From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
Not a knock against Miss Cyclefree.
Interesting
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
Male victims were (briefly) mentioned during initial reports of the Rotherham grooming scandal. Since when, they've been almost entirely omitted.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
Still lives with his wife too. They’re lesbians now 😂😂
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
He should have stuck to his guns and included the triple lock in the pension review.
Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
Sounds a bit like Andrea Dworkin "all men are rapists".
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
"Marriage and prostitution are flip sides of the same sexist coin." - Grand Ayatollah Nudistani.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
It took me a while in academia to understand that grant income trumped all else (at least at our uni). The promotion criteria did not make it explicit, but when I got a fairly competitive fellowship I was immediately urged to go for promotion, which I got, even though I thought my publication record was a bit light (I'd changed fields and didn't have a lot in my new field at the time).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
Yes, for most of my academic career its been obvious that grant money is the main/only measure of success. Now if you look at the promotion criteria that might not be fully obvious, as there are lots of other things looked at (membership on committees, teaching roles, conferences, publications etc) but really it boils down to cash. If you want to be a prof you need to be bringing in multi million pound grants and leading decent size research groups.
That’s true to a degree, but not always. Promotion committees sometimes look more broadly, and I think more of them are moving in that direction. I got promoted to professor off the back of good publications, lots of collaborative work, good teaching and some knowledge transfer work, without having being PI on multi-million pound grants and without leading a research group.
I agree that it is changing. We have an explicitly changed process here. That said, the number one route (particularly in the more expensive STEM academic world) is money. Labs and fume hoods are expensive.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
You have to make being in charge a regrettable duty, rather than an aspiration.
There was this period in British history, in between the medieval feudal lords acting as robber barons, and the career politicians, where large parts of the country were run by people who saw it as their duty to run things for the benefit of their community. I'm sure loads of them were terrible bigots, or corrupt crooks, but we need to somehow take the best from that into a modern system.
It's one area where the socialist ideal of maximum democracy falls down - in practice governance is taken over by a minority with the stamina and zeal to turn up for continual marathon meetings.
So instead, duty. This is why I think we should expand the jury system - citizens assemblies, appoint a replacement to the Lords by random chance.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
How long ago did that come out? What a night that was, you had to be there (or rather here). I guess like the 66 world cup final, or Botham's Ashes (Stokes in 2019 now?) the number claiming they were there is probably vastly bigger than the real number...
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
He should have stuck to his guns and included the triple lock in the pension review.
But having no spine he folded.
Indeed - because, I would argue, of the disproportionate electoral power of the old.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
Still lives with his wife too. They’re lesbians now 😂😂
Its the dark story at the heart of so many transitions. What is the wife to think or do?
I see DJT now has an airport named after himself in Florida. This cult of personality is deeply unnerving
Give it 5 years and there will be no evidence he was ever President, such will be the collective shame.
People will miss [Trump] when he's gone. Nobody else in politics provides so much entertainment.
Not sure you'd find many detainees in revolting conditions in Florida, British traders facing pointless 10% tariffs, dead protesters in Minnesota or Ukrainians shivering without air defences who'd agree with you.
The corrupt billionaire class in America, Vladimir Putin and the Proud Boys probably would though. To them he's been the gift that keeps on giving.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
He should have stuck to his guns and included the triple lock in the pension review.
But having no spine he folded.
Or means tested it
I think the problem with means testing is the cost associated with administering it.
I know you support it as it is a Tory policy.
Have they done a cost benefit analysis on it ?
Surely it would be better to make the state pension increase smaller and, as there are already benefits for those who don’t have other income streams etc etc then just roll this into that.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
How long ago did that come out? What a night that was, you had to be there (or rather here). I guess like the 66 world cup final, or Botham's Ashes (Stokes in 2019 now?) the number claiming they were there is probably vastly bigger than the real number...
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
No fucking way. The survery tells you 9% will admit to it.
It was (and probably still is) >50% in the Navy. The very vocal puritans often became the keenest punters catching a dose, or worse, feelings.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
How long ago did that come out? What a night that was, you had to be there (or rather here). I guess like the 66 world cup final, or Botham's Ashes (Stokes in 2019 now?) the number claiming they were there is probably vastly bigger than the real number...
More good news. Flash PMI is the highest since April 24 and there has been a big rebound in construction. It is still sub 50 but has really jumped from mid thirties it had been.
Huzzah for Rachel Reeves. Our greatest Chancellor since Gordon Brown.
But you do have to wonder if monthly publication of economic statistics is the right thing to do, given their yoyo tendency that takes government and the City equally by surprise. Either try a 3-month rolling average or even daily publication might be better so people got used to fluctuations.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
Still lives with his wife too. They’re lesbians now 😂😂
Its the dark story at the heart of so many transitions. What is the wife to think or do?
Go along with it and indulge the fantasy, or be labelled a bigot are the only options.
I do wish the media didn't gorge itself on a single story. Part of the reason I hardly ever watch TV news any more.
The alternative view of that is that if they don't, it only helps the coverups. I understand the point - the creation of the kind of scapegoat Cyclefree refers to in her header might prevent light being shed elsewhere - but I don't really buy it.
The long running stories on Mandelson and Andrew are just as likely to increase pressure to take action on the rest of the Epstein class. In support of that you only need look at the reaction to those stories in the US - "why is no one facing such consequences here ?".
As I understand it, the FBI has said that they are not investigating anyone in relation to the Epstein files. So while I would like to think that action will be taken, why would it if no investigations are happening?
The US is an extreme case, as the current administration is the most corrupt ever, and the Justice Department is being run by Trump's personal lawyers for his benefit. I don't expect any real investigations while that remains the case - and that applies to every facet of the DoJ's work, not just the Epstein business.
If the Republicans lose control of Congress in November, then there is at least the possibility of change. But no more than that until they are out of the White House.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
I agree with you on the main substance, but on the latter point you could be wrong.
If you halve borrowing you will look like a safer entity to lend money to, there will be more competition to purchase your new bonds, and you would expect the interest rate you have to pay to fall. So you could reduce the interest payable while the total amount of debt increases.
Still, when the next crash happens, you will be able to console yourself with Britain not being as skint as Ireland, which is busy narrowing its tax base on the basis of unsustainable corporate tax revenues. Sure, the country is running a surplus now, but don't be fooled, when the tide goes back out it will be obvious that the country learnt nothing from the last crash.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
You have to make being in charge a regrettable duty, rather than an aspiration.
There was this period in British history, in between the medieval feudal lords acting as robber barons, and the career politicians, where large parts of the country were run by people who saw it as their duty to run things for the benefit of their community. I'm sure loads of them were terrible bigots, or corrupt crooks, but we need to somehow take the best from that into a modern system.
It's one area where the socialist ideal of maximum democracy falls down - in practice governance is taken over by a minority with the stamina and zeal to turn up for continual marathon meetings.
So instead, duty. This is why I think we should expand the jury system - citizens assemblies, appoint a replacement to the Lords by random chance.
Under the feudal system, it was standard for serfs to sue the landlords for not upholding their obligations.
Sue might be a big word - more plea in person in front of the local magistrate for a judgement. No expensive lawyers.
The feudal overlords took this a part of the way of doing things. Those overlords (in England) who tried retaliation for such suits were regarded by their peers as arseholes. The smarter kings showed disfavour to such.
Yes, even in fucking feudalism there was accountability and constraints on the mighty.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
Not a knock against Miss Cyclefree.
Interesting
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
This is one problem with a national inquiry and shows why it immediately ran into trouble over its scope. If you include all CSA cases, or even just grooming cases, you have to lump together male and female victims, White and Asian victims, children in care with those in families, children abused locally with those trafficked across the country, and so on. Much the same with the perpetrators too. No real understanding is possible but it gives a warm feeling to politicians and gainful employment to lawyers and retired civil servants, so there's that.
For someone who considers themselves the most moral person on the planet you are prertty good at throwing unfounded accusations around like confetti. I am surprised PB gives you this pulpit.
I was waiting for the standard @Roger objection. Vague, but “I don’t like it”.
What unfounded accusations, @Roger? There’s oceans of court cases, tribunal, researched stories that illustrate every single point @Cyclefree is making.
Or is it that you feel we should owe a certain deference to The Right People?
Well I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting too long. You now have the rest of the day to do someting productive. If it gives you a warm feeling to read reams of 'holier-than-thou' scribbles I'm sure you can apply for a back catalogue. In my experience not everyone's motives are suspect nor is everyone malign.
So NO examples then.
One feature of Cyclefree's complaints about sex is that she denies women agency. Sex workers are sluts but women are chaste so they must have been trafficked and forced into degrading themselves. Some have, of course, but for many women, sex for money is a perfectly rational trade. More subtly, though, sometimes the trade is not sex for money but sex for access to power or fame, including the most talented, richest, or most powerful men on the planet. I don't suppose Monica Lewinski was paid in luncheon vouchers but she did get to rub shoulders (!) with the leader of the free world.
This is why we need to be careful about the age of consent, of course, and why in recent years we have added further limits where there are power imbalances.
Then we have medical scandals like the Bristol heart cases, and more recently Lucy Letby. If we closed every unit with a below-par survival rate in a month, we'd have no hospitals left. Look at the peaks and troughs in economic statistics, for instance, even in today's news. On the other hand, if we wait for certainty, many will die or be maimed who could and should have been saved.
But I'm not sure acting on rumour, even when (especially when) that rumour coincides with one's own prejudice, is the answer.
I don't think Cyclefree has ever argued for that ?
What she has long advocated for (and described here many times in some detail) is adequate systems for the protection of whistleblowers, along with the investigation of their complaints. Along with a general invocation (more in hope than expectation) for people to do the right thing.
Thanks for the header, @Cyclefree , and I hope you are getting through more or less OK.
I'm not around much today, but let me drop in a quote that has been on my mind, about the institutionalisation of contempt for women. This is from a gent called Pastor Doug Wilson - who is one of Pete Hegseth's lodestars:
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts... True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” https://theramm.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-confirmed-hegseth-admires
Sounds a bit like Andrea Dworkin "all men are rapists".
Horseshoe theory except it sounds like Wilson thinks this a good thing.
It's a very extreme version of "male headship" and complementarian views, and the consequences read into family life. But Pete Hegseth is a convert in a Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches member church, so has the zeal plus the siloed theology which is so common in small US denominations. This one only has 160 congregations, and little variation.
And yet is invited to the Pentagon.
Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who has argued that women should be denied the right to vote and Christian slaveowners were on “firm scriptural ground,” led a worship service at the Pentagon at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2024280295227142387
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
Except the only generation which did not vote for Starmer Labour in 2024 were over 65s, hence the first thing he did as PM with Reeves was scrap the winter fuel allowance for almost all of them
He should have stuck to his guns and included the triple lock in the pension review.
But having no spine he folded.
Or means tested it
I think the problem with means testing is the cost associated with administering it.
I know you support it as it is a Tory policy.
Have they done a cost benefit analysis on it ?
Surely it would be better to make the state pension increase smaller and, as there are already benefits for those who don’t have other income streams etc etc then just roll this into that.
No, given those only on state pension now only earn half the annual minimum wage.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Not much the government can do about that. But we appear to have escaped the borrowing costs/deficit tailspin.
We all have different attitudes to the deficit/debt, but I think it's fair to say that a very large chunk of the problem dissipates as long as this remains the case. We should never have got into it in the first place - the unfunded mitigation of fossil fuel shock and COVID-19 measures was always going to be deeply problematic.
Let's suppose that at some point over the next decade either China invades Taiwan, or Russia invades the Baltic States. There will be a massive economic shock, particularly in the former case, and in the latter case Britain will be at war.
In both cases the British state will need to borrow a lot more money to keep the show on the road. Should we not be preparing the ground for that by repaying debt incurred during previous crises, and investing now to reduce the impact of these foreseeable crises, implying hefty increases in tax and redirection of existing spending?
Some of you might find the name "Eric Dane" vaguely familiar due to his appearance in various American TV series. I was quite fond of him in his role in "The Last Ship", a series I quietly adored even though it went entirely off the rails at the end. Anyhoo, hopes of a reunion are now dashed due to his death at a very young age of 53 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Damn.
I think the world Cyclefree describes so well is likely to carry on in some form unless there is some remarkable transformation in the areas of human nature, sex, money, power, fame, and the imbalances of the law.
In particular Cyclefree's own point describes it. 'Not Brave Enough'. Drawing attention to certain truths requires courage, willingness to face loss, risk, the law's imbalances and sometimes other dangers.
I mention just one set of very particular imbalances. A lowly allegation maker will find it is open season on their character, prospects and person. The rich and powerful have the advantage of 'innocent until proved guilty', in criminal matters the advantage of 'beyond reasonable doubt', the advantage of being able to use the legal system to shut down little people and the advantage of a network of the powerful.
As long as 'telling truth to power' carries this degree of cost and imbalance, requiring that degree of courage, human nature tells us we have a problem.
I think we saw this in the Peggie vs NHS Fife tribunal. Its entirely irrelevant to whether woman should have a single sex changing room that she once shared some sub-Jim Davidson 'jokes' on WhatsApp. Yet now, on X, all the pro-trans posters portray Peggie, a nurse with 30 years on unblemished service, as a latter day Enoch Powell or Bernard Manning.
I’m sure you’d be equally blasé if Dr Upton had made the same jokes, once you’d stopped speculating about their genitals.
Just imagine if Nurse Peggie had made jokes about posting bacon through a synagogue’s letter box, exploded toilet monitors’ heads all over the shop!
That's irrelevant to the point I made, which was about why people don't whistle blow because when they do they often get buckets of shit thrown at them.
And as for Upton I suspect he is another of the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all.
Still lives with his wife too. They’re lesbians now 😂😂
Its the dark story at the heart of so many transitions. What is the wife to think or do?
Go along with it and indulge the fantasy, or be labelled a bigot are the only options.
I suppose there's always the hope that they may grow out of it.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
It's the ideal seat for Reform, as there are no Scottish or Welsh nationalists, nor students, who would be looking for a left wing alternative to Labour. And, there's still a 10% Conservative vote for Reform to squeeze.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
It's the ideal seat for Reform, as there are no Scottish or Welsh nationalists, nor students, who would be looking for a left wing alternative to Labour. And, there's still a 10% Conservative vote for Reform to squeeze.
Has Ref 55 Lab 35 buttons the rest written all over it
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 9% of British men have paid someone for sex. This seems like a lower figure than I was expecting - I had a vague recollection of 1-in-4 being the prevalence.
If it is down at 1-in-11 then it is low enough that if the majority wished to do so they could act to suppress the usage of prostitutes by a minority.
The same opinion poll showed quite a large majority against criminalisation however.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
The incumbent, Josh Simons, is implicated in the Labour Together scandal about digging dirt on hostile journalists. Presumably he won't be resigning, but can't his electors force him out through some sort of petition? But would they be likely to do so over this sort of issue? I mean... journalists?
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
So glad someone else has come to this conclusion!
I'd let children of whatever age claim their vote from their parents whenever they were able to find the relevant form and complete the request to their returning officer. That way young nerds such as myself would have been able to claim their vote earlier than people who weren't interested, and those adults with severe learning difficulties, or deemed unable to vote due to severe mental illness, would still have their vote exercised on their behalf by their guardian.
I also heard a recent interesting argument in favour of compulsory voting that would also rebalance things. Democracy is a duty as well as a right, perhaps.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
This week the IFS (somehow a respected economic think tank) called Reeves useless and an idiot for her fiscal rule to use so much income to pay back and clear debt rather than spending it. This fiscal rule they said is keeping UK economy in a zombie state.
I’m with you David. We can’t keep paying out a £1T a year state spending bill financed by borrowed money - to respect the NHS etc and put it on sure footing can’t keep funding it on a maxed out credit card.
The reason people don't call out apparent wrongdoers is the lack of obvious evidence. I once worked for a fairly eminent corporate finance firm; about 20 years ago a well-known celebrity (no names, no pack drill) was involved in puffing up the tertiary mineral exploration sector. Our firm's policy was clear - he was not allowed on our premises. No meetings, so soundings-out, no encouragement. My bosses thought he was a wrong 'un, but were powerless to do anything about it. The individual had the approval of the regulators, was feted in the press, and admired by many of our clients. What were we to do? We couldn't "shop" him to anyone - all we could do was protect our own reputation.
Can't quite tell whether Gordon Brown is sending the police useful info based on his past experience in govt or is going full amateur private detective in his retirement.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
It's where I grew up and where my family still live. All of those points are correct. It's also by most measures the longest continuously held Labour seat in the UK. The only possibility is a genuinely local soft Left Indy running against the government. But not one who bangs on about Palestine. Even then.
Can't quite tell whether Gordon Brown is sending the police useful info based on his past experience in govt or is going full amateur private detective in his retirement.
Or getting ahead of the New Labour were filth shitstorm incoming
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
Big question is how the engines will stack up once they start firing in anger.
It doesn’t matter if Ferrari engined cars are the only ones capable of starting on the grid line with others starting in the pit lane.
From what I’ve heard Ferrari know they can start the car quickly when on the start lane but the other engines can’t
Sorry for slow reply, was AFK.
Footage from a practice start (I think from yesterday) showed Ferrari starting very nicely, but also Haas (same engine). Worth bearing in mind for the lap 1 leader market, unless Ferrari end up on the front row.
Can't quite tell whether Gordon Brown is sending the police useful info based on his past experience in govt or is going full amateur private detective in his retirement.
Or getting ahead of the New Labour were filth shitstorm incoming
One presumes the papers sent to the polis were unstapled.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
It's where I grew up and where my family still live. All of those points are correct. It's also by most measures the longest continuously held Labour seat in the UK. The only possibility is a genuinely local Left Labour Indy. But not one who bangs on about Palestine. Even then.
Almost want the hammer to fall now to see what happens
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
How is the Guardian implicated in this scandal? I ask because they seem to have published a lot of stories about it.
The ludicrous Labour shill Pippa Crerar sent 'we will be running a story on your investigations, any comment?' emails to the journalists in this story/scandal
...the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all...
I had an argument with Cyclefree some years ago about whether that was true. Then the same week - possibly the same day - a trans woman performer on a TV show stripped off and waved their willy about. So I'm not overkeen on revisiting this statistic. But the following points remain true
We can't agree on the number of trans people
We can't agree on the definition of a trans person
We can work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by the NHS, but it's more difficult to work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by all surgeons in the UK, and it's damn nearly impossible to estimate the number of genital surgeries carried out worldwide on British residents.
(Plus there's the thorny problem of trans inward migration to/outward migration from the UK, but let's put that to one side for the moment)
So while I'm content to accept the argument that N trans women/biological male/MTF/whatevers have got a penis for a nontrivial value of N, more than that is a bit of a reach.
Unfortunately the truth is that it's very easy for the rich to silence those who dare to stand up to them. It's not even anything that new - Melbourne, Lloyd George and Grafton all spring to mind. It should be becoming more difficult in the age of Twitter but with Twitter owned by one of the worst offenders in this regard it isn't.
It doesn't even need to be the rich, or positions that make them especially powerful - I could name two former school heads in Staffordshire who were both sacked for multiple criminal offences including against children but have never faced prosecution despite multiple whistleblowing attempts. Indeed, one is still working for OFSTED (and still committing safeguarding breaches) while the other runs his own consultancy business.
How does one climb the greasy pole?
In theory, being genuinely good at whatever one's nominal role is, and that certainly helps. But there's also a chunk of wanting to climb the greasy pole and having generic greasy-pole-climbing skills. Those arts are dark at the best of times and end up in the sort of behaviours we're lamenting here.
But as long as there are greasy poles to climb, and sinful men and women with a desire to climb them, we're kind of stuck. The nearest I have to an answer is to distribute power more- have more but shorter poles. But ardent pole-climbers would hate that almost as much as they hate scrutiny of their pole-climbing methods.
My first head of department:
‘It’s not the good ones that get to the top. It’s the ambitious ones.’
In a way I am reminded of the first series of The Apprentice. Never watched it but apparently the people on it were moderately good at doing the tasks, made money and getting fired was a bit harsh on whoever had to go. (The was a skit on Mitchell and Webb about it). Later series is populated by people who believe that they are successful, clever, talented people, but are in fact morons. And the show is much more entertaining for it.
I think very often in organisations there are a lot of good people, doing a good job and a lot of them are not that bothered about climbing the pole. I suspect I am one of them - I'm a senior lecturer at a decent Uni but won't make prof and have no desire to lead a department. There are however others around who DO want to climb, and they are not always the best for the role...
Which is why we should proactively encourage the good ones to seek promotion.
turbotubbs, think about going for professor!
I am amused that I have a vastly better publication record than our current HoD. But I also have a 3 year old and life with him is more important than writing grant proposals right now, which is the main barrier to my elevation!
It took me a while in academia to understand that grant income trumped all else (at least at our uni). The promotion criteria did not make it explicit, but when I got a fairly competitive fellowship I was immediately urged to go for promotion, which I got, even though I thought my publication record was a bit light (I'd changed fields and didn't have a lot in my new field at the time).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you view the purpose of a university researcher primarily to generate income for the uni (and it's not a view I particularly argue with, but is not one that is said out loud very much). When I joined, a well respected professor in the department had never been PI on a research grant - I don't think that would be possible as a career now.
Yes, for most of my academic career its been obvious that grant money is the main/only measure of success. Now if you look at the promotion criteria that might not be fully obvious, as there are lots of other things looked at (membership on committees, teaching roles, conferences, publications etc) but really it boils down to cash. If you want to be a prof you need to be bringing in multi million pound grants and leading decent size research groups.
That’s true to a degree, but not always. Promotion committees sometimes look more broadly, and I think more of them are moving in that direction. I got promoted to professor off the back of good publications, lots of collaborative work, good teaching and some knowledge transfer work, without having being PI on multi-million pound grants and without leading a research group.
Good to hear. I think it's more that if you're bringing in the money then you can largely forget the rest. That's logical enough, if you're bringing in money to support a decent team (and uni overheads) then it makes sense to pay you whatever is supported by that income. With largely rigid pay scales below prof, that means prof - and if the current uni won't make that leap, others will offer the position.
It does, however, means that some profs are by no means the experts you would expect in their notional fields. Many are, of course, and some get there more slowly through sustained good academic output.
Some of you might find the name "Eric Dane" vaguely familiar due to his appearance in various American TV series. I was quite fond of him in his role in "The Last Ship", a series I quietly adored even though it went entirely off the rails at the end. Anyhoo, hopes of a reunion are now dashed due to his death at a very young age of 53 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Damn.
I was a big fan of Grays Anatomy for about ten seasons. They maintained an extremely high quality of plot and acting for such an extended soap opera
He was really good as Doctor dashing or whether it was
Very very sad. I was proper shocked when I read that news. Just 53 years old and damn what a horrific way to die. The brother of a good friend of mine died with that disease. It is unspeakably cruel
RIP
Live every hour PBers! Live every hour like you will die tonight and you were born this morning
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Not much the government can do about that. But we appear to have escaped the borrowing costs/deficit tailspin.
We all have different attitudes to the deficit/debt, but I think it's fair to say that a very large chunk of the problem dissipates as long as this remains the case. We should never have got into it in the first place - the unfunded mitigation of fossil fuel shock and COVID-19 measures was always going to be deeply problematic.
Let's suppose that at some point over the next decade either China invades Taiwan, or Russia invades the Baltic States. There will be a massive economic shock, particularly in the former case, and in the latter case Britain will be at war.
In both cases the British state will need to borrow a lot more money to keep the show on the road. Should we not be preparing the ground for that by repaying debt incurred during previous crises, and investing now to reduce the impact of these foreseeable crises, implying hefty increases in tax and redirection of existing spending?
Yes. But I also think we that such crises should, actually, hurt. E.g. during the world wars borrowing massively increased, taxes went through the roof, and the general living conditions were really crap.
During COVID large chunks of the population spent most of it generating massive savings and sitting in the garden. When Russia smashed our energy costs up, we borrowed to protect household living costs. In fact our lives have become almost entirely disconnected from the underlying economy due to this government largesse. I think that's deeply dangerous. We've become toddlers in economic and political terms - and there would be a much harder focus on defence, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, keeping fit and healthy, on personal savings, if this wasn't the case.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
Can't quite tell whether Gordon Brown is sending the police useful info based on his past experience in govt or is going full amateur private detective in his retirement.
It sounds like he's going full amateur private detective and frantically searching the Epstein files for information.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
How is the Guardian implicated in this scandal? I ask because they seem to have published a lot of stories about it.
The ludicrous Labour shill Pippa Crerar sent 'we will be running a story on your investigations, any comment?' emails to the journalists in this story/scandal
Oh, I see.
Subsequently, information that these reporters were ‘under investigation’ by the NCSC was then passed on by a law firm, acting on Simons’s instructions, to journalists at national newspapers. Holden has stated publicly that in February 2024, he received an email from Pippa Crerar of the Guardian, informing him that the paper had seen information that he was being investigated by the security services and that the Guardian intended to run the story. Holden stood firm and told Crerar that the claim was defamatory and warned that he would sue if it were published. The story then evaporated, and Holden heard nothing whatever from the NCSC. One can only speculate how the security services regarded these attempts to draw them into political disputes.
My wife spent the war years in Wick and Orkney and have family there
Indeed it was the port of shelter we ran to when I was on a Lossiemouth fishing boat mid way to Norway when a storm broke out
Never were 'harbour lights' more welcome
Well Wick didn’t deserve Leon or people smugglers either, but evidently for Mr Simon it’s a far off place of which he knows little, and gives even less of a toss about. Time for a little north of Scotland reeducation.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
The incumbent, Josh Simons, is implicated in the Labour Together scandal about digging dirt on hostile journalists. Presumably he won't be resigning, but can't his electors force him out through some sort of petition? But would they be likely to do so over this sort of issue? I mean... journalists?
Petitions are only triggered in limited circumstances:
Any custodial prison sentence, even if suspended. (A sentence longer than one year would lead to automatic removal under the Representation of the People Act 1981.)
A conviction for providing false or misleading expenses claims.
Suspension from the House of at least 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days, following a report by "any committee of the House of Commons concerned with the standards of conduct of individual members of that House" (typically the Commons Select Committee on Standards).
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
So glad someone else has come to this conclusion!
I'd let children of whatever age claim their vote from their parents whenever they were able to find the relevant form and complete the request to their returning officer. That way young nerds such as myself would have been able to claim their vote earlier than people who weren't interested, and those adults with severe learning difficulties, or deemed unable to vote due to severe mental illness, would still have their vote exercised on their behalf by their guardian.
I also heard a recent interesting argument in favour of compulsory voting that would also rebalance things. Democracy is a duty as well as a right, perhaps.
Having the ability to fill in a particular form be the determiner for who gets to vote didn’t work well during the Jim Crow era.
...the vast majority of trans women (i.e. a man) who has kept his male genitalia. Most do, after all...
I had an argument with Cyclefree some years ago about whether that was true. Then the same week - possibly the same day - a trans woman performer on a TV show stripped off and waved their willy about. So I'm not overkeen on revisiting this statistic. But the following points remain true
We can't agree on the number of trans people
We can't agree on the definition of a trans person
We can work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by the NHS, but it's more difficult to work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by all surgeons in the UK, and it's damn nearly impossible to estimate the number of genital surgeries carried out worldwide on British residents.
(Plus there's the thorny problem of trans inward migration to/outward migration from the UK, but let's put that to one side for the moment)
So while I'm content to accept the argument that N trans women/biological male/MTF/whatevers have got a penis for a nontrivial value of N, more than that is a bit of a reach.
I think it true that only a minority of Trans-folk have had gender confirmation surgery, but at least part of this is access. Over recent years accessing drug treatments, living in the new gender role and access to surgery have all become much more difficult, then Trans-folk are stigmatised for not having surgery. Its a real Catch 22.
Of course there a % who never seek these things and simply cross dress.
I wonder what proportion would agree that Andrew should be hanged,
Probably above 50%.
He might take the Epstein Checkout....
Read on twitter, Andrew should be given the traditional option of being put in a room with a bottle of whisky and a revolver containing a single bullet, then held down and shot.
From the header: "The public inquiry into the abuse of girls by grooming gangs is proceeding very slowly indeed. 13 months after the Casey report was commissioned, the public inquiry’s Terms of Reference have finally been published in the last week."
I keep mentioning this but as no-one else seems to: a significant (circa 100) of the Rotherham victims were boys. While this is obviously a crime primarily with female victims we shouldn't forget or overlook that a large number of boys are also affected. Framing it as entirely a 'women's issue' or 'violence against women's and girls' cuts out a significant part of the truth and makes it easy to just pretend Males = Perpetrators, neglecting/hiding the reality that boys can be victims too.
Not a knock against Miss Cyclefree.
Interesting
I would never have known that fact. I always assumed it was all female victims.
This is one problem with a national inquiry and shows why it immediately ran into trouble over its scope. If you include all CSA cases, or even just grooming cases, you have to lump together male and female victims, White and Asian victims, children in care with those in families, children abused locally with those trafficked across the country, and so on. Much the same with the perpetrators too. No real understanding is possible but it gives a warm feeling to politicians and gainful employment to lawyers and retired civil servants, so there's that.
I do not have a problem linking together child victims of rape of both sexes.
Can't quite tell whether Gordon Brown is sending the police useful info based on his past experience in govt or is going full amateur private detective in his retirement.
It sounds like he's going full amateur private detective and frantically searching the Epstein files for information.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Not much the government can do about that. But we appear to have escaped the borrowing costs/deficit tailspin.
We all have different attitudes to the deficit/debt, but I think it's fair to say that a very large chunk of the problem dissipates as long as this remains the case. We should never have got into it in the first place - the unfunded mitigation of fossil fuel shock and COVID-19 measures was always going to be deeply problematic.
Let's suppose that at some point over the next decade either China invades Taiwan, or Russia invades the Baltic States. There will be a massive economic shock, particularly in the former case, and in the latter case Britain will be at war.
In both cases the British state will need to borrow a lot more money to keep the show on the road. Should we not be preparing the ground for that by repaying debt incurred during previous crises, and investing now to reduce the impact of these foreseeable crises, implying hefty increases in tax and redirection of existing spending?
Yes. But I also think we that such crises should, actually, hurt. E.g. during the world wars borrowing massively increased, taxes went through the roof, and the general living conditions were really crap.
During COVID large chunks of the population spent most of it generating massive savings and sitting in the garden. When Russia smashed our energy costs up, we borrowed to protect household living costs. In fact our lives have become almost entirely disconnected from the underlying economy due to this government largesse. I think that's deeply dangerous. We've become toddlers in economic and political terms - and there would be a much harder focus on defence, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, keeping fit and healthy, on personal savings, if this wasn't the case.
I would agree with that. I opposed the energy subsidies at the time. I was too ready to support the government generosity during Covid on the mistaken expectation that it would all be over much more quickly.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
How is the Guardian implicated in this scandal? I ask because they seem to have published a lot of stories about it.
The ludicrous Labour shill Pippa Crerar sent 'we will be running a story on your investigations, any comment?' emails to the journalists in this story/scandal
Oh, I see.
Subsequently, information that these reporters were ‘under investigation’ by the NCSC was then passed on by a law firm, acting on Simons’s instructions, to journalists at national newspapers. Holden has stated publicly that in February 2024, he received an email from Pippa Crerar of the Guardian, informing him that the paper had seen information that he was being investigated by the security services and that the Guardian intended to run the story. Holden stood firm and told Crerar that the claim was defamatory and warned that he would sue if it were published. The story then evaporated, and Holden heard nothing whatever from the NCSC. One can only speculate how the security services regarded these attempts to draw them into political disputes.
My wife spent the war years in Wick and Orkney and have family there
Indeed it was the port of shelter we ran to when I was on a Lossiemouth fishing boat mid way to Norway when a storm broke out
Never were 'harbour lights' more welcome
Well Wick didn’t deserve Leon or people smugglers either, but evidently for Mr Simon it’s a far off place of which he knows little, and gives even less of a toss about. Time for a little north of Scotland reeducation.
I wonder what proportion would agree that Andrew should be hanged,
Probably above 50%.
He might take the Epstein Checkout....
Read on twitter, Andrew should be given the traditional option of being put in a room with a bottle of whisky and a revolver containing a single bullet, then held down and shot.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
The incumbent, Josh Simons, is implicated in the Labour Together scandal about digging dirt on hostile journalists. Presumably he won't be resigning, but can't his electors force him out through some sort of petition? But would they be likely to do so over this sort of issue? I mean... journalists?
Petitions are only triggered in limited circumstances:
Any custodial prison sentence, even if suspended. (A sentence longer than one year would lead to automatic removal under the Representation of the People Act 1981.)
A conviction for providing false or misleading expenses claims.
Suspension from the House of at least 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days, following a report by "any committee of the House of Commons concerned with the standards of conduct of individual members of that House" (typically the Commons Select Committee on Standards).
Yes. It takes quite a bit to force an MP out. I think we got quite used to by elections in the last parliament because it was clear a “change election” was coming up and there wasn’t as much incentive to hang around.
I see in the previous thread PB tories are now complaining about a budget surplus in self assessment month. Good grief.
It's the BIGGEST ACHILLES HEEL of having an argumentaive know all with no policy of her own as Leader. All she can do is complain about everything even good news.
This is welcome news Ms Badenoch!
-----
The government's finances had a record monthly surplus in January as it took in more tax receipts than it spent.
The surplus - the difference between public spending and the tax take - was £30.4bn in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said it was the highest surplus in any month since records began in 1993, and nearly double last January's £15.4bn monthly surplus.
Analysts had expected the surplus to be £23.8bn. The government usually collects more tax than it spends in January compared with other months due to the collection of self-assessed taxes, but higher levels of capital gains tax payments to HMRC pushed the figure to a record.
Borrowing in the 10 months to January was £112.1bn - 11.5% lower than the same 10 month period a year ago - although the ONS noted that it was the fifth-highest borrowing for the period on record.
HM Treasury said borrowing for 2026 is forecast to be "the lowest since before the pandemic."
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray said: "We know there is more to do to stop one in every £10 the government spends going on debt interest, and we will more than halve borrowing by 2030-31 so that money can be spent on policing, schools and the NHS."
This is undoubtedly good news and it would be churlish to say otherwise but that sentence from the Chief Secretary. They are going to HALVE borrowing (so still borrowing quite a lot) "so that the money (what money? reduced debt at best) can be SPENT (thereby not reducing borrowing) on policing, schools and hospitals."
Murray is supposed to be one of the smarter ones. That is frighteningly illiterate for a Chief Secretary.
Better to halve borrowing than to double it. I don’t understand those people who suggest this means we’re paying too much tax. If anything it shows we’re not paying enough tax.
Oh I agree. We should be running a surplus right now and should continue to do so for many years until the excesses of the Covid and Gas bill madness are paid back. This is a modest step in the right direction and very welcome on that basis but our finances remain seriously out of kilter.
You don't reduce the interest rate bill by halving borrowing, in those circumstances it is still going up. You reduce debt interest by repaying debt.
By repaying existing debt and by increasing market confidence in your future ability to repay, thus securing lower rates for new borrowing...
But they are not repaying existing debt, they are still borrowing more (at half the rate they are just now).
Just like the last government. Just like the next government.
Taking from the next generation to fund the lifestyles of the current generation.
At some point the government is spending over £100bn per year on debt interest.
At a later point the country imitates Greece or Argentina.
I think you have that way out of kilter. They are taking from the current generation to fund the lifestyle of the triple lock generation. Those are the ones that spent North Sea Oil, Council House receipts and privatisation receipts while simultaneously increasing national debt. When the young realise this and reject the accusations of the gerontocracy then there will be a reckoning.
Which brings me back to my proposal to extend the franchise to all British humans, not just adults, with the votes of those under a certain age (16? 18?) to be exercised on their behalf by their parents. At present, the old are disproportionately represented and the young not at all. It's no wonder the country is not run in the interests of the young.
So glad someone else has come to this conclusion!
I'd let children of whatever age claim their vote from their parents whenever they were able to find the relevant form and complete the request to their returning officer. That way young nerds such as myself would have been able to claim their vote earlier than people who weren't interested, and those adults with severe learning difficulties, or deemed unable to vote due to severe mental illness, would still have their vote exercised on their behalf by their guardian.
I also heard a recent interesting argument in favour of compulsory voting that would also rebalance things. Democracy is a duty as well as a right, perhaps.
Having the ability to fill in a particular form be the determiner for who gets to vote didn’t work well during the Jim Crow era.
People have always needed to fill in a form to register to vote.
I'm not proposing adding any difficult or gotcha questions to it.
I've thought of the ideal stop Reform candidate for Makerfield. Paul Mason. He's from Platt Bridge. Known locally as a Platt Wazzer.
I sense his Goodwin level of brittle online-ness might be a problem. Would be funny if after all his failed attempts to become a candidate Mason was finally accepted for his home constituency and got pumped.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Is there a possibility of a by-election there? I hadn't heard of one.
No context being given, for engagement possibly.
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
Makerfield is just about the worst place I could think of for a Labour by election. Absolute nailed on Reform gain. Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
Yep. Reform 50% plus. The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option? It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
It's where I grew up and where my family still live. All of those points are correct. It's also by most measures the longest continuously held Labour seat in the UK. The only possibility is a genuinely local soft Left Indy running against the government. But not one who bangs on about Palestine. Even then.
I think Rupert Lowe's setup will do significant damage to Reform, perhaps by peeling off quit a number of their grass roots leaders.
There's chatter this morning about the possibility of Jeremy Clarkson perhaps coming on board.
(Rupes says that Clarkson's sidekick Caleb dumps Clarkson's shit on the Lowe doorstep.)
Comments
There was this period in British history, in between the medieval feudal lords acting as robber barons, and the career politicians, where large parts of the country were run by people who saw it as their duty to run things for the benefit of their community. I'm sure loads of them were terrible bigots, or corrupt crooks, but we need to somehow take the best from that into a modern system.
It's one area where the socialist ideal of maximum democracy falls down - in practice governance is taken over by a minority with the stamina and zeal to turn up for continual marathon meetings.
So instead, duty. This is why I think we should expand the jury system - citizens assemblies, appoint a replacement to the Lords by random chance.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2026/02/20/8a994/1?utm_source=daily_question&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=daily/2026/02/20_question_1
Reform voters and Tories most opposed, LDs and Greens least opposed
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2026/02/20/8a994/1?utm_source=daily_question&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=daily/2026/02/20_question_1
The corrupt billionaire class in America, Vladimir Putin and the Proud Boys probably would though. To them he's been the gift that keeps on giving.
https://x.com/i/status/2024760435589755300
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2024552521847705681?s=20
I know you support it as it is a Tory policy.
Have they done a cost benefit analysis on it ?
Surely it would be better to make the state pension increase smaller and, as there are already benefits for those who don’t have other income streams etc etc then just roll this into that.
It was (and probably still is) >50% in the Navy. The very vocal puritans often became the keenest punters catching a dose, or worse, feelings.
But you do have to wonder if monthly publication of economic statistics is the right thing to do, given their yoyo tendency that takes government and the City equally by surprise. Either try a 3-month rolling average or even daily publication might be better so people got used to fluctuations.
https://x.com/lbc/status/1757165180524306649?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
What she does to make cost of living feel like it's trending with this is another matter.
An increase in personal allowance for some but not all is an option
A time fixed small decrease in VAT another, or exempting some essential items from VAT
By November if the Labour Party holds its nerve we may have the unexpected sight of the Chancellor waving bye to the PM from number 11.
However clearly there is a 100% continuity Chancellor who the markets would be very reassured by in the wings in Darren Jones.
Of course he can't be PM and Chancellor and that may prolong Rachel's tenure if the Parliamentary Party and Membership have any common sense.
If the Republicans lose control of Congress in November, then there is at least the possibility of change.
But no more than that until they are out of the White House.
If you halve borrowing you will look like a safer entity to lend money to, there will be more competition to purchase your new bonds, and you would expect the interest rate you have to pay to fall. So you could reduce the interest payable while the total amount of debt increases.
Still, when the next crash happens, you will be able to console yourself with Britain not being as skint as Ireland, which is busy narrowing its tax base on the basis of unsustainable corporate tax revenues. Sure, the country is running a surplus now, but don't be fooled, when the tide goes back out it will be obvious that the country learnt nothing from the last crash.
Sue might be a big word - more plea in person in front of the local magistrate for a judgement. No expensive lawyers.
The feudal overlords took this a part of the way of doing things. Those overlords (in England) who tried retaliation for such suits were regarded by their peers as arseholes. The smarter kings showed disfavour to such.
Yes, even in fucking feudalism there was accountability and constraints on the mighty.
I am shocked, shocked. Like a poor, corrupt police official.
What she has long advocated for (and described here many times in some detail) is adequate systems for the protection of whistleblowers, along with the investigation of their complaints.
Along with a general invocation (more in hope than expectation) for people to do the right thing.
Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who has argued that women should be denied the right to vote and Christian slaveowners were on “firm scriptural ground,” led a worship service at the Pentagon at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2024280295227142387
You either means test or keep it as it is
In both cases the British state will need to borrow a lot more money to keep the show on the road. Should we not be preparing the ground for that by repaying debt incurred during previous crises, and investing now to reduce the impact of these foreseeable crises, implying hefty increases in tax and redirection of existing spending?
Probably above 50%.
Absolute nailed on Reform gain.
Even Burnham wouldn't want it.
The question is, is there any other party that could pose the 'stop reform' option?
It doesnt seem Green or Galloway adjacent, not trad LD and the Con vote was chunky but has gone Ref. So Lab lose but their vote holds up a little bit by default?
Made me LOL
It’s Josh Simon’s seat. Can’t remember the exact why’s and wherefores but sounds like an attempt, aided and abetted by The Guardian, to smear some hacks.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/20/labour-minister-falsely-linked-journalists-to-pro-kremlin-network-in-emails-to-gchq
My wife spent the war years in Wick and Orkney and have family there
Indeed it was the port of shelter we ran to when I was on a Lossiemouth fishing boat mid way to Norway when a storm broke out
Never were 'harbour lights' more welcome
I'd let children of whatever age claim their vote from their parents whenever they were able to find the relevant form and complete the request to their returning officer. That way young nerds such as myself would have been able to claim their vote earlier than people who weren't interested, and those adults with severe learning difficulties, or deemed unable to vote due to severe mental illness, would still have their vote exercised on their behalf by their guardian.
I also heard a recent interesting argument in favour of compulsory voting that would also rebalance things. Democracy is a duty as well as a right, perhaps.
I’m with you David. We can’t keep paying out a £1T a year state spending bill financed by borrowed money - to respect the NHS etc and put it on sure footing can’t keep funding it on a maxed out credit card.
https://www.cityam.com/rachel-reeves-warned-dysfunctional-fiscal-rules-are-hammering-economy/
The reason people don't call out apparent wrongdoers is the lack of obvious evidence. I once worked for a fairly eminent corporate finance firm; about 20 years ago a well-known celebrity (no names, no pack drill) was involved in puffing up the tertiary mineral exploration sector. Our firm's policy was clear - he was not allowed on our premises. No meetings, so soundings-out, no encouragement. My bosses thought he was a wrong 'un, but were powerless to do anything about it. The individual had the approval of the regulators, was feted in the press, and admired by many of our clients. What were we to do? We couldn't "shop" him to anyone - all we could do was protect our own reputation.
All of those points are correct.
It's also by most measures the longest continuously held Labour seat in the UK.
The only possibility is a genuinely local soft Left Indy running against the government.
But not one who bangs on about Palestine.
Even then.
Footage from a practice start (I think from yesterday) showed Ferrari starting very nicely, but also Haas (same engine). Worth bearing in mind for the lap 1 leader market, unless Ferrari end up on the front row.
- We can't agree on the number of trans people
- We can't agree on the definition of a trans person
- We can work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by the NHS, but it's more difficult to work out the number of genital surgeries carried out by all surgeons in the UK, and it's damn nearly impossible to estimate the number of genital surgeries carried out worldwide on British residents.
- (Plus there's the thorny problem of trans inward migration to/outward migration from the UK, but let's put that to one side for the moment)
So while I'm content to accept the argument that N trans women/biological male/MTF/whatevers have got a penis for a nontrivial value of N, more than that is a bit of a reach.It does, however, means that some profs are by no means the experts you would expect in their notional fields. Many are, of course, and some get there more slowly through sustained good academic output.
Of course AMW is no longer a Royal so perhaps has lost that perk.
He was really good as Doctor dashing or whether it was
Very very sad. I was proper shocked when I read that news. Just 53 years old and damn what a horrific way to die. The brother of a good friend of mine died with that disease. It is unspeakably cruel
RIP
Live every hour PBers! Live every hour like you will die tonight and you were born this morning
*sinks gin in taipei*
During COVID large chunks of the population spent most of it generating massive savings and sitting in the garden. When Russia smashed our energy costs up, we borrowed to protect household living costs. In fact our lives have become almost entirely disconnected from the underlying economy due to this government largesse. I think that's deeply dangerous. We've become toddlers in economic and political terms - and there would be a much harder focus on defence, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, keeping fit and healthy, on personal savings, if this wasn't the case.
https://x.com/doubledownnews/status/2023031282867855444?s=61
Subsequently, information that these reporters were ‘under investigation’ by the NCSC was then passed on by a law firm, acting on Simons’s instructions, to journalists at national newspapers. Holden has stated publicly that in February 2024, he received an email from Pippa Crerar of the Guardian, informing him that the paper had seen information that he was being investigated by the security services and that the Guardian intended to run the story. Holden stood firm and told Crerar that the claim was defamatory and warned that he would sue if it were published. The story then evaporated, and Holden heard nothing whatever from the NCSC. One can only speculate how the security services regarded these attempts to draw them into political disputes.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2026/02/smears-and-lies-glue-together-starmers-government#:~:text=Holden has stated publicly that,intended to run the story.
But that says to me that the Guardian was fed the smears, not that they were complicit in concocting them.
Any custodial prison sentence, even if suspended. (A sentence longer than one year would lead to automatic removal under the Representation of the People Act 1981.)
A conviction for providing false or misleading expenses claims.
Suspension from the House of at least 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days, following a report by "any committee of the House of Commons concerned with the standards of conduct of individual members of that House" (typically the Commons Select Committee on Standards).
Of course there a % who never seek these things and simply cross dress.
Paul Mason.
He's from Platt Bridge. Known locally as a Platt Wazzer.
Or have I missed something?
Does anyone know if the US State Dep't are prepared to release unredacted information to the British police ?
If they aren't or won't all this is going nowhere since redacted emails are not permissible in a UK court of law.
I'm not proposing adding any difficult or gotcha questions to it.
Would be funny if after all his failed attempts to become a candidate Mason was finally accepted for his home constituency and got pumped.
There's chatter this morning about the possibility of Jeremy Clarkson perhaps coming on board.
(Rupes says that Clarkson's sidekick Caleb dumps Clarkson's shit on the Lowe doorstep.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwFS85GhEho