful influence on our current bond market tightening is the normalising of the yield curve over the last year or two. Two year gilt yields have actually fallen (the opposite of what you'd expect if the markets were expecting a short-term crisis) while 10 to 30-year gilt yields have risen. Since most QE happened at the longer end of the curve, this is exactly what you'd expect if QT rather than some imminent expectation of doom were a dominant factor in the bond markets.
But at the same time 1 in every 12 pounds the government spends goes on the interest on the debt we have accrued. This is a quintessential doom loop
We are borrowing money to pay for the money we borrowed to pay for the money we borrowed to pay
cratered = 6.8% increase.
Those numbers make sense to me because I think availability and reliability are far bigger issues for ScotRail than prices. (Though I've only ever been delayed significantly once and that was due to a suicide.)
I would never defend it as a joke. Its not that funny.
But the entire post was this "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."
Now you may disagree with this, but does this really merit five armed police arresting him at an airport off a flight? Really?
Oh ........
The IPPR issued a paper strongly in favour of reducing the rate of QT.
https://www.ippr.org/articles/fixing-the-leak
No one else is pursuing the hair shirt policy to the same extent, and the banks could well afford the hit to the outsize profits they're making from the current policy.
It would also give the government about £20bn of headroom they don't now have.
If they were to use that for productive investment (far from a given) it would be a win/win/win in economic terms.
What's to do?
Players ‘scammed’ out of £100m in football’s Post Office scandal moment
Special report: Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand among those snared in investment fraud scheme, with some even losing their homes
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/09/02/footballers-victim-investment-fraud-deane-rooney-ferdinand/
But I ask you again - does this merit five armed police arresting him at the airport?
Russian political refugees who sought safety in the U.S. are being returned on charter flights. Upon return, they face hours-long interrogations by security services.
🧵Here's what is known about the latest flight:
https://x.com/khodorkovsky_en/status/1962571172949684684
Pretty sure our Graham is failry draconian on the issue, though him encouraging people to punch a set of non existent balls would serve as a fitting metaphor for his life in general.
There may come a point where although these things are politically toxic, they are practically necessary to stabilise the markets?
The fundamental problem is that there are two doom loops going on.
One is that as borrowing costs tick up, the government finances get worse and worse because of our mountain of pre-existing debt. And as the government finances get worse, it drives the government's borrowing costs up.
The other is that with taxes at a historic high, increasing tax rates is providing less and less yield (laffer effect), and doing more and more economic harm. The more economic harm that is done, the less economic growth there is, and so the lower the future tax revenues.
The only real route to break these twin doom loops is to cut public spending by £lots. Reeves tried cutting public spending by £little, and it turned out that her party wouldn't wear it. Starmer could bin her, but then what? Her replacement has exactly the same problem - the only credible solution is to cut spending and endure the resultant squealing, but somehow they've got to get Labour MPs to vote for that, and they won't.
James B
@piercepenniless
Graham Linehan is an unpleasant character whose pathological loathing of trans people has destroyed his own life. His online presence is a sordid gutter of monomania. Detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian.
Keir Starmer’s net approval ratings have dropped to a record low ahead of a difficult Autumn Budget.
Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have hit a record low, a City AM/Freshwater Strategy poll has shown, as pressure mounts on the government ahead of the Budget.
Research by City AM and the advisory firm Freshwater Strategy has highlighted the growing discontent among voters over the UK government’s poor performance after a year in office.
Starmer’s net approval hit a record low of minus 41 while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s approval dropped by two points to minus 17.
The monthly poll, which began in January, also showed Nigel Farage’s approval ratings to be in negative territory as it slipped to minus six.
The drop in approval ratings exposes the intense pressure Labour faces ahead of this year’s autumn Budget as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is poised to raise at least £20bn in taxes in order to rebuild her fiscal buffer.
The majority of voters (57 per cent) said they would rather the government made tax and spending cuts while nearly one third (32 per cent) said they would prefer tax increases to fund public services.
Half of Labour voters (51 per cent) said they would prefer tax cuts over more spending.
But desires did not match with expectations as three quarters of voters said they were anticipating tax hikes, with around four in five (78 per cent) claiming they feared the damage taxes could do to the UK economy.
Orla Minihane is a RefUK County Council candidate. When various people pointed it out with evidence she dismissed it as "this nonsense".
Sarah White is a Reform Branch Chair, and has appeared as one of the "travelling local people".
Callum Barker is a key activist for the Homeland Party, who with his acquaintances have been driving the demonstrations in Epping - I pointed him out here on July 20th.
In other news, photos are around of 5 Reform Kent Councillors standing beaming next to a self-identified "proud to be called a Nazi" gentleman wrapped in a British Movement flag, with a knuckleduster tattoo on his face,and a string of convictions. BM later became the British National Socialist Movement (BNSM), and have their roots in the 1960s.
That has potential to blow up Farage's normal "we don't associate with extremists" tactic. He needs to assert control for his own sake.
It's notable that no Reform bigwigs have gone to Epping (unless I missed it). It's possibly an isolated, or patchy, issue - I'm not aware of any similar direct association in Ashfield, for example.
I read today that Raheem Sterling is being paid £325,000 a week for, er, not playing for Chelsea.
He could buy a modest house every week, or a mansion every month.
What part of 'detaining him at the border for this is stupid, illiberal, counterproductive & authoritarian' don't you understand?
spending cutsa windfall tax on banks.Remember Truss was a six week disaster but quickly removed with Suank and Hunt repairing the damage
I suspect 3 is correct - there has been very little footage of Russian tanks escaping the battlefield. Mines and drones do the job of wiping them out, with an occassional accurate artillery round bumping up the numbers.
Putin went all in with his kit, expecting Trump coming to his aid when he was being counted out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002d2kp/footballs-financial-shame-the-story-of-the-v11
ETA basically HMRC says it is tax evasion. The players say they were defrauded.
We all hope that Labour is not that disastrous for the nation to have to endure that outcome.
Again.
But there is a severe risk.
I can see why Labour are utterly fearful of it though.
Oh....
https://x.com/anandMenon1/status/1962760937967861778
At that point government backbenchers have the choice of a few more years employment and the chance of ‘something’ miraculous turning up, or ducking the issue and forcing an election.
Reform UK's former deputy leader of Leicestershire County Council is under police investigation over allegations he tried to influence voters. Councillor Joseph Boam is accused of giving away ice creams outside a polling station for this year's local elections.
The 22-year-old, who left both his deputy leader and adult social care cabinet role last month, was filmed in May this year allegedly handing out ice creams during his and Reform UK's local election campaign in North West Leicestershire. The ice cream van is reportedly family-owned, with Leicestershire Police confirming it had received a third-party report about the van's proximity to the polling station.
Also Birmingham bin workers have voted to continue their strike to March 2026
This is insane
Available for your viewing pleasure:-
https://www.itv.com/watch/minder/29175/696955
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 29% (+1)
LAB: 20% (=)
CON: 17% (=)
LDM: 15% (-1)
GRN: 10% (-1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via
@YouGov
, 31 Aug - 1 Sep.
Changes w/ 25-26 Aug.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1962859878252224697?s=19
Government approval sits at 11/70 - 11 equals the lowest Rishis government hit (3 times in 2022 in the aftermath of Truss) and is in line with the fag end of Mays premiership.
Catastrophic ratings a year after a landslide
I notice on some of the comments their ambition is to hit zero !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not the zero they normally talk about
PBers may care to remember that actually what the markets didn't like was that her being upset made it seem more likely that she was heading for the exit, and that she would be replaced by someone LESS conscious of the realities of the bond markets. Markets recovered somewhat as it became clear she was staying for the time being.
She's not great, she's not really up to the job, but she's still better - from a fiscal continence point of view - than many of the alternatives.