Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
Continue with the highest of 2.5% annually, inflation and earnings, but rather than continuing to calculate the highest of those on an annual basis, freeze the date against which these are baselined to 6th April 2025 (the latest calculated lock date).
Triple lock.protected, but no longer such an escalator.
That’s not a bad idea as a political solution. Still mad compared to just fixing to CPI like other benefits.
For me the perfect policy would be making landlords ineligible for the State Pension. Your retired lifestyle should not rely on milking young people dry, and anyone with more than one house is minted anyway.
That would simply result in a stampede to sell second homes..
Crashing house prices for first time buyers
"milking young people dry"?
Do you think rents are high because all landlords are grasping greedy bastards or because there are not enough houses for the population?
I think it’s because there are so many young people on decent salaries who can pay that high rent but can’t build the capital to compete with investors.
I was repeatedly outbid by cash buying pensioners when I bought my first flat, some going 25% over home report. If we make housing a rubbish investment then demand, and therefore price, will crater in places like Edinburgh.
Telegraph guy was proposing bringing back MIRAS for first time buyers for their first ten years of mortgage the other day. And some thinktank proposed young people cutting their state pension in exchange for a deposit for house when young.
Interesting ideas but again supply is the issue.
Labour have failed in spades to build their target house building. It has been dismal.
Telegraph readers own property. Giving young people extra debt to pay for existing houses increases the wealth of Telegraph readers. Building more houses decreases their wealth. Which do you think they prefer to read about?
Was doing a summer job in a Solicitors when MIRAS ended, absolutely manic followed by tumbleweed.
That's what the young, renting generation is lacking, Nigel Lawson driving the housing market off a cliff with his foot flat to the floor.
Continue with the highest of 2.5% annually, inflation and earnings, but rather than continuing to calculate the highest of those on an annual basis, freeze the date against which these are baselined to 6th April 2025 (the latest calculated lock date).
Triple lock.protected, but no longer such an escalator.
That’s not a bad idea as a political solution. Still mad compared to just fixing to CPI like other benefits.
For me the perfect policy would be making landlords ineligible for the State Pension. Your retired lifestyle should not rely on milking young people dry, and anyone with more than one house is minted anyway.
That would simply result in a stampede to sell second homes..
Crashing house prices for first time buyers
"milking young people dry"?
Do you think rents are high because all landlords are grasping greedy bastards or because there are not enough houses for the population?
I think it’s because there are so many young people on decent salaries who can pay that high rent but can’t build the capital to compete with investors.
I was repeatedly outbid by cash buying pensioners when I bought my first flat, some going 25% over home report. If we make housing a rubbish investment then demand, and therefore price, will crater in places like Edinburgh.
Telegraph guy was proposing bringing back MIRAS for first time buyers for their first ten years of mortgage the other day. And some thinktank proposed young people cutting their state pension in exchange for a deposit for house when young.
Interesting ideas but again supply is the issue.
Labour have failed in spades to build their target house building. It has been dismal.
Supply is an issue, but not the only one. We’ve built millions of homes over the last 30 years but the number being rented out has grown even faster.
Labour’s target was to increase the housing stock by 6% , which would have decreased prices by about 3% on current price elasticity. To put that in perspective, house prices have increased by 26% in the last 10 years.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
If he is on indefinite leave to remain he should be worried by Reform as well as Restore. And by extension any party open to giving confidence and supply to Reform.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
If he is on indefinite leave to remain he should be worried by Reform as well as Restore. And by extension any party open to giving confidence and supply to Reform.
He likes Reform and doesn’t like people coming here for a free ride.
Starmer has let it be known that he intends to fight any attempt to unseat him. Healey’s resignation means there is now no chance of that.
There have been far too many ministerial resignations in British politics over the past decade, but none have been as catastrophic for a sitting PM than Healey’s.
Schofield being a little too hyperbolic for me here. Sunak and Javid's resignations will be seen by history as much more significant than that of Healey.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
It doesn't help to underestimate people. Mr Lowe is not an idiot, in my opinion.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
25 years - he should be doing everything he can to get citizenship.
Worth watching the video. Kemi says Reform are left wing (which is true!).
Lee Cain is anti Kemi and she did not say yes or even suggested any pacts
I think a correction is needed in fairness
The only thing that would convince me would be an unequivocal statement that she would not back Farage under any circumstances.
Failure to do that will lose the Tories thousands of moderate and potential tactical votes lake mine
Kemi needs to be careful with the Reform are left wing thing.
There is a significant section of electorate that are socially conservative/love flags/wants no migration etc and are also quite left wing on economics e.g. nationalise steel and water etc.
Reform seems - at times - to offer something to this segment.
But of course Reform is rather torn. Tice for example to me seems a total Thatcherite on economics.
You'd think that a misleading header on this page that promotes misinformation would be altered or updated? (Fancy reading something Lee Cain says and believing it and then printing it.) Some people obviously believe what they want to believe.
What I ACTUALLY said is we "cannot have another left-wing government. But I'm afraid that Reform has quite a lot of left-wing ideas. They want more benefits. They want nationalisation” I then said. On "deals, non-aggression pacts and so on....I'm just saying no. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no." https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/2065076212855124166
Tim Shipman appears to strongly dispute Badenoch's after the fact interpretation of the interview. He seems unusually annoyed given he's a very Tory sympathetic journalist wishing for the Tory "house journal"
Given Badenoch's ideology is visible from space, I would assume she said what she's reported to have said, as this fits the picture, and she now regrets allowing the quiet part to be said out loud.
EXCL: The Green party is considering a new policy to ban circumcision, The Spectator can reveal.
Interesting policy when the leader is Jewish.
Only a small amount of circumcisions globally are Jews. Less than one in ten.
It’s non consensual, irreversible, genital mutilation. They’ve got a point
If people want their forskin lopped off make an informed decision as an adult.
A circumcisor is a pretty poor living too. The basic pay is poor. But you make it up with the tips.
Trying to remember the joke about the man buying a bag made from an elephant foreskin. Complained about it being small and the shopkeeper said “yes but when you rub it”. Apologies.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
If he is on indefinite leave to remain he should be worried by Reform as well as Restore. And by extension any party open to giving confidence and supply to Reform.
He likes Reform and doesn’t like people coming here for a free ride.
Sadly he didn’t give me some Jack Daniel’s today.
Turkeys and Christmas and all that jazz. And with the good character requirements definitely should be avoiding getting a conviction for unlicensed indirect sale of JD.
"Reform will abolish ILR and rescind existing awards. Reform will introduce a 5 year renewable visa for migrants with higher salary thresholds, mandatory fluency in English, and stricter good character requirements."
Worth watching the video. Kemi says Reform are left wing (which is true!).
Lee Cain is anti Kemi and she did not say yes or even suggested any pacts
I think a correction is needed in fairness
The only thing that would convince me would be an unequivocal statement that she would not back Farage under any circumstances.
Failure to do that will lose the Tories thousands of moderate and potential tactical votes lake mine
Kemi needs to be careful with the Reform are left wing thing.
There is a significant section of electorate that are socially conservative/love flags/wants no migration etc and are also quite left wing on economics e.g. nationalise steel and water etc.
Reform seems - at times - to offer something to this segment.
But of course Reform is rather torn. Tice for example to me seems a total Thatcherite on economics.
The chance at power will quell qualms about economic direction.
There are more potential Tory voters to the Tory right than in the centre, I get why they would not want to alienate the former for sake of the latter. Unfortunately those to the right don't seem to want Tory half measures.
It must be a tough job resisting the demands of heavily-armed admirals, field marshals and air commodores on a daily basis. But our only foreseeable adversary has just been humiliated by Ukraine. What are we actually afraid of?
That's a good point re Russia. After over four years of huge spend and casualties they have failed to capture/occupy more than a small part of Ukraine and are now stuck or going backwards. Previously we'd probably have underestimated their desire to roll into Eastern Europe (hence the shock) and overestimated their ability to do it. I recall when the Ukraine war started the expert consensus was that Russia would achieve total victory within days.
Otoh we have this change with America. If they aren't allies anymore it leaves a hole to fill which will require more defence spending.
There's a quite plausible scenario of Russia rolling into the Baltics utlilising the Kaliningrad enclave, and threatening the Germans with nuclear weapons if they attempt to block them. Possibly on the rebound if Ukraine winds down, and Putin needs to keep wartime conditions going.
Except the Finnish an Polish armies are quite capable enough on their own, and the Baltic armed forces have been working very closely with the Ukrainians. Since the Russians have been given a pretty thorough hiding by the Ukrainians, you have to ask what the Russians actually have left that would persuade them that any further aggression would be in their interests. FWIW the Estonian security service sees neither intent nor capability on the Russian side for at least the next several years.
The growing view in the Baltic is that Putin is slowly but surely running out of road. Any culmination of the Russo-Ukrainian war could be very dangerous- a potential use of nuclear weapons still cannot be entirely ruled out. Nevertheless there is a growing sense of crisis on the Russian side, and a collapse is also a growing possibility. Even a post-Putin Russia would be a threat, but arguably a less urgent threat than Russia today.
Been to get the Barnet notched before my holiday next week
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
25 years - he should be doing everything he can to get citizenship.
Asked about Belfast Mark Rowley talks about people overseas whipping up division to create disorder & he specifically mentions Russian & Iranian state actors
What an idiot
It’s exactly the same bullshit as on the mainland - disinformation on social media, whipping up racists.
In Northern Ireland it is multiplied by the toxic deal with the Community Leaders. Who control the streets where it happened.
Continue with the highest of 2.5% annually, inflation and earnings, but rather than continuing to calculate the highest of those on an annual basis, freeze the date against which these are baselined to 6th April 2025 (the latest calculated lock date).
Triple lock.protected, but no longer such an escalator.
That’s not a bad idea as a political solution. Still mad compared to just fixing to CPI like other benefits.
For me the perfect policy would be making landlords ineligible for the State Pension. Your retired lifestyle should not rely on milking young people dry, and anyone with more than one house is minted anyway.
That would simply result in a stampede to sell second homes..
Crashing house prices for first time buyers
"milking young people dry"?
Do you think rents are high because all landlords are grasping greedy bastards or because there are not enough houses for the population?
I think it’s because there are so many young people on decent salaries who can pay that high rent but can’t build the capital to compete with investors.
I was repeatedly outbid by cash buying pensioners when I bought my first flat, some going 25% over home report. If we make housing a rubbish investment then demand, and therefore price, will crater in places like Edinburgh.
Telegraph guy was proposing bringing back MIRAS for first time buyers for their first ten years of mortgage the other day. And some thinktank proposed young people cutting their state pension in exchange for a deposit for house when young.
Interesting ideas but again supply is the issue.
Labour have failed in spades to build their target house building. It has been dismal.
Supply is an issue, but not the only one. We’ve built millions of homes over the last 30 years but the number being rented out has grown even faster.
Labour’s target was to increase the housing stock by 6% , which would have decreased prices by about 3% on current price elasticity. To put that in perspective, house prices have increased by 26% in the last 10 years.
26% in ten years sounds like it is probably below the rate of wage growth.
You'd think that a misleading header on this page that promotes misinformation would be altered or updated? (Fancy reading something Lee Cain says and believing it and then printing it.) Some people obviously believe what they want to believe.
What I ACTUALLY said is we "cannot have another left-wing government. But I'm afraid that Reform has quite a lot of left-wing ideas. They want more benefits. They want nationalisation” I then said. On "deals, non-aggression pacts and so on....I'm just saying no. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no." https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/2065076212855124166
Tim Shipman appears to strongly dispute Badenoch's after the fact interpretation of the interview. He seems unusually annoyed given he's a very Tory sympathetic journalist wishing for the Tory "house journal"
Given Badenoch's ideology is visible from space, I would assume she said what she's reported to have said, as this fits the picture, and she now regrets allowing the quiet part to be said out loud.
Which is interesting in itself.
Ideology is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Depending on your perspective, the parties might be all the same, or might be poles apart.
X David Wolfson@DXW_KC·2h Faced with a choice between a Defence Secretary who wanted to spend more on our armed forces, a Chancellor who wouldn’t, and an Attorney General who enjoys suing them, the Prime Minister decided he could do without … the Defence Secretary.
Christopher Hope📝@christopherhope·4h Kemi Badenoch’s six questions on defence spending at Prime Minister‘s questions yesterday suddenly look very well targeted, Christopher Hope📝@christopherhope Lessons from John Healey's resignation: - Huge blow to Sir Keir Starmer a week out from the Makerfield by-election; - Defence was of the few areas where the PM was meant to be strong; - Pressure now on Chancellor Rachel Reeves over why she drove such a hard bargain on defence; - The Labour Government feels it is fraying at the ages once again. More reporting and analysis on @GBNEWS now.
For the umpteenth time, there is either zero or little cash saved from abolishing the triple lock in the short term.
It’s critically important for the long term fiscal sustainability of the country, but it’s yet another false dichotomy on immediate spending demands.
Yes, but this is a bit like the idiots who cancelled the next generation of nuclear power stations because they wouldn't be online until the 2020s.
Given that all three sets of people who matter (Labour MPs, the media and the public at large) are unable to either count or understand any of this, binning the tripple lock as part of a "we're all in it together" package of spending cuts to fund defence would be both the right thing to do (everyone knows it needs to go), and fairly smart politics.
Being smart politics means that the chances of RR and SKS doing it are approximately zero.
Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.
The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation...
...The vice president said he thought the president would be OK with releasing the nipple-related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. “I think we should put it out,” he said. “It would cause people to say we’re going further than we need to.” Wiles quickly responded that the president would not, in fact, be OK with it. It was a point no one wanted to continue debating.
One official would later describe it as a “surreal” experience to be discussing nipples in the White House Situation Room...
You'd think that a misleading header on this page that promotes misinformation would be altered or updated? (Fancy reading something Lee Cain says and believing it and then printing it.) Some people obviously believe what they want to believe.
What I ACTUALLY said is we "cannot have another left-wing government. But I'm afraid that Reform has quite a lot of left-wing ideas. They want more benefits. They want nationalisation” I then said. On "deals, non-aggression pacts and so on....I'm just saying no. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no." https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/2065076212855124166
Tim Shipman appears to strongly dispute Badenoch's after the fact interpretation of the interview. He seems unusually annoyed given he's a very Tory sympathetic journalist wishing for the Tory "house journal"
Given Badenoch's ideology is visible from space, I would assume she said what she's reported to have said, as this fits the picture, and she now regrets allowing the quiet part to be said out loud.
Which is interesting in itself.
Ideology is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Depending on your perspective, the parties might be all the same, or might be poles apart.
She's building quite a back catoligue of foot in mouth moments she them makes 100 times worse with lies and spin.
It must be a tough job resisting the demands of heavily-armed admirals, field marshals and air commodores on a daily basis. But our only foreseeable adversary has just been humiliated by Ukraine. What are we actually afraid of?
That's a good point re Russia. After over four years of huge spend and casualties they have failed to capture/occupy more than a small part of Ukraine and are now stuck or going backwards. Previously we'd probably have underestimated their desire to roll into Eastern Europe (hence the shock) and overestimated their ability to do it. I recall when the Ukraine war started the expert consensus was that Russia would achieve total victory within days.
Otoh we have this change with America. If they aren't allies anymore it leaves a hole to fill which will require more defence spending.
There's a quite plausible scenario of Russia rolling into the Baltics utlilising the Kaliningrad enclave, and threatening the Germans with nuclear weapons if they attempt to block them. Possibly on the rebound if Ukraine winds down, and Putin needs to keep wartime conditions going.
Except the Finnish an Polish armies are quite capable enough on their own, and the Baltic armed forces have been working very closely with the Ukrainians. Since the Russians have been given a pretty thorough hiding by the Ukrainians, you have to ask what the Russians actually have left that would persuade them that any further aggression would be in their interests. FWIW the Estonian security service sees neither intent nor capability on the Russian side for at least the next several years.
The growing view in the Baltic is that Putin is slowly but surely running out of road. Any culmination of the Russo-Ukrainian war could be very dangerous- a potential use of nuclear weapons still cannot be entirely ruled out. Nevertheless there is a growing sense of crisis on the Russian side, and a collapse is also a growing possibility. Even a post-Putin Russia would be a threat, but arguably a less urgent threat than Russia today.
In Russia, it may be a case of better the devil you don’t know.
Asked about Belfast Mark Rowley talks about people overseas whipping up division to create disorder & he specifically mentions Russian & Iranian state actors
What an idiot
It’s exactly the same bullshit as on the mainland - disinformation on social media, whipping up racists.
In Northern Ireland it is multiplied by the toxic deal with the Community Leaders. Who control the streets where it happened.
You'd think that a misleading header on this page that promotes misinformation would be altered or updated? (Fancy reading something Lee Cain says and believing it and then printing it.) Some people obviously believe what they want to believe.
What I ACTUALLY said is we "cannot have another left-wing government. But I'm afraid that Reform has quite a lot of left-wing ideas. They want more benefits. They want nationalisation” I then said. On "deals, non-aggression pacts and so on....I'm just saying no. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no." https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/2065076212855124166
Tim Shipman appears to strongly dispute Badenoch's after the fact interpretation of the interview. He seems unusually annoyed given he's a very Tory sympathetic journalist wishing for the Tory "house journal"
Given Badenoch's ideology is visible from space, I would assume she said what she's reported to have said, as this fits the picture, and she now regrets allowing the quiet part to be said out loud.
Which is interesting in itself.
Only Kemikaze can make the news headlines on a day when Starmer's been shot in his bollocks with the only working munitions the Tories left behind
EXCL: The Green party is considering a new policy to ban circumcision, The Spectator can reveal.
Interesting policy when the leader is Jewish.
Only a small amount of circumcisions globally are Jews. Less than one in ten.
It’s non consensual, irreversible, genital mutilation. They’ve got a point
If people want their forskin lopped off make an informed decision as an adult.
A circumcisor is a pretty poor living too. The basic pay is poor. But you make it up with the tips.
Trying to remember the joke about the man buying a bag made from an elephant foreskin. Complained about it being small and the shopkeeper said “yes but when you rub it”. Apologies.
I know you shouldn't overanalyse a joke, but that one always vexed me: a foreskin stays pretty much the same size. It is the penis contained therein which grows and shrinks.
As for Kemi Badenoch, in truth, what else could she say? She's in the same position as was David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Nick Clegg with every journo asking the same questions.
Were she to have given even a scintilla of room to Reform, she'd have faced the "wasted vote" with which the Conservatives plagued the LDs for generations and, as others have argued, would have legitimised the "Vote Tory, get Reform" argument.
Yet there is still a problem - she has ruled out any pact or deal BEFORE the election, even a "tacit understanding" seems improbable. The Conservatives will fight Reform with the same vigour they will Labour, the LDs and Greens.
However, what about AFTER the election? She wants a Conservative majority which is perfectly reasonable and you'd expect nothing less but if that's not what happens, but there are only two possible scenarions - the first is where the Conservatives are irrelvant as another party or group or parties are able to form a majority Government.
The second is where the Conservatives end up as potential "kingmakers" enabling a party or group of parties to form a Government with the confidence of the Commons. You can deny thinking about deals and pacts right up until the votes are cast but once they are cast and the results known, all that goes out the window.
The more seats the Conservatives have, the bigger a role they will play so the aim must be to maximize the number of MPs elected (more important than vote share). 150 MPs means they can't be ignored, 50 means they could well be.
It must be a tough job resisting the demands of heavily-armed admirals, field marshals and air commodores on a daily basis. But our only foreseeable adversary has just been humiliated by Ukraine. What are we actually afraid of?
How can they be heavily armed if we have no operational ships !!! ?
Continue with the highest of 2.5% annually, inflation and earnings, but rather than continuing to calculate the highest of those on an annual basis, freeze the date against which these are baselined to 6th April 2025 (the latest calculated lock date).
Triple lock.protected, but no longer such an escalator.
That’s not a bad idea as a political solution. Still mad compared to just fixing to CPI like other benefits.
For me the perfect policy would be making landlords ineligible for the State Pension. Your retired lifestyle should not rely on milking young people dry, and anyone with more than one house is minted anyway.
That would simply result in a stampede to sell second homes..
Crashing house prices for first time buyers
"milking young people dry"?
Do you think rents are high because all landlords are grasping greedy bastards or because there are not enough houses for the population?
I think it’s because there are so many young people on decent salaries who can pay that high rent but can’t build the capital to compete with investors.
I was repeatedly outbid by cash buying pensioners when I bought my first flat, some going 25% over home report. If we make housing a rubbish investment then demand, and therefore price, will crater in places like Edinburgh.
Telegraph guy was proposing bringing back MIRAS for first time buyers for their first ten years of mortgage the other day. And some thinktank proposed young people cutting their state pension in exchange for a deposit for house when young.
Interesting ideas but again supply is the issue.
Labour have failed in spades to build their target house building. It has been dismal.
Telegraph readers own property. Giving young people extra debt to pay for existing houses increases the wealth of Telegraph readers. Building more houses decreases their wealth. Which do you think they prefer to read about?
Was doing a summer job in a Solicitors when MIRAS ended, absolutely manic followed by tumbleweed.
That's what the young, renting generation is lacking, Nigel Lawson driving the housing market off a cliff with his foot flat to the floor.
Feck me a phrase that spread panic in Mortgage Admin Departments
I was asked for my thoughts on this on another forum:
I think Starmer has done much that has been good, but that the country was ready for major changes, such as an overhaul of Council Tax and Income Tax, as every area of our society was gutted. But Starmer was too timid / indecisive. So he failed to make other politicians fight on his ground, and ended up on a sticky wicket.
The situation reminds me of the 1908 Dreadnaught “We want 8, and we won’t wait !” dispute between Jacky Fisher and the Treasury, but this time the Treasury won.
Healey has done the right things for his constraints – starting with foundations such as accommodation, recruitment and programme management, plus some new investment decisions. But he is also on a sticky wicket, and Starmer needed to imo raise more revenue and give a chunk of it to Defence.
I don’t know about Burnham on defence; he’s been an effective Mayor in Manchester. He is a much more experienced politician than Starmer with a 25 year career, with 16 years as an MP and multiple Cabinet / Shadow Cabinet positions. If he makes it through, I would like to see him establish a priority for defence, put the Treasury in their place, and maybe even get Healey back and tell him or a.n.other just to get on with it.
Continue with the highest of 2.5% annually, inflation and earnings, but rather than continuing to calculate the highest of those on an annual basis, freeze the date against which these are baselined to 6th April 2025 (the latest calculated lock date).
Triple lock.protected, but no longer such an escalator.
That’s not a bad idea as a political solution. Still mad compared to just fixing to CPI like other benefits.
For me the perfect policy would be making landlords ineligible for the State Pension. Your retired lifestyle should not rely on milking young people dry, and anyone with more than one house is minted anyway.
That would simply result in a stampede to sell second homes..
Crashing house prices for first time buyers
"milking young people dry"?
Do you think rents are high because all landlords are grasping greedy bastards or because there are not enough houses for the population?
I think it’s because there are so many young people on decent salaries who can pay that high rent but can’t build the capital to compete with investors.
I was repeatedly outbid by cash buying pensioners when I bought my first flat, some going 25% over home report. If we make housing a rubbish investment then demand, and therefore price, will crater in places like Edinburgh.
Telegraph guy was proposing bringing back MIRAS for first time buyers for their first ten years of mortgage the other day. And some thinktank proposed young people cutting their state pension in exchange for a deposit for house when young.
Interesting ideas but again supply is the issue.
Labour have failed in spades to build their target house building. It has been dismal.
Supply is an issue, but not the only one. We’ve built millions of homes over the last 30 years but the number being rented out has grown even faster.
Labour’s target was to increase the housing stock by 6% , which would have decreased prices by about 3% on current price elasticity. To put that in perspective, house prices have increased by 26% in the last 10 years.
The owning vs renting thing is a sideshow. The root problem is that homes are really expensive either way, if the weren't, it wouldn't be possible to make loads of money out of renting them out.
The real problem is that every single one of those millions of houses built has been insufficient to keep up with population growth. This population growth stems almost entirely from 30 years of almost unfettered mass immigration, largely against the fairly clearly expressed will of the population.
We can't begin to fix house prices without stopping the population growing, and by far the easiest way to fix it quickly is to get the population shrinking via a near total block on immigration.
Government sources say Darren Jones is going around telling people how confident he is that he will score the Defence Sec job.
Al Carns is reluctant apparently. I am of the opinion that Dazza should hold off until at least next Friday.
Who on earth would want that poisoned chalice right now, and especially if they wanted the confidence of the Military brass? Right now I would also have Al Carns on resignation watch if like Healey he really cares about the need for enough Defence funding to keep our armed forces safe and as a viable functioning military force.
Why are we (or indeed she) getting into this THREE years from a GE?
The world appears to be going to hell on a handcart so god knows what the next GE will be about or what the result will be.
We are discussing this because the Tories had the bright idea to scrap the FTPA. Wasn't it just last week that "Burnham might call snap election" was in the headlines?
A certain Mr G. Neville among the talking heads on ITV's footy coverage.
Pougatch said their studio was absolutely real and I'm sure it is but somehow it still managed to look incredibly CGI'd when they panned the camera round as he walked across it.
It must be a tough job resisting the demands of heavily-armed admirals, field marshals and air commodores on a daily basis. But our only foreseeable adversary has just been humiliated by Ukraine. What are we actually afraid of?
That's a good point re Russia. After over four years of huge spend and casualties they have failed to capture/occupy more than a small part of Ukraine and are now stuck or going backwards. Previously we'd probably have underestimated their desire to roll into Eastern Europe (hence the shock) and overestimated their ability to do it. I recall when the Ukraine war started the expert consensus was that Russia would achieve total victory within days.
Otoh we have this change with America. If they aren't allies anymore it leaves a hole to fill which will require more defence spending.
There's a quite plausible scenario of Russia rolling into the Baltics utlilising the Kaliningrad enclave, and threatening the Germans with nuclear weapons if they attempt to block them. Possibly on the rebound if Ukraine winds down, and Putin needs to keep wartime conditions going.
I'll be there next month so will report if it happens when I'm there - for betting purposes only.
Government sources say Darren Jones is going around telling people how confident he is that he will score the Defence Sec job.
Al Carns is reluctant apparently. I am of the opinion that Dazza should hold off until at least next Friday.
Who on earth would want that poisoned chalice right now, and especially if they wanted the confidence of the Military brass? Right now I would also have Al Carns on resignation watch if like Healey he really cares about the need for enough Defence funding to keep our armed forces safe and as a viable functioning military force.
They'll find some placeholder who wants it on their CV, before the Burnham coup. Probably.
Actually, I've just had a look at the first ten matches and don't see much value in any of them with the exception of the first, where I think Mexico are value. They tend to be strong at home historically.
It's a bit late to improve much now but sleep well, acclimatise, stay hydrated in the conditions, listen to your coaches and don't be overawed by the global stage, who will you be playing for?
Healey was right on defence and if he does back Burnham after his resignation and Burnham does increase defence spending that will be good for NATO and our national security.
In terms of Kemi's comments she is taking a risk, while about half of Conservatives would back making Farage PM the other half would prefer the Tories to abstain in a hung parliament. Some would even prefer to deal with Labour or the LDs. It also won't help Conservative incumbents gain anti Reform tactical votes
Any odds on Scotland managing to stay in the tournament long enough for the postcards to arrive home here on the doorstep before the Scotland team fly home? Asking more in hope than expectation and with everything crossed this team can finally see us advance beyond the first round of the World Cup...
A certain Mr G. Neville among the talking heads on ITV's footy coverage.
Pougatch said their studio was absolutely real and I'm sure it is but somehow it still managed to look incredibly CGI'd when they panned the camera round as he walked across it.
Have to say I was surprised by John Healey's resignation but we all knew the crunch was coming as defence spending rhetoric bumped into public spending reality.
We don't hypothecate taxation in our system but were Starmer to suggest a 1p rise in basic rate tax to fund defence, would many demur? It would raise perhaps £7 billion which would boost defence nicely but of course we need to look at other options including the Triple Lock and some areas of welfare.
It wouldn't be unpopular but when you are polling 16% what have you got to lose?
Healey was right on defence and if he does back Burnham after his resignation and Burnham does increase defence spending that will be good for NATO and our national security.
In terms of Kemi's comments she is taking a risk, while about half of Conservatives would back making Farage PM the other half would prefer the Tories to abstain in a hung parliament. Some would even prefer to deal with Labour or the LDs. It also won't help Conservative incumbents gain anti Reform tactical votes
If you asked 50 defence experts what to spend extra money on we'd probably get 20-30 different answers. I'm not sure it particularly matters whether we spend 2.4% or 2.5% or whatever the difference is on defence in the next few years.
What we need to do is re-imagine what defence looks like and come up with a coherent strategy that fits for the next decade and beyond, not the present and certainly not the past.
It must be a tough job resisting the demands of heavily-armed admirals, field marshals and air commodores on a daily basis. But our only foreseeable adversary has just been humiliated by Ukraine. What are we actually afraid of?
That's a good point re Russia. After over four years of huge spend and casualties they have failed to capture/occupy more than a small part of Ukraine and are now stuck or going backwards. Previously we'd probably have underestimated their desire to roll into Eastern Europe (hence the shock) and overestimated their ability to do it. I recall when the Ukraine war started the expert consensus was that Russia would achieve total victory within days.
Otoh we have this change with America. If they aren't allies anymore it leaves a hole to fill which will require more defence spending.
There's a quite plausible scenario of Russia rolling into the Baltics utlilising the Kaliningrad enclave, and threatening the Germans with nuclear weapons if they attempt to block them. Possibly on the rebound if Ukraine winds down, and Putin needs to keep wartime conditions going.
I'll be there next month so will report if it happens when I'm there - for betting purposes only.
So you could quite literally give us a red hot tip....?
Any odds on Scotland managing to stay in the tournament long enough for the postcards to arrive home here on the doorstep before the Scotland team fly home? Asking more in hope than expectation and with everything crossed this team can finally see us advance beyond the first round of the World Cup...
Beating Haiti by a few goals should be enough, given the change in the rules.
Healey was right on defence and if he does back Burnham after his resignation and Burnham does increase defence spending that will be good for NATO and our national security.
In terms of Kemi's comments she is taking a risk, while about half of Conservatives would back making Farage PM the other half would prefer the Tories to abstain in a hung parliament. Some would even prefer to deal with Labour or the LDs. It also won't help Conservative incumbents gain anti Reform tactical votes
Kemi faces the same problem a succession of LD leaders faced from the 1980s to 2010. You can never asusme your voters will en masse think as you do or see it as you see it. Her best option (as it might have been for Nick Clegg) would be not to have to be forced to make the choice at all. Either an outright Reform majority or a Government led by Labour would be much easier but the parliamentary arithmetic might not play ball.
Indeed, the better the Conservatives do the more they will be part of the process of Government formation which will force decisions to be made.
Any odds on Scotland managing to stay in the tournament long enough for the postcards to arrive home here on the doorstep before the Scotland team fly home? Asking more in hope than expectation and with everything crossed this team can finally see us advance beyond the first round of the World Cup...
Never mind Scotland reaching the knock outs, you expect Royal Mail to deliver something within 5 weeks? I admire your blind optimism.
EXCL: The Green party is considering a new policy to ban circumcision, The Spectator can reveal.
Interesting policy when the leader is Jewish.
And the deputy leader Muslim.
The foreskin is part of Allah's creation, surely.
We've discussed some pretty far out subjects on PB but the political implications of foreskin policy??!!!
Hopefully an MP will be able to ensure a debate on it in Parliament however they would need to check the possibility against that bible of Parliamentary procedure, Foreskin May.
Healey was right on defence and if he does back Burnham after his resignation and Burnham does increase defence spending that will be good for NATO and our national security.
In terms of Kemi's comments she is taking a risk, while about half of Conservatives would back making Farage PM the other half would prefer the Tories to abstain in a hung parliament. Some would even prefer to deal with Labour or the LDs. It also won't help Conservative incumbents gain anti Reform tactical votes
If you asked 50 defence experts what to spend extra money on we'd probably get 20-30 different answers. I'm not sure it particularly matters whether we spend 2.4% or 2.5% or whatever the difference is on defence in the next few years.
What we need to do is re-imagine what defence looks like and come up with a coherent strategy that fits for the next decade and beyond, not the present and certainly not the past.
We need to do the latter and we need to spend more on defence now. We don't have the luxury of taking time to come up with a perfect defence plan. We need more capability asap.
Countries like Poland, Germany and Denmark are not messing around dithering and doing nothing. They're getting on with it. Britain needs to do the same.
And, yes, the difference between 2.6% and 2.68% is neither here nor there. The countries in Europe who are serious about defence are at, or heading to, 3.5+% before the end of this Parliament. Serious amounts of extra money, and serious amounts of extra capability as a result. Britain needs to do the same.
Comments
My Barber came here as refugee 25 years ago and has right to remain and has his own business. Cutting hair. Nice guy. Known him years. As gay as Easter too so his old country wouldn’t welcome him back.
He is genuinely worried about the rhetoric of Restore. It’s cutting through.
I told him not to be too concerned. People won’t vote Restore. Rupert Lowe is an idiot and if the worst did happen I can get another barber.
That's what the young, renting generation is lacking, Nigel Lawson driving the housing market off a cliff with his foot flat to the floor.
Labour’s target was to increase the housing stock by 6% , which would have decreased prices by about 3% on current price elasticity. To put that in perspective, house prices have increased by 26% in the last 10 years.
https://x.com/ns123abc/status/2064601087768662077?s=61
Sadly he didn’t give me some Jack Daniel’s today.
It’s non consensual, irreversible, genital mutilation. They’ve got a point
If people want their forskin lopped off make an informed decision as an adult.
A circumcisor is a pretty poor living too. The basic pay is poor. But you make it up with the tips.
Which is interesting in itself.
https://www.reformparty.uk/policies#policies-section
"Reform will abolish ILR and rescind existing awards. Reform will introduce a 5 year renewable visa for migrants with higher salary thresholds, mandatory fluency in English, and stricter good character requirements."
There are more potential Tory voters to the Tory right than in the centre, I get why they would not want to alienate the former for sake of the latter. Unfortunately those to the right don't seem to want Tory half measures.
The growing view in the Baltic is that Putin is slowly but surely running out of road. Any culmination of the Russo-Ukrainian war could be very dangerous- a potential use of nuclear weapons still cannot be entirely ruled out. Nevertheless there is a growing sense of crisis on the Russian side, and a collapse is also a growing possibility. Even a post-Putin Russia would be a threat, but arguably a less urgent threat than Russia today.
In Northern Ireland it is multiplied by the toxic deal with the Community Leaders. Who control the streets where it happened.
David Wolfson@DXW_KC·2h
Faced with a choice between a Defence Secretary who wanted to spend more on our armed forces, a Chancellor who wouldn’t, and an Attorney General who enjoys suing them, the Prime Minister decided he could do without … the Defence Secretary.
Christopher Hope📝@christopherhope·4h
Kemi Badenoch’s six questions on defence spending at Prime Minister‘s questions yesterday suddenly look very well targeted,
Christopher Hope📝@christopherhope
Lessons from John Healey's resignation:
- Huge blow to Sir Keir Starmer a week out from the Makerfield by-election;
- Defence was of the few areas where the PM was meant to be strong;
- Pressure now on Chancellor Rachel Reeves over why she drove such a hard bargain on defence;
- The Labour Government feels it is fraying at the ages once again.
More reporting and analysis on @GBNEWS
now.
Given that all three sets of people who matter (Labour MPs, the media and the public at large) are unable to either count or understand any of this, binning the tripple lock as part of a "we're all in it together" package of spending cuts to fund defence would be both the right thing to do (everyone knows it needs to go), and fairly smart politics.
Being smart politics means that the chances of RR and SKS doing it are approximately zero.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/magazine/trump-epstein-files-white-house-vance-doj.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pFA.5DFB.OU0TRy9YFZwW&smid=url-share
Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.
The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation...
...The vice president said he thought the president would be OK with releasing the nipple-related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. “I think we should put it out,” he said. “It would cause people to say we’re going further than we need to.” Wiles quickly responded that the president would not, in fact, be OK with it. It was a point no one wanted to continue debating.
One official would later describe it as a “surreal” experience to be discussing nipples in the White House Situation Room...
As for Kemi Badenoch, in truth, what else could she say? She's in the same position as was David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Nick Clegg with every journo asking the same questions.
Were she to have given even a scintilla of room to Reform, she'd have faced the "wasted vote" with which the Conservatives plagued the LDs for generations and, as others have argued, would have legitimised the "Vote Tory, get Reform" argument.
Yet there is still a problem - she has ruled out any pact or deal BEFORE the election, even a "tacit understanding" seems improbable. The Conservatives will fight Reform with the same vigour they will Labour, the LDs and Greens.
However, what about AFTER the election? She wants a Conservative majority which is perfectly reasonable and you'd expect nothing less but if that's not what happens, but there are only two possible scenarions - the first is where the Conservatives are irrelvant as another party or group or parties are able to form a majority Government.
The second is where the Conservatives end up as potential "kingmakers" enabling a party or group of parties to form a Government with the confidence of the Commons. You can deny thinking about deals and pacts right up until the votes are cast but once they are cast and the results known, all that goes out the window.
The more seats the Conservatives have, the bigger a role they will play so the aim must be to maximize the number of MPs elected (more important than vote share). 150 MPs means they can't be ignored, 50 means they could well be.
MIRAS AUDIT
I think Starmer has done much that has been good, but that the country was ready for major changes, such as an overhaul of Council Tax and Income Tax, as every area of our society was gutted. But Starmer was too timid / indecisive. So he failed to make other politicians fight on his ground, and ended up on a sticky wicket.
The situation reminds me of the 1908 Dreadnaught “We want 8, and we won’t wait !” dispute between Jacky Fisher and the Treasury, but this time the Treasury won.
Healey has done the right things for his constraints – starting with foundations such as accommodation, recruitment and programme management, plus some new investment decisions. But he is also on a sticky wicket, and Starmer needed to imo raise more revenue and give a chunk of it to Defence.
I don’t know about Burnham on defence; he’s been an effective Mayor in Manchester. He is a much more experienced politician than Starmer with a 25 year career, with 16 years as an MP and multiple Cabinet / Shadow Cabinet positions.
If he makes it through, I would like to see him establish a priority for defence, put the Treasury in their place, and maybe even get Healey back and tell him or a.n.other just to get on with it.
The real problem is that every single one of those millions of houses built has been insufficient to keep up with population growth. This population growth stems almost entirely from 30 years of almost unfettered mass immigration, largely against the fairly clearly expressed will of the population.
We can't begin to fix house prices without stopping the population growing, and by far the easiest way to fix it quickly is to get the population shrinking via a near total block on immigration.
Probably.
https://youtu.be/Wx4qZiiz7Cc?si=AcoyEqsc2nGCL13E
Actually, I've just had a look at the first ten matches and don't see much value in any of them with the exception of the first, where I think Mexico are value. They tend to be strong at home historically.
I suppose at least when Nigey becomes PM the threat from Russia recedes, until he hands us out to Putin.
And was anyone on it?
In terms of Kemi's comments she is taking a risk, while about half of Conservatives would back making Farage PM the other half would prefer the Tories to abstain in a hung parliament. Some would even prefer to deal with Labour or the LDs. It also won't help Conservative incumbents gain anti Reform tactical votes
Have to say I was surprised by John Healey's resignation but we all knew the crunch was coming as defence spending rhetoric bumped into public spending reality.
We don't hypothecate taxation in our system but were Starmer to suggest a 1p rise in basic rate tax to fund defence, would many demur? It would raise perhaps £7 billion which would boost defence nicely but of course we need to look at other options including the Triple Lock and some areas of welfare.
It wouldn't be unpopular but when you are polling 16% what have you got to lose?
What we need to do is re-imagine what defence looks like and come up with a coherent strategy that fits for the next decade and beyond, not the present and certainly not the past.
Indeed, the better the Conservatives do the more they will be part of the process of Government formation which will force decisions to be made.
A fear of appearing racist should never take priority over a duty to keep people safe.
And pushes for diversity should never take priority over hiring people on the basis of individual merit.
As I wrote for @ConHome, it's time to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty
Countries like Poland, Germany and Denmark are not messing around dithering and doing nothing. They're getting on with it. Britain needs to do the same.
And, yes, the difference between 2.6% and 2.68% is neither here nor there. The countries in Europe who are serious about defence are at, or heading to, 3.5+% before the end of this Parliament. Serious amounts of extra money, and serious amounts of extra capability as a result. Britain needs to do the same.