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The Chancellor’s controversial letter to Chesham and Amersham voters – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    UK officials insist that the EU cannot seriously believe that rabies will enter the UK, make its way to Northern Ireland, and from there spread into the Republic and beyond to the rest of the EU......

    Writing in the Belfast Telegraph this week, Lord Frost and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis accused the EU of focusing on risks (to the single market and consumer health) "that don’t exist".

    "Only if implemented in a pragmatic and proportionate way can the Protocol support the peace process and ensure the people of Northern Ireland continue to see the benefits of prosperity and stability. If it does not do this, then it is not working," they wrote.....

    By contrast, the UK is now presenting itself as the more reliable defender of the Good Friday Agreement (a posture that has infuriated Irish officials), while also proclaiming a more proactive approach than the European Commission in trying to find solutions.

    "The UK has now sent more than 10 papers to the European Commission, proposing potential solutions on a wide range of issues," said a UK government spokesperson. "As yet, we have had no written response from the EU."


    https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0604/1226148-tony-connelly-analysis/
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Just been first-dose Pfizered. Fairly slick operation

    I was pfizered a couple of weeks ago: a bit drowsy afterwards but nothing more.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689
    471,939 vaccinations in England yesterday - 150,337 1st doses, 321,602 2nd doses

    The UK now has over 40m with first doses and over 27m with two doses.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,080

    471,939 vaccinations in England yesterday - 150,337 1st doses, 321,602 2nd doses

    The UK now has over 40m with first doses and over 27m with two doses.

    Not good enough.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,585
    Useless batting from England.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    471,939 vaccinations in England yesterday - 150,337 1st doses, 321,602 2nd doses

    other nations reporting later/tomorrow


    https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1401134620683423751?s=20
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,585

    Which is worse for the tories...?

    Losing Chesham and Amersham to a lib dem surge

    or

    Winning Chesham and Amersham on a reduced majority because Reform's candidate got 3,000 votes.

    The former.

    Well the former is worse for the tories.

    But in my view the latter would actually be worse for Johnson.
    Labour getting beaten by Reform in Chesham won't be a good look for Starmer if it happens.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    This seems like a big moment..big implications for Ireland?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,080
    BBC News - Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57368247
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    edited June 2021
    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,100
    Ed Conway of Sky saying the G7 agreement is a very big deal and especially as Joe Biden is fully on board
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419

    Taz said:

    I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..

    I presume it is some witless intern pushing this out. He’s been tweeting about it all week. But previously criticising the Tories for opposing it when they clearly didn’t.
    It is one of the most tedious criticism, up there with 20 mins to save the NHS. And shows a lack of understanding / misrepresentation of how tax rates work.

    It’s cheap politics of the worst type. There have been several tweets this week saying the Tories won’t sign up to one, it’s a disgrace, they’re starving our NHS etc etc. Now they have and they have got a win on the digital services tax that’s not good enough. People, apart from the hardcore supporters, just zone out after a while.

    Last nights ITV news had someone on from a Tax ‘fairness’ group prattling on with the same line too. Implement this and we can give all the critical workers in the sainted NHS 5% and pay everyone’s care costs etc etc.

    All goes unchallenged too.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,761
    Oh dear, bad news for Indie SAGE here, who if I recall squealed repeatedly that opening schools would be an utter disaster.


    Shamez Ladhani
    @ShamezLadhani
    ·
    21h
    In England, 9 million kids have been in full time in-person schooling for a full 6 weeks since 18 April 2021 & #SARSCoV2 infection rates *did not increase* in any school-aged cohort, despite emergence & national spread of Indian B.1.617.2 delta variant👉https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/991081/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w22.pdf
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 4,264
    https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1401133901775523842

    2/ Under the principles of the landmark reforms, the largest global firms with profit margins of at least 10% will be in scope – with 20% of any profit above the 10% margin reallocated and then subjected to tax in the countries where they make sales.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,595
    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    One of the restauranteurs down here in south Devon has provoked a shit-storm with a £1,000 signing on bonus for staff....
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,761
    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    MattW said:

    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/

    I thought there was the old year and a day thing that applied to such cases.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,761

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    MattW said:

    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/

    Since the year and a day rule was abolished, rendered obsolete by advances in medical care which can (for example) keep someone alive it I n a coma for years, it’s perfectly possible for such a charge to be brought if the proximate cause of death was the act, with no new act intervening, however long ago it took place. To my mind the difficulty for the prosecution would be showing that the act caused the death but that’s not insurmountable.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,080
    The proof of the pudding with be in the eating how the highly paid tax lawyers manage to find schemes to minimise this new G7 plan.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..

    I presume it is some witless intern pushing this out. He’s been tweeting about it all week. But previously criticising the Tories for opposing it when they clearly didn’t.
    It is one of the most tedious criticism, up there with 20 mins to save the NHS. And shows a lack of understanding / misrepresentation of how tax rates work.

    It’s cheap politics of the worst type. There have been several tweets this week saying the Tories won’t sign up to one, it’s a disgrace, they’re starving our NHS etc etc. Now they have and they have got a win on the digital services tax that’s not good enough. People, apart from the hardcore supporters, just zone out after a while.

    Last nights ITV news had someone on from a Tax ‘fairness’ group prattling on with the same line too. Implement this and we can give all the critical workers in the sainted NHS 5% and pay everyone’s care costs etc etc.

    All goes unchallenged too.
    Don’t worry, it serves the Tory very well having a broadcast media that is so obviously biased.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,865
    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Expect companies to suddenly discover their global margins are 9.99%
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028
    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Expect Labour to harp on at the sidelines about 22% minimum..

    They’ve become totally irrelevant.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,865
    edited June 2021

    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Expect companies to suddenly discover their global margins are 9.99%
    That's not easy to do though and if they do it legitimately by spending the money on investment then the world benefits from that cash being unlocked into something productive rather than siting on a balance sheet invested in time release deposits.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    We were in the lakes at the weekend, that was certainly true of what we saw around Ambleside and Windermere. One thing we wondered was how could anyone get somewhere to live and have a standard of living on a tenner an hour if they didn’t have a live in arrangement as part of the job.

    When we went out to a local restaurant here I was speaking to the manager and he was saying that one of the big problems was people went off got other jobs for similar wages but not the unsocial hours or demanding environment.

    I’d guess paying more isn’t much of an option as it is a very price sensitive industry.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,827

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    No, seems very unlikely to ever be implemented. Tory fan boys not particularly concerned and claiming success already. We shall see, hope I am very wrong on this.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    Sounds like a great idea.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,348
    darkage said:

    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
    I am trying to remember the name of the Saki short story.

    Set in Edwardian times, it has a Suffragette movement come up with the following idea - erect replicas of the Albert Memorial *everywhere* - thousands of them. Unless they are immediately given the vote.

    The government and nation are horrified. In an afternoon they pass the most glorious legislation of the 20th cent -

    Banning the construction of any memorial statuary within 2 miles of a public highway....
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/

    I thought there was the old year and a day thing that applied to such cases.
    That was abolished 25 years ago.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    Trump losing weight?

    https://twitter.com/alexvtunzelmann/status/1400881153914163203?s=20

    Which of course would be good for him....

    Surely one of his stand in body doubles?
    One of his body halves, surely?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,585
    DougSeal said:

    MattW said:

    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/

    Since the year and a day rule was abolished, rendered obsolete by advances in medical care which can (for example) keep someone alive it I n a coma for years, it’s perfectly possible for such a charge to be brought if the proximate cause of death was the act, with no new act intervening, however long ago it took place. To my mind the difficulty for the prosecution would be showing that the act caused the death but that’s not insurmountable.
    What happens if they were already convicted of attempted murder and served, say, 10 years in prison? (I don't know whether that happened in this case).
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    The economic liberals are truly in retreat.

    This is great news.
  • Simon_PeachSimon_Peach Posts: 424

    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
    The U.K. simply doesn’t have the capacity for everyone to have a staycation... I imagine that people cancelling holidays abroad now are finding it very hard to book anything in the U.K. And if you manage to book somewhere in the Dales, treat finding a car park space in the likes of Malham or Grassington as seriously as reserving a sun lounger by the pool...
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    He's already favourite to be the Republican nominee at 4.5. Those odds can only shorten.

    2 years 7 months until the Iowa caucus!
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216

    darkage said:

    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
    I am trying to remember the name of the Saki short story.

    Set in Edwardian times, it has a Suffragette movement come up with the following idea - erect replicas of the Albert Memorial *everywhere* - thousands of them. Unless they are immediately given the vote.

    The government and nation are horrified. In an afternoon they pass the most glorious legislation of the 20th cent -

    Banning the construction of any memorial statuary within 2 miles of a public highway....
    http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Thre.shtml
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    DougSeal said:

    Taz said:

    MattW said:

    One for the lawyers to comment on. A charge for murder where the person died 21 years after the incident. I don't think I've seen such a delay previously.

    A MAN has been charged with murder following the death of a woman who died more than 20 years after being set on fire.

    Jacqueline Kirk, 62, died in August 2019 - 21 years after she was set on fire in Weston-super-Mare.

    Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team charged Steven Paul Craig, 57, of Brailsford Crescent, York, with murder last night (June 3).

    The charge was authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service South West’s Complex Casework Unit.

    Craig was remanded in custody and is due to appear at Bristol Magistrates Court this morning (June 4).

    The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had authorised detectives to charge Craig with murder.

    A spokesman said Ms Kirk had suffered “serious burns injuries” during an incident 21 years before her

    https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19349817.steven-craig-charged-murder-jacqueline-kirk-appears-bristol-magistrates-court/

    I thought there was the old year and a day thing that applied to such cases.
    That was abolished 25 years ago.
    Crikey, that makes me Mr Behind the Times !!

    Thanks.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419

    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Expect Labour to harp on at the sidelines about 22% minimum..

    They’ve become totally irrelevant.
    The same labour who opposed the recent short term hike to 25%.

    They’re a shambles at the moment.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217

    471,939 vaccinations in England yesterday - 150,337 1st doses, 321,602 2nd doses

    The UK now has over 40m with first doses and over 27m with two doses.

    Not good enough.
    You are sounding just like Keir Starmer from about 10 comments ago :smile:

    Update: Aha. I see it was one Mr Urquhart that said it: :smile::smile::smile:

    FrancisUrquhart said:I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,348
    edited June 2021

    darkage said:

    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
    I am trying to remember the name of the Saki short story.

    Set in Edwardian times, it has a Suffragette movement come up with the following idea - erect replicas of the Albert Memorial *everywhere* - thousands of them. Unless they are immediately given the vote.

    The government and nation are horrified. In an afternoon they pass the most glorious legislation of the 20th cent -

    Banning the construction of any memorial statuary within 2 miles of a public highway....
    http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Thre.shtml
    Thank you....

    When I become un-Dictator of the UK I will be applying this one

    http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/HerIra.shtml

    to the issue of Scottish Independence.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,761
    Dura_Ace said:

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    He's already favourite to be the Republican nominee at 4.5. Those odds can only shorten.

    2 years 7 months until the Iowa caucus!
    Terrifying.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,100

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    No, seems very unlikely to ever be implemented. Tory fan boys not particularly concerned and claiming success already. We shall see, hope I am very wrong on this.
    To be fair this is being driven by Joe Biden with full UK support and goes to the G20

    If they approve it then expect it to happen quite quickly
  • AnExileinD4AnExileinD4 Posts: 337
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
    If you’re referencing the Sandbrook review of a history book written but a noted Twitter moron then it was an absolutely eviscerating. People may not like Sandbrook’s views but they would struggle to construct a compelling argument that his books are either badly written or badly argued (in need of someone to tell him that sometimes less is more, perhaps).

    I’m always fascinated by how people without relevant skills and knowledge feel able to write either history or children’s books. The latter in particular draws the “right name will sell any old shit”. I’m sure you can name a few.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
    The U.K. simply doesn’t have the capacity for everyone to have a staycation... I imagine that people cancelling holidays abroad now are finding it very hard to book anything in the U.K. And if you manage to book somewhere in the Dales, treat finding a car park space in the likes of Malham or Grassington as seriously as reserving a sun lounger by the pool...
    Hartlepool Marina Travelodge is £35 a night, lots of availability in July/August.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    I missed something.

    Tories doing what?
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,612

    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
    The U.K. simply doesn’t have the capacity for everyone to have a staycation... I imagine that people cancelling holidays abroad now are finding it very hard to book anything in the U.K. And if you manage to book somewhere in the Dales, treat finding a car park space in the likes of Malham or Grassington as seriously as reserving a sun lounger by the pool...
    Given that a staycation is staying at your own home it certainly does.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    tlg86 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..

    I presume it is some witless intern pushing this out. He’s been tweeting about it all week. But previously criticising the Tories for opposing it when they clearly didn’t.
    It is one of the most tedious criticism, up there with 20 mins to save the NHS. And shows a lack of understanding / misrepresentation of how tax rates work.

    It’s cheap politics of the worst type. There have been several tweets this week saying the Tories won’t sign up to one, it’s a disgrace, they’re starving our NHS etc etc. Now they have and they have got a win on the digital services tax that’s not good enough. People, apart from the hardcore supporters, just zone out after a while.

    Last nights ITV news had someone on from a Tax ‘fairness’ group prattling on with the same line too. Implement this and we can give all the critical workers in the sainted NHS 5% and pay everyone’s care costs etc etc.

    All goes unchallenged too.
    Don’t worry, it serves the Tory very well having a broadcast media that is so obviously biased.
    But it doesn’t serve the public.

    I also don’t see it in terms of bias more that we have a 24 hour news cycle with pressure on costs and overheads in a very competitive field in terms of viewers.

    News organisations are more reliant on press releases from lobbying groups, charities and quangos to recycle as news to simply fill air time.

    My local news would probably,only be 15 minutes if it was only genuine news not recycled press releases.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    MattW said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    I missed something.

    Tories doing what?
    variants of pork barrel politics
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
    The U.K. simply doesn’t have the capacity for everyone to have a staycation... I imagine that people cancelling holidays abroad now are finding it very hard to book anything in the U.K. And if you manage to book somewhere in the Dales, treat finding a car park space in the likes of Malham or Grassington as seriously as reserving a sun lounger by the pool...
    Everyone here I know who has holiday accommodation is booked out through to October, and many of them have put their prices up as well. You haven’t been able to park down by the Park after mid morning for weeks now.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    Dura_Ace said:

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    He's already favourite to be the Republican nominee at 4.5. Those odds can only shorten.

    2 years 7 months until the Iowa caucus!
    Terrifying.
    Unless he is physically incapable (mental capacity doesn't really matter because he's completely brainfucked anyway) he's going to run and he's going to be the the Republican nominee.

    He could definitely beat Kamala but could he beat Biden's Lich? Dunno.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..

    I presume it is some witless intern pushing this out. He’s been tweeting about it all week. But previously criticising the Tories for opposing it when they clearly didn’t.
    It is one of the most tedious criticism, up there with 20 mins to save the NHS. And shows a lack of understanding / misrepresentation of how tax rates work.

    It’s cheap politics of the worst type. There have been several tweets this week saying the Tories won’t sign up to one, it’s a disgrace, they’re starving our NHS etc etc. Now they have and they have got a win on the digital services tax that’s not good enough. People, apart from the hardcore supporters, just zone out after a while.

    Last nights ITV news had someone on from a Tax ‘fairness’ group prattling on with the same line too. Implement this and we can give all the critical workers in the sainted NHS 5% and pay everyone’s care costs etc etc.

    All goes unchallenged too.
    Don’t worry, it serves the Tory very well having a broadcast media that is so obviously biased.
    But it doesn’t serve the public.

    I also don’t see it in terms of bias more that we have a 24 hour news cycle with pressure on costs and overheads in a very competitive field in terms of viewers.

    News organisations are more reliant on press releases from lobbying groups, charities and quangos to recycle as news to simply fill air time.

    My local news would probably,only be 15 minutes if it was only genuine news not recycled press releases.
    I tend to think that most of the public are smart enough to realise that most of these people have an agenda and take it all with a pinch of salt.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,030
    I love the way that the members of Independent SAGE trigger so many PBers on a daily basis.

    On an unrelated note, today I discovered that 'Newark' has an amusing anagram. How I have never realised this for myself, I do not know.

    Now time for an improving book in the garden...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,595
    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Is the EU one country or 27 in the context? Presumably there’s still nothing wrong will all of a company’s EU revenue going through Ireland, but now taxed at 20% rather than 12.5%.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    471,939 vaccinations in England yesterday - 150,337 1st doses, 321,602 2nd doses

    The UK now has over 40m with first doses and over 27m with two doses.

    Not good enough.
    Agreed. The much vaunted surge has failed to arrive. Poor if not very poor.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    darkage said:

    MattW said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    I missed something.

    Tories doing what?
    variants of pork barrel politics
    Aha - that piece linked earlier with the Guardian in a flap.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,827

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    No, seems very unlikely to ever be implemented. Tory fan boys not particularly concerned and claiming success already. We shall see, hope I am very wrong on this.
    To be fair this is being driven by Joe Biden with full UK support and goes to the G20

    If they approve it then expect it to happen quite quickly
    It is not even listed as a story on politico.com. Biden probably only has about 40 reliable votes on a radical tax bill.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    The tax news seems like a tremendous success.

    While this was Biden’s push in macro, I doubt it would have been possible without some of the policy work and positioning put in by HM Treasury and latterly Rishi.

    The devil will be in the detail I suppose, but on the face of it this is a great moment.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    Oh dear, bad news for Indie SAGE here, who if I recall squealed repeatedly that opening schools would be an utter disaster.


    Shamez Ladhani
    @ShamezLadhani
    ·
    21h
    In England, 9 million kids have been in full time in-person schooling for a full 6 weeks since 18 April 2021 & #SARSCoV2 infection rates *did not increase* in any school-aged cohort, despite emergence & national spread of Indian B.1.617.2 delta variant👉https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/991081/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w22.pdf

    The issue with people like non-independent sage, is nobody holds their claims to account. By they are provee wrong (or right), they are moving the goal posts and onto the next thing...

    And of course our media are too thick to ever call them out.
    Not sure if it’s right but Fraser Nelson tweeted yesterday about ‘real’ Sage’s hospital forecasts - out by orders of magnitude IIRC.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    @Alistair where do you get the vaccination data per age group per city please?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,865
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    Is the EU one country or 27 in the context? Presumably there’s still nothing wrong will all of a company’s EU revenue going through Ireland, but now taxed at 20% rather than 12.5%.
    27, the EU doesn't have competency on tax other than VAT. It's why Ireland's veto to the EU's agreement is completely meaningless.

    I could easily see this type of taxation become the global norm and companies will simply have to agree to it if they want to operate in the countries that implement it. So even if Apple Europe is still nominally Irish, in order to sell iPhones in the UK or Italy their UK and Italian revenue is subject to this tax. What can Ireland really do?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    I love the way that the members of Independent SAGE trigger so many PBers on a daily basis.

    On an unrelated note, today I discovered that 'Newark' has an amusing anagram. How I have never realised this for myself, I do not know.

    Now time for an improving book in the garden...

    Yes people get irritated by a bunch of completely unaccountable attention-seeking nonentities trying to dominate the public agenda. Funny old world.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,761
    Dura_Ace said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    He's already favourite to be the Republican nominee at 4.5. Those odds can only shorten.

    2 years 7 months until the Iowa caucus!
    Terrifying.
    Unless he is physically incapable (mental capacity doesn't really matter because he's completely brainfucked anyway) he's going to run and he's going to be the the Republican nominee.

    He could definitely beat Kamala but could he beat Biden's Lich? Dunno.
    A lot will depend on the economy. If, as some of the high priests of Keynesian like Summers are saying, Biden has gone too far with splashing the cash around, then there could be big problems by next presidential election.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,865

    The tax news seems like a tremendous success.

    While this was Biden’s push in macro, I doubt it would have been possible without some of the policy work and positioning put in by HM Treasury and latterly Rishi.

    The devil will be in the detail I suppose, but on the face of it this is a great moment.

    The digital tax is a huge win for the UK. The other European countries were willing to just agree to the 15% baseline, it was Rishi that pushed Biden into the digital tax and convinced the US that everyone wins from it other than the few parasite countries like Ireland and Luxembourg.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,706

    I love the way that the members of Independent SAGE trigger so many PBers on a daily basis.

    On an unrelated note, today I discovered that 'Newark' has an amusing anagram. How I have never realised this for myself, I do not know.

    Now time for an improving book in the garden...

    Warken.

    As in, "you totally Kirsty Wark'ened that"
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,285
    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    I see Starmer is already on the 15%, not enough...if it was x, you could hire y more nurses..

    I presume it is some witless intern pushing this out. He’s been tweeting about it all week. But previously criticising the Tories for opposing it when they clearly didn’t.
    It is one of the most tedious criticism, up there with 20 mins to save the NHS. And shows a lack of understanding / misrepresentation of how tax rates work.

    It’s cheap politics of the worst type. There have been several tweets this week saying the Tories won’t sign up to one, it’s a disgrace, they’re starving our NHS etc etc. Now they have and they have got a win on the digital services tax that’s not good enough. People, apart from the hardcore supporters, just zone out after a while.

    Last nights ITV news had someone on from a Tax ‘fairness’ group prattling on with the same line too. Implement this and we can give all the critical workers in the sainted NHS 5% and pay everyone’s care costs etc etc.

    All goes unchallenged too.
    Don’t worry, it serves the Tory very well having a broadcast media that is so obviously biased.
    But it doesn’t serve the public.

    I also don’t see it in terms of bias more that we have a 24 hour news cycle with pressure on costs and overheads in a very competitive field in terms of viewers.

    News organisations are more reliant on press releases from lobbying groups, charities and quangos to recycle as news to simply fill air time.

    My local news would probably,only be 15 minutes if it was only genuine news not recycled press releases.
    Back in 1930 the BBC took the view that if nothing important had happened then they should say so:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39633603

    I must admit I though it was an apocryphal story, but the BBC confirms it happened.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Jonathan said:

    A donation of just £500 will buy the Prime Minister a new toilet roll holder.

    Donate £5000 and you can become a golden bidet founder member.

    Be a bit of a bugger to make contributions in exchange for an honour, only to be rewarded by a revival of the Groom of the Stool, only to the PM.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool
  • Simon_PeachSimon_Peach Posts: 424

    Cyclefree said:

    Staff shortages beginning to affect hospitality businesses here in the tourist hotspot that is the Yorkshire Dales. Pubs and cafes choosing to close midweek or run limited services despite huge demand. On a different matter, walk-in vaccinations for over-18s seemed to have stopped suddenly - no idea why.

    Same in the Lakes. Every single cafe, pub, restaurant I have seen or heard from is hiring.

    Demand is off the scale. The other night the usual 35 covers, which is busy for Daughter's small kitchen, went up to 50.

    I now have a late blooming career as a waitress. Comfortable shoes are now the only thing that matter to me .......
    Be interesting to see if this bounce back continues. Haldane's prediction of turbo charged v recovery may be happening.

    Certainly the level of building work around me is astonishing.
    The U.K. simply doesn’t have the capacity for everyone to have a staycation... I imagine that people cancelling holidays abroad now are finding it very hard to book anything in the U.K. And if you manage to book somewhere in the Dales, treat finding a car park space in the likes of Malham or Grassington as seriously as reserving a sun lounger by the pool...
    Given that a staycation is staying at your own home it certainly does.
    Point taken with respect to accommodation... however, the same capacity constraints affect the day out at the seaside or walking in the hills...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
    Stop worrying. I am not a Labour strategist.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    edited June 2021
    Some time before midday on Monday, quite a lot of English MPs will start getting distinctly twitchy. It is then that they will first see the results of a major redrawing of parliamentary boundaries, with a number of seats set to change, even disappear.

    While the proposed new boundaries will not be publicly announced before Monday night, MPs can collect information about their own area from Commons officials at midday.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
  • AnExileinD4AnExileinD4 Posts: 337
    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
    Stop worrying. I am not a Labour strategist.
    You should throw in an application. It’s pretty much an open position.

    At present they seem to confuse tactics and strategy.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    kle4 said:

    Jonathan said:

    A donation of just £500 will buy the Prime Minister a new toilet roll holder.

    Donate £5000 and you can become a golden bidet founder member.

    Be a bit of a bugger to make contributions in exchange for an honour, only to be rewarded by a revival of the Groom of the Stool, only to the PM.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool
    Presumably the modern day equivalent is the royal correspondent of the daily mail.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
    Stop worrying. I am not a Labour strategist.
    That’s quite obvious given they clearly don’t have any.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,285

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
    Stop worrying. I am not a Labour strategist.
    You should throw in an application. It’s pretty much an open position.

    At present they seem to confuse tactics and strategy.
    I thought the saying was “amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics”?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    Ed Conway has got hold of the German Finance minister...

    Sadly he didn’t say “I don’t like, but I’ll have to go along with it.”
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Taz said:
    I like that it throws in 'But a scientist pointed to "concerning signs" of the variant's spread' and it then takes a long while before it gets to who 'a scientist' is and what precisely they are saying. 'A scientist' could be any number of people or a lone nutter geologist for all I know, you really need to set the scene for who the scientist is when you bring it up at the beginning.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,419
    tlg86 said:

    Ed Conway has got hold of the German Finance minister...

    Sadly he didn’t say “I don’t like, but I’ll have to go along with it.”

    What exactly did he say, Peter ?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689
    tlg86 said:

    Ed Conway has got hold of the German Finance minister...

    Sadly he didn’t say “I don’t like, but I’ll have to go along with it.”

    They wanted trenter percenter but had to settle for less.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    Breaking: A huge queue has formed outside a health centre in Harrow, in London, which is offering jabs to those aged 18 and over.

    Belmont health centre in Stanmore, Harrow, is open on Saturday to over-18s who are still waiting for their first vaccine and who live or work in Harrow.

    The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is being administered all day at the walk-in clinic and people do not need to be registered with the practice to get their vaccine.
  • theakestheakes Posts: 930
    At the moment a Lib Dem landslide? However still two weeks to go.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    I really don't want to get into a rant about american attitudes to guns, but I must say that this opening to the ruling in California against a state ban on assault weapons makes it sound like the judge is on the home shopping network.

    In the opening to his ruling, Judge Benitez wrote: "Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57368211
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,410
    Find it amusing a Transport Minister almost failed to make Any Questions due to a nightmare journey.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805

    Breaking news

    Rishi just announced G7 historic tax system agreement

    Will it actually be implemented before Trump takes office for his second term and reverses it?
    No, seems very unlikely to ever be implemented. Tory fan boys not particularly concerned and claiming success already. We shall see, hope I am very wrong on this.
    To be fair this is being driven by Joe Biden with full UK support and goes to the G20

    If they approve it then expect it to happen quite quickly
    It is not even listed as a story on politico.com. Biden probably only has about 40 reliable votes on a radical tax bill.
    This may split the GOP though. There’s lots of anti-tech monopoly hatred on the right, these days.

    Interesting times.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,595
    Taz said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    On the actual topic, I think that the trouble with the tories doing this is that labour could do the same thing.
    One suggestion is to select about 20 constituencies in the south east that they have no hope of winning and declare that they will each have 100,000 houses in the next five years, all over the green belt/countryside, including a vast programme of council house building to ease the pressure on central london and house every homeless person, with a promise that the remaining consituencies (ie marginal ones that labour have a chance of winning) will be protected with no housebuilding at all.

    They could do but while Labour may have no chance in most of those Home Counties seats the LDs often will and will be campaigning there on a platform of no building on the greenbelt and countryside as they are doing in Chesham and Amersham.

    Therefore unless Labour win an overall majority, which is extremely unlikely given present polling, to become PM Starmer would almost certainly need LD confidence and supply and the LDs would veto any largescale development in greenbelt areas of their Southeastern target seats
    I don't see the downside. Labour would win the whole of London and large parts of the south east, taking seats off the tories. They would be able to claim to solve the housing problem in London thus scuppering the LD's chances in a load of other seats; the LD;s could not meaningfully campaign on housing issues. Labour could also use the strategy to take seats of the LD's. The LD's would be forced in to the position of becoming anti housebuilding party. Whats the downside for Labour?
    They wouldn't, only 8 of the top 100 Labour target seats are in the South East, Hastings and Rye, Wycombe, Reading West, Southampton Itchen, Milton Keynes North and South, Worthing East and Shoreham amd Crawley. By contrast 31 of the top 100 LD target seats are in the South East.

    Labour might win a few more suburban seats in London plus Kensington but the vast majority of London seats are already Labour anyway.

    Labour therefore needs the LDs to win some Tory seats in the South East to have any chance at all of depriving the Tories of a majority in 2024 unless they make serious inroads in terms of regaining their seats in the Red Wall which again on current polling is very unlikely.

    If the LDs get close to the Tories in Chesham and Amersham but Labour see their majority down in Batley or the Tories even win it that will just confirm the above.

    Not 1 of the 11 LD seats has Labour in second place, so there is also zero mileage for Labour in targeting LD seats
    The labour crisis is existential though. If they cannot win back the seats in the red wall, which on current perfomance it seems they cannot, then they need another strategy. The one I have outlined would be quite appealing to their woke metropolitan followers. And, they don't actually need to win and implement it, they can just use it to gain seats.

    Anyway, it was intended as a thought experiment rather than an actual strategy.
    Their woke metropolitan followers already vote Labour though.

    At the moment Tory Remainers in the South East are more likely to switch to the LDs than Tory Leavers in the Red Wall are likely to switch to Labour, until that changes it is not a viable strategy
    Stop worrying. I am not a Labour strategist.
    That’s quite obvious given they clearly don’t have any.
    Arf!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Dura_Ace said:

    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    I don't recall the government advising people to book holidays in Portugal?

    I feel really sorry for all those who followed Government advice & in good faith booked holidays in Portugal.

    https://twitter.com/BarrySheerman/status/1400757894941925376?s=20

    Apart from banning leisure travel to the entire rest of the world and then putting a green flag with a big arrow pointing to well known beach-and-sun destination Portugal, they did nothing to encourage it, at all.

    "It's holiday time, folks! Here's where you can go:

    - a few places that won't let you in anyway;
    - a few more places no sane person would take a holiday;
    - Portugal !! "
    I’m tempted to go to Malta
    Don't. Their "hunters" blast all our migrant birds - on a massive scale.
    They are very fond of shooting dogs too and there's fucking rubbish everywhere. Lively nightlife on The Gut though.
    On the other hand they have a couple of Caravaggios that I’ve never seen
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    It might not be long until Younge finds himself cancelled, if he carries on writing articles like this.

    He is right though, for the most part statues are dubious works of public art. The broader problem that we should be concerned about is the woke takeover of the historical profession; the overt rewriting of history to suit a fashionable political narrative. It was admirable that the historical profession held out for a long time but the dominoes are now falling at speed. Dominic Sandbrook has written recently about this.
    If you’re referencing the Sandbrook review of a history book written but a noted Twitter moron then it was an absolutely eviscerating. People may not like Sandbrook’s views but they would struggle to construct a compelling argument that his books are either badly written or badly argued (in need of someone to tell him that sometimes less is more, perhaps).

    I’m always fascinated by how people without relevant skills and knowledge feel able to write either history or children’s books. The latter in particular draws the “right name will sell any old shit”. I’m sure you can name a few.
    Yep - fake history is a big problem. Although I do admire Tom Holland, who writes excellent books and hasn't ever had a significant academic position.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,988
    ping said:

    MaxPB said:

    Wow the tax deal is even better than we were being told yesterday afternoon.

    20% tax on profits for companies with global margins higher than 10% to be paid to the country where the revenue is driven. It makes Ireland's business model completey useless.

    The economic liberals are truly in retreat.

    This is great news.
    I’m getting the impression that Ireland getting a boot in the baws is almost more important than a more equitable international corporation tax deal for some.

    I seem to recall at various times during the Brexit Via Dolorosa some Brexiteers suggesting that this was a marvellous opportunity for Global Britain to become more 'competitive' in the tax arena. At least there should be a merciful respite from that sort of guff.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,595
    dixiedean said:

    Find it amusing a Transport Minister almost failed to make Any Questions due to a nightmare journey.

    One for the Alanis Morisette file :)
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    UK officials insist that the EU cannot seriously believe that rabies will enter the UK, make its way to Northern Ireland, and from there spread into the Republic and beyond to the rest of the EU......

    Writing in the Belfast Telegraph this week, Lord Frost and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis accused the EU of focusing on risks (to the single market and consumer health) "that don’t exist".

    "Only if implemented in a pragmatic and proportionate way can the Protocol support the peace process and ensure the people of Northern Ireland continue to see the benefits of prosperity and stability. If it does not do this, then it is not working," they wrote.....

    By contrast, the UK is now presenting itself as the more reliable defender of the Good Friday Agreement (a posture that has infuriated Irish officials), while also proclaiming a more proactive approach than the European Commission in trying to find solutions.

    "The UK has now sent more than 10 papers to the European Commission, proposing potential solutions on a wide range of issues," said a UK government spokesperson. "As yet, we have had no written response from the EU."


    https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0604/1226148-tony-connelly-analysis/

    Most of the (very rare) rabies cases we have here can be traced back to bats that make it over from France
This discussion has been closed.