Based on that chart the biggest threat to Sunak and the Tories is Farage. He has a higher favourability and net positive rating now than Sunak, although Sunak still has a higher favourable rating than Tice if he stays Reform leader. Beyond that getting immigration under control, cutting tax and controlling inflation and interest rate levels are more important for the Tories than who their leader is.
Burnham's higher rating than Starmer makes him still a contender for the Labour leadership at some stage if Starmer wins but proves unpopular in power and if he is back as an MP
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because she that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
What is notable is how the claims about her have changed over time, here on PB as well as in the newspapers. Classic sign of not finding what they had imagined in the first place.
The real lesson here - when I sold my flat (usual get married, keep it for a while, then use it to pay down mortgage) I spent a few hundred quid on an accountant to do the CGT. For that, I got a neat PDF of exactly how he calculated the tax. With the evidence in the appendix.
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Ditto here when I was an executor for a deceased relative - a CGT issue arose over thje house sale. The solicitor brought in the CGT specialist in his practice and the chap sorted it all out and told me what to do with HMRC and by when. HMRC got their correct cut absolutely on the dot. Well worth it for a few hundred quid.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
AIUI she lived there for several years, and then got married. You have several years to dispose of such a property become it becomes liable for CGT. She’s not my favourite politician either, but that part of the story does seem to be a nothing burger.
It would be interesting to see her addresses as listed with the Parliamentary authorities during that time though, that’s potentially the bigger political - rather than legal - story.
I think she's still fairly bulletproof on this. Even if her tax advice is successfully challenged, her claim of ignorance is fairly credible (in a way it wouldn't be for eg Reeves), and all she'd then have to do would be pay any tax owing.
Can't believe so much ink has been wasted on this story. There are far better critiques of Labour.
Does anyone seriously believe HMRC haven't had a look already?
I'd be concerned if HMRC had, tbh. They shouldn't be in business of investigating the tax affairs of a opposition politician just because of some press coverage.
If I worked at HMRC and was asked to go digging, I would punt that as far away as possible, preferably to an external tax advising firm for an independent review (indefinite timescale for completion).
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Former Tory Chairman Chris Patten tells @AndrewMarr9 he wouldn't vote Tory at the next election: "I couldn't vote for a candidate who'd been in favour of Brexit...Brexit has been a bloody disaster...I don't think Starmer & Reeves are remotely dangerous" https://twitter.com/hattmarris84/status/1770889429176983684
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
It would be an acceptance that the rich and powerful should not be afraid to pay trivial amounts of tax.
Incidentally has Rayner's husband agreed to pay CGT on his home or were they living separate lives after getting married.
What makes you think she is afraid to pay tax?
At the time she admits she didnt know the rules fully but thought she was in compliance.
She subsequently appointed tax consultants to re-examine it and they say it is fine, perhaps on some technicality or perhaps she simply sold some shares that year that had made a loss to offset the £1,500 that someone without all the facts has estimated.
I am not against all MPs tax and finances being made public, but this carry on over £1,500 when there are others with multi million question marks over their tax handling is silly.
Which is my point - a trivial amount but gets her lumped into the "they're all the same, always dodging tax with the help of lawyers and consultants" category.
Paying it would be an admission of guilt or at best carelessness with a possibility of guilt. Not paying it is maintaining her innocence. Assuming she has a leg to stand on, which if you take what what she has said at face value she clearly does, not paying is clearly the better course of action politically.
If paying £1,500 would make the story go away, I'm sure she would. But, it would mean she has been lying. And it wouldn't be so much to do with paying tax, it would be the lie about her living arrangements and being landlord (even if an informal landlord).
Its an everyday story of the complications of living which happens in many streets all over the country.
Perhaps a bit of informal rent paid here and a maybe bit of tax accidentally dodged there.
It happened before Rayner became an MP.
But its the denial which causes the damage.
Far more likely it is a smokescreen for the stories about MPs charging the public for Londoin accommodation and then renting out the London houses they already owned.
O/T but I love it when Desert Island Discs surprises me on a Friday morning. I usually wait to see who is on and then switch onto something else as work background and was going to switch off today’s but was distracted by an email.
Today’s guest is a lady called Jenny Sealey who is a Theatre director who is deaf. I thought it was going to be some right on woke-fest. It showed my prejudices as she’s very funny, interesting, relaxed about life and frankly I would probably have a hoot with her over some beers.
All power to Jenny Sealey and no power to my inner gammon.
Based on that chart the biggest threat to Sunak and the Tories is Farage. He has a higher favourability and net positive rating now than Sunak, although Sunak still has a higher favourable rating than Tice if he stays Reform leader. Beyond that getting immigration under control, cutting tax and controlling inflation and interest rate levels are more important for the Tories than who their leader is.
Burnham's higher rating than Starmer makes him still a contender for the Labour leadership at some stage if Starmer wins but proves unpopular in power and if he is back as an MP
Immigration is under control. A few thousand crossing the channel, a mere gnat on the backside of overall immigration, is not.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because she that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
What is notable is how the claims about her have changed over time, here on PB as well as in the newspapers. Classic sign of not finding what they had imagined in the first place.
The real lesson here - when I sold my flat (usual get married, keep it for a while, then use it to pay down mortgage) I spent a few hundred quid on an accountant to do the CGT. For that, I got a neat PDF of exactly how he calculated the tax. With the evidence in the appendix.
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Ditto here when I was an executor for a deceased relative - a CGT issue arose over thje house sale. The solicitor brought in the CGT specialist in his practice and the chap sorted it all out and told me what to do with HMRC and by when. HMRC got their correct cut absolutely on the dot. Well worth it for a few hundred quid.
An impartial reader might wonder if the amounts where posters are getting specialist tax advice in are just possibly a tad higher than a £127k house sale.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
No need to apologise, please: quite the reverse. You're giving a strong personal assessment of something very relevant to modern politics in the UK.
I've always been of the opinion that the "Maybe the horse will learn to sing" impulse was going to be very strong. Perhaps Sunak could overcome it, but the default pressure would be to wait.
For any who aren't aware of the old fable, it runs like this:
A thief was caught in the act and hauled up before the king, who sentenced him to die, sentence to be carried out immediately. The thief cried out if the king should spare him, he would teach the king's favourite horse to sing.
The king was amused and gave him a year to achieve his boast. When the thief was being pulled away, a fellow prisoner laughed at him. "You know you can't do it, don't you?"
The thief shrugged. "Perhaps. But I now have another year I didn't have before. A lot of things could happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die."
"And who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to sing."
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
It would be an acceptance that the rich and powerful should not be afraid to pay trivial amounts of tax.
Incidentally has Rayner's husband agreed to pay CGT on his home or were they living separate lives after getting married.
What makes you think she is afraid to pay tax?
At the time she admits she didnt know the rules fully but thought she was in compliance.
She subsequently appointed tax consultants to re-examine it and they say it is fine, perhaps on some technicality or perhaps she simply sold some shares that year that had made a loss to offset the £1,500 that someone without all the facts has estimated.
I am not against all MPs tax and finances being made public, but this carry on over £1,500 when there are others with multi million question marks over their tax handling is silly.
Which is my point - a trivial amount but gets her lumped into the "they're all the same, always dodging tax with the help of lawyers and consultants" category.
Paying it would be an admission of guilt or at best carelessness with a possibility of guilt. Not paying it is maintaining her innocence. Assuming she has a leg to stand on, which if you take what what she has said at face value she clearly does, not paying is clearly the better course of action politically.
If paying £1,500 would make the story go away, I'm sure she would. But, it would mean she has been lying. And it wouldn't be so much to do with paying tax, it would be the lie about her living arrangements and being landlord (even if an informal landlord).
Its an everyday story of the complications of living which happens in many streets all over the country.
Perhaps a bit of informal rent paid here and a maybe bit of tax accidentally dodged there.
It happened before Rayner became an MP.
But its the denial which causes the damage.
Far more likely it is a smokescreen for the stories about MPs charging the public for Londoin accommodation and then renting out the London houses they already owned.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because she that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
What is notable is how the claims about her have changed over time, here on PB as well as in the newspapers. Classic sign of not finding what they had imagined in the first place.
The real lesson here - when I sold my flat (usual get married, keep it for a while, then use it to pay down mortgage) I spent a few hundred quid on an accountant to do the CGT. For that, I got a neat PDF of exactly how he calculated the tax. With the evidence in the appendix.
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Ditto here when I was an executor for a deceased relative - a CGT issue arose over thje house sale. The solicitor brought in the CGT specialist in his practice and the chap sorted it all out and told me what to do with HMRC and by when. HMRC got their correct cut absolutely on the dot. Well worth it for a few hundred quid.
An impartial reader might wonder if the amounts where posters are getting specialist tax advice in are just possibly a tad higher than a £127k house sale.
Not that much, actually, when one allows for inflation; there were also losses elsewhere that could be offset but this needed to be done properly.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
My *impression* is that her financial affairs were more than a little messy, as many of ours are at times.
As I suggested earlier, if she were shadow chancellor, I'd be seriously alarmed. But that scenario seems highly unlikely.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because she that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
What is notable is how the claims about her have changed over time, here on PB as well as in the newspapers. Classic sign of not finding what they had imagined in the first place.
The real lesson here - when I sold my flat (usual get married, keep it for a while, then use it to pay down mortgage) I spent a few hundred quid on an accountant to do the CGT. For that, I got a neat PDF of exactly how he calculated the tax. With the evidence in the appendix.
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Ditto here when I was an executor for a deceased relative - a CGT issue arose over thje house sale. The solicitor brought in the CGT specialist in his practice and the chap sorted it all out and told me what to do with HMRC and by when. HMRC got their correct cut absolutely on the dot. Well worth it for a few hundred quid.
An impartial reader might wonder if the amounts where posters are getting specialist tax advice in are just possibly a tad higher than a £127k house sale.
Not that much, actually, when one allows for inflation; there were also losses elsewhere that could be offset but this needed to be done properly.
Based on that chart the biggest threat to Sunak and the Tories is Farage. He has a higher favourability and net positive rating now than Sunak, although Sunak still has a higher favourable rating than Tice if he stays Reform leader. Beyond that getting immigration under control, cutting tax and controlling inflation and interest rate levels are more important for the Tories than who their leader is.
Burnham's higher rating than Starmer makes him still a contender for the Labour leadership at some stage if Starmer wins but proves unpopular in power and if he is back as an MP
It's interesting that Tice's favourable rating is closely correlated with Reform's polling numbers. On that basis, I think I would agree - they could maybe get a percentage or two from going with Farage; however, I suspect that would be a blip (albeit a blip that could last through the next GE) and insufficient to propel reform to the 20%+ they need (along with some vote concentration) to actually win a few seats.
The leader Reform needs to do that probably isn't in this list; but someone who emerges after the next election if they do well enough to stay in touch with a Tory party that does particularly badly.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
Just appalling. We will look back on this and weep at the madness
NEW: NHS England has announced that new youth gender services will provide masculinising and feminising hormones to children from ‘around their 16th birthday.’ This goes further than GIDS ever did: YPs cld only access hormones at 16 if they’d been on puberty blockers for 1 year🧵
How has a tiny band of crazy trans activists captured our entire health service? Indeed the entire establishment?
Here we run into the definition of adulthood. The former PB contributor @SeanT once wrote an article describing how in his thirties he made a prostitute pregnant and made her have an abortion. He stated that the age of the prostitute was seventeen. Now here's the question: when he did that, did he have sex with a child?
Societies and their people suffer when they fail to differentiate children from adults. Children do not have agency but adults do. I understand the arguments against childhood transition but not for adults: their bodies, their choice. Given that the @SeanT threshold for adulthood seems to be between 16 and 18, this would meet that criterion.
What a fantastic crushing response to Leon.
The guy’s utter hypocrisy, and permaconfusion, stripped bare like that naked girl.
I didn't mean it that way. My point was genuinely speaking to one of several concerns I have about the UK, which is the blurring of the difference between children and adults. This results in adultised children and infantilised adults, to nobody's benefit (and poor decision making). By selecting a well-known former contributor I hoped to concretize the issue: I genuinely don't think @SeanT commited a crime. But the UK needs to sort out the border between childhood and adulthood.
By his own admission @SeanT committed many crimes judging by his tawdry tales
There’s possibly a serious discussion to be had about the transition from childhood to adulthood, as indeed there is on gender issues. But I still don’t believe this internet forum to be the right place. There are too many hotheads, and unlike political debate on here far too much ignorance, including of the many nuances involved. The cloak of anonymity and lack of face-to-face representation makes discussion of certain deep topics not only ill-advised but injurious.
There’s a time and a place for everything and knowing the limits in life is always a good lesson. For example, you wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, come onto pb to air your recent session on a psychiatric couch.
This site is best when it sticks to politics.
I won’t of course stop people airing their views, I just shan’t participate even though I’ve been described as one of the country’s experts in this particular area.
I turned down a programme with Louis Theroux on this topic because even with him I didn’t feel the environment to be right. Saying no to Piers Morgan was a lot easier.
Bit strange. What unique insight does one need to have a view on this. Analogous to the abortion debate. We all agree that the abortion limit should be somewhere between zero weeks and full term but no one "knows" and there is no one answer.
Same with views on gender. The two sides are pretty straightforward - why should (how dare) someone police my view of my own gender; and why should someone I consider of the opposite sex be allowed to intrude upon "my" space.
It's where we draw the line that is the debate and you and I are just as at liberty to discuss it as ContraPoints or Matt Walsh.
Talking about abortion - I noticed recently that our antiabortionists are actively campaigning for the rights of rapists to father children on unwilling women, for a much greater degree than expected. Presumably they are delighted with this news.
If Rishi had called an election as soon as he became leader the Tories would probably be already building a plan to return. Right now they’re heading for the possibility of never governing again.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
The message from Labour should be you can’t trust the Tories to not change leader again so they could install another Truss disaster even if they win .
It’s probably a non story however your comparison between the Rayner accusation and the Sunak one is false. The point of the Rayner story is that it attempts to show and insinuates that she hasn’t paid tax that she is legally required to have paid. The Sunak’s haven’t paid tax on money that they don’t have to pay tax on because the laws allow what they did.
Sort of like saying the Sunak’s were spotted driving at 70 MPH on the motorway but Angela Rayner was only doing 30MPH, the problem is if she was doing the 30MPH in a 20 zone. It doesn’t matter that the Sunak’s were driving faster, they could do that under the law.
Exactly. It's not a like with like comparison. Should Sunak pay more tax? Probably, as should all wealthy people, but that doesn't mean he was oblidged to do so.
Labour should always remember what happened with Ken and Boris when it came to comparing their taxes. It was Boris who had the boring toe the line tax position, and it was Ken who was structuring his financial arrangements to minimise the tax he paid.
The genetic targeting of some lung cancers on the news today is good news. I have some personal experience of this and it isn't totally new. My Aunt went blind in one eye a year or so ago. It was tumour behind the eye. She was in fact riddled with cancer, the primary being lung cancer. It had spread to multiple organs including her brain. Her cancer can be genetically targeted. She takes a tablet each day. That's it. The cancer has been held back and her sight has returned. The side effects are minimal. Mainly brittle nails and dry skin.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
Cheaper to send a Home Secretary to Rwanda than an asylum seeker.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, spent £165,561 chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign Rishi Sunak’s deportation deal in Kigali.
The trip took place on 4 December to sign the new deal with the east African state after the supreme court’s finding that Rwanda was an “unsafe country”.
Cleverly travelled to Kigali with officials and a TV crew and signed the new legally binding treaty alongside Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, Vincent Biruta.
Cleverly was the third home secretary to make his way to Rwanda to sign an agreement, following in the steps of his predecessors Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
I haven’t seen the police statement but surprised they could reach a determination that quickly
Doesn't take long to look at simple facts and the law and conclude there's nothing to see here.
If she made a nomination, then yes. But then why not just say that?
Because she that would be lying. She's said that she was unaware of those rules at the time, and that she simply didn't think there was a tax liability on her only house. And claims she's since taken advice and been told there is no liability.
I don't particularly like Rayner, but this is a complete non story.
What is notable is how the claims about her have changed over time, here on PB as well as in the newspapers. Classic sign of not finding what they had imagined in the first place.
The real lesson here - when I sold my flat (usual get married, keep it for a while, then use it to pay down mortgage) I spent a few hundred quid on an accountant to do the CGT. For that, I got a neat PDF of exactly how he calculated the tax. With the evidence in the appendix.
He more than saved the money he cost - allowances for works done etc.
He included doing my full tax return for that year and even sorted out a screw up my employer had made with my tax code.
So I saved money and got peace of mind and proof that I’d done it right.
Ditto here when I was an executor for a deceased relative - a CGT issue arose over thje house sale. The solicitor brought in the CGT specialist in his practice and the chap sorted it all out and told me what to do with HMRC and by when. HMRC got their correct cut absolutely on the dot. Well worth it for a few hundred quid.
An impartial reader might wonder if the amounts where posters are getting specialist tax advice in are just possibly a tad higher than a £127k house sale.
Not that much, actually, when one allows for inflation; there were also losses elsewhere that could be offset but this needed to be done properly.
I did say a tad.....
Sure. But the house sale was delayed. And if one isn't familiar ... and now look at HMRC's penalties just for late submission of personal tax returns. They used to be proportionate to the actual tax owed; now they're absolute (£1K).
It’s probably a non story however your comparison between the Rayner accusation and the Sunak one is false. The point of the Rayner story is that it attempts to show and insinuates that she hasn’t paid tax that she is legally required to have paid. The Sunak’s haven’t paid tax on money that they don’t have to pay tax on because the laws allow what they did.
Sort of like saying the Sunak’s were spotted driving at 70 MPH on the motorway but Angela Rayner was only doing 30MPH, the problem is if she was doing the 30MPH in a 20 zone. It doesn’t matter that the Sunak’s were driving faster, they could do that under the law.
Exactly. It's not a like with like comparison. Should Sunak pay more tax? Probably, as should all wealthy people, but that doesn't mean he was oblidged to do so.
Labour should always remember what happened with Ken and Boris when it came to comparing their taxes. It was Boris who had the boring toe the line tax position, and it was Ken who was structuring his financial arrangements to minimise the tax he paid.
Both were toeing the line, though. Mr Johnson was simply being inefficient.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think I’m going to repeat this post every day, in the hope that someone at CCHQ reads it.
In the next six months, at least a million households are going to remortgage from 0.5% to 5.5%, costing them hundreds if not thousands extra per month. That’s several million voters with direct experience of the cost of living going through the metaphorical roof, or the actual roof for many who are forced to sell up and downsize.
Every day later than May 2nd, is a day that thousands of people get kicked up the arse by their bills, and see themselves as worse off than they were at the last election.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
The message from Labour should be you can’t trust the Tories to not change leader again so they could install another Truss disaster even if they win .
Labour don't even need a message this time around. Just watch the Tories destroy themselves in bemusement.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
The only quibble I have with your excellent post is the idea that anyone advocating for lower tax bear some responsibility for your lack of funding.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
Pay the money and claim moral superiority over tax dodgers.
Eh? Paying the money would be an admission of guilt.
The police have said its fine (although not sure why they investigated rather than HMRC) as has her tax accountant.
It would be an acceptance that the rich and powerful should not be afraid to pay trivial amounts of tax.
Incidentally has Rayner's husband agreed to pay CGT on his home or were they living separate lives after getting married.
What makes you think she is afraid to pay tax?
At the time she admits she didnt know the rules fully but thought she was in compliance.
She subsequently appointed tax consultants to re-examine it and they say it is fine, perhaps on some technicality or perhaps she simply sold some shares that year that had made a loss to offset the £1,500 that someone without all the facts has estimated.
I am not against all MPs tax and finances being made public, but this carry on over £1,500 when there are others with multi million question marks over their tax handling is silly.
Which is my point - a trivial amount but gets her lumped into the "they're all the same, always dodging tax with the help of lawyers and consultants" category.
Paying it would be an admission of guilt or at best carelessness with a possibility of guilt. Not paying it is maintaining her innocence. Assuming she has a leg to stand on, which if you take what what she has said at face value she clearly does, not paying is clearly the better course of action politically.
If paying £1,500 would make the story go away, I'm sure she would. But, it would mean she has been lying. And it wouldn't be so much to do with paying tax, it would be the lie about her living arrangements and being landlord (even if an informal landlord).
Its an everyday story of the complications of living which happens in many streets all over the country.
Perhaps a bit of informal rent paid here and a maybe bit of tax accidentally dodged there.
It happened before Rayner became an MP.
But its the denial which causes the damage.
Far more likely it is a smokescreen for the stories about MPs charging the public for Londoin accommodation and then renting out the London houses they already owned.
I'm sure there's plenty of that which goes on but it always has and always will.
And the rest of us have grown resigned to it.
Rayner's housing saga has the refreshing tawdriness of something between Benefits Street and Coronation Street.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
It’s probably a non story however your comparison between the Rayner accusation and the Sunak one is false. The point of the Rayner story is that it attempts to show and insinuates that she hasn’t paid tax that she is legally required to have paid. The Sunak’s haven’t paid tax on money that they don’t have to pay tax on because the laws allow what they did.
Sort of like saying the Sunak’s were spotted driving at 70 MPH on the motorway but Angela Rayner was only doing 30MPH, the problem is if she was doing the 30MPH in a 20 zone. It doesn’t matter that the Sunak’s were driving faster, they could do that under the law.
Exactly. It's not a like with like comparison. Should Sunak pay more tax? Probably, as should all wealthy people, but that doesn't mean he was oblidged to do so.
Labour should always remember what happened with Ken and Boris when it came to comparing their taxes. It was Boris who had the boring toe the line tax position, and it was Ken who was structuring his financial arrangements to minimise the tax he paid.
That was funny. Boris was invoicing the Telegraph and Spectator £3-5k a column as an individual self-employed, and paying a fortune he didn’t need to in income tax as a result. I’m sure his accountant was pulling his hair out at the arrangement.
Ken had a company and paid himself mostly in dividends.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
Only lawyers are immune from the consequences of being wrong about the law.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
The message from Labour should be you can’t trust the Tories to not change leader again so they could install another Truss disaster even if they win .
Labour don't even need a message this time around. Just watch the Tories destroy themselves in bemusement.
That seems to be pretty much Starmers approach at the moment.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
I am so so sorry to hear that. I hope you and the kids get help from the community. I know I would if I could. So sad.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
I think it makes it worse. Once we get to late October and the election hasn't been called, all target seats will be flooded with leaflets and canvassers (I bet the LDs will) knowing that the election will be either December or January. And it allows for extra rounds of expenses before the election limits kick in. The Tories will be foolish to delay beyond November and give (effectively) a 3 month campaign. That doesn't mean they won't.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Agreed, as I read back through my post I almost edited the sections about tax take; there are good reasons to argue against taxes at present.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
This analysis has made my blood run cold - the more I think about it, the more plausible it becomes. A General Election with a reduced General Election campaign is something that the Great apolitical British public might find rather appealing. I am beginning to think that the Tories might actually give it a go.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
The only quibble I have with your excellent post is the idea that anyone advocating for lower tax bear some responsibility for your lack of funding.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
Thanks. And yes good point, and it was heartening to hear on the Private Eye podcast yesterday that the doctor who writes for them about the NHS was advocating for money to be diverted from health towards education (best bang of your buck in terms of prevention).
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
The message from Labour should be you can’t trust the Tories to not change leader again so they could install another Truss disaster even if they win .
Starmer can say with a straight face that he will serve a full term as Prime Minister if Labour win the election. The Tories aren't even certain who will be their leader at the election, and so cannot credibly claim that, whoever that happens to be, would be PM for a full term if the Tories win the election.
I don't subscribe to the view that people elect a PM, but it does seem to be a factor, and that uncertainty should play very badly for the Tories in an election campaign.
In 2015 people voted Tory with Cameron as leader - he lasted 14 months and 5 days. In 2017 they voted for a Tory party led by Theresa May - she lasted 2 years, 1 month and 13 days. In 2019 Boris Johnson was the standard bearer for the Tories - after the election he lasted 2 years, 8 months and 21 days.
This is actually a pretty good argument for changing leaders again, in that people mind less about the leader changing when they're happy that the previous leader has gone and they still regard the replacement as an upgrade.
It's the sort of thing that could see the Tories lose support during an election campaign, if Labour can play on those doubts and use it to destroy the authority and credibility of whoever is leading the Tories at the time.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
It is always a tragedy when someone is killed.
It is also a tragedy, of a different kind, when a teacher leaves the profession for non-teaching reasons. I dispair when I hear of the crap the teachers in England have to deal with, and I think ydoethur deserves an OBE for sticking so long with the system. I know many British teachers, who I am certain were very good in the classroom, but left for other reasons. Usually due to the stresses of overburdening admin or sheer work load. I have one friend who had been promoted to head of department at the age of 30, not because she was hell bent on climbing up the system, but because most of her superiors had quit teaching and she was next in line. In term time I never saw her as she worked the whole weekend through. In the end she quit and trained to be a uni-librarian so that she could have a life without stress and get her "free time"back.
My partner is a teacher in Germany and the difference between Engalnd and Germany is unbelievable. The amount of marking and level of admin is at a manageable level. She is given a high level of responsibility both in what to teach (flexible syllabus) and how to teach it. Most of her time is spent actually teaching or considereing/preparing how to teach the lessons in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
...and when you look at the state of housing policy in the UK on her watch as "Shadow Housing Minister... responsible for the whole sector" it has been a disaster, vote her out at the next GE! Nick Ferrari only yesterday was suggesting housing failure was a Labour (Khan) and not a Conservative problem.
So can anyone explain the valuation for Trump Social to me ?
It seems that it has revenues of about $5m per year and loses about $100m per year yet is worth billions.
Sure a business is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
But those people do actually have to put up the money at some point.
Yes they do have to put up the money, but if it’s hundreds of thousands of people putting up a few grand each, not necessarily in the expectation of a financial return, then it’s easy to see how they get there. Instead of a straightforward political donation, how’s about buying shares in the candidate’s company instead? There might even be a return one day, when Twitter or Rumble buys them out for $10bn.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
First, thank you for your service in the face of unrelenting pressure. As the father of three children in the state education sector I am constantly in awe of the resilience, skill and dedication of almost all the people working in the sector that I have come across. You truly do incredible work while being constantly undermined by the government.
Second, I heartily second your criticism of those calling for tax cuts in the current situation. To do so in the face of all the evidence of crumbling public services and a society that has gone far beyond merely fraying at the edges is, in my opinion, wilful blindness verging on callousness.
I would add that I am so sorry for your loss. The death of a child is an unbearable tragedy and I can only imagine the impact on your school community.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Agreed, as I read back through my post I almost edited the sections about tax take; there are good reasons to argue against taxes at present.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
I mean I yield nothing to the idiocy of Johnson's premiership and the lunacy of Truss's but we have had some pretty bonkers once in a generation exogenous shocks over the past five years. One was of course self-inflicted that would have cut a few percentage points off our wealth and growth but the others really were out of the blue.
It was heart-warming to read the many posts yesterday showing appreciation of OGH and his team. This was no surprise, but I was amazed at the number of comments from Lurkers who had posted seldom, or never before. That's some tribute. To think that in addition to the likes of me droning on publicly there's a small army of silent followers....
Impressive.
They should get themselves commenting. I know it's not for everyone but it all helps to make the site go round.
Vaguely related, I have often thought of two PB thought experiments.
The first is to have us all debating a familiar topic - Brexit, AV, what have you and instead of making our arguments simply use numbers to refer to the points eg Pt 1 = We were always sovereign, etc
The other is for one day (hour?) to have us all argue vehemently the opposite position to our own. @Richard_Tyndall for staying in (now rejoining) the EU, @BartholomewRoberts about the importance of the greenbelt and sanctity of our planning laws and the countryside, etc. Would be vaguely amusing.
Until the thread was sidetracked by a discussion about Transnistrian Cabernet Franc.
I fondly remember the University debating society having the annual ‘argue the other side’ debate. It’s a very good intellectual exercise, to understand what your political opponents think and be able to argue their side.
The year they did womens society vs catholic society, on the subject of abortion, was probably the highlight of three years of attending debates.
Sadly it would never happen now, at least not for in-person debates, because social media clips and a lack of context.
It would certainly be used to attack the careers of those presenting the unfashionable side of the debate.
My father tells me that when doing such philosophical debates in university, some students refuse, and others demand a no recording policy.
So can anyone explain the valuation for Trump Social to me ?
It seems that it has revenues of about $5m per year and loses about $100m per year yet is worth billions.
Sure a business is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
But those people do actually have to put up the money at some point.
Yes they do have to put up the money, but if it’s hundreds of thousands of people putting up a few grand each, not necessarily in the expectation of a financial return, then it’s easy to see how they get there. Instead of a straightforward political donation, how’s about buying shares in the candidate’s company instead? There might even be a return one day, when Twitter or Rumble buys them out for $10bn.
You have to ensure the people putting in a 'few grand each' are not just fences for other interests...
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
I think if Boris Johnson had delivered a mea culpa along those lines when the news about the parties first broke it wouldn't have caused him so much trouble. An admission of wrongdoing, an acknowledgement that it was hard for everyone and that people did their best, but mistakes were made.
But that's not what happened. He lied and lied and lied again.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
My point, as it needs spelling out for you which is fine PB is a broad church, is that Rayner is now Shadow SoS for Housing. People might give her a free pass for what happened 10 years ago but she needs now to spell out exactly the circumstances of what she did and why.
Come January, she is going to be responsible for the whole sector.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
When I read the details originally, based on my own experience, it didn't look like there would be any liability as allowances and timings were quite generous provided you did actually buy the house to live in and lived in it for a significant period of time. It's not like it was a £1m mansion with a massive gain. In my case I only lived in my flat for about 3 years out of 9, but (from memory) CGT only became due in the final year, and the rise in value liable was within the personal allowance.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did work it all out correctly at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Rozzers investigating Frank Hestor for his Diane Abbott comments.
The rozzers need to have a word with themselves. He's clearly an unpleasant person and what he said about Abbott was offensive, but if that's the criteria for getting the rozzers involved, we're gonna need a bigger police service.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think their best bet is replacing Sunak after the locals, a new leader comes in and calls an election about six weeks after they take over.
A snap election with a new leader is only a good idea if you expect a substantial honeymoon bounce, otherwise it just means six extra months of Labour government, which Conservatives might consider a bad thing. It is not as if an incoming leader will effectively neutralise a contentious policy like Iraq or the poll tax or even Boris ending Brexit stalemate.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
When I read the details originally, based on my own experience, it didn't look like there would be any liability as allowances and timings were quite generous provided you did actually buy the house to live in and lived in it for a significant period of time. It's not like it was a £1m mansion with a massive gain. In my case I only lived in my flat for about 3 years out of 9, but (from memory) CGT only became due in the final year, and the rise in value liable was within the personal allowance.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did them at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Oh yes it appears to be fearsomely complicated. But she is shadow SoS for housing and it is her brief. She is responsible in opposition for the sector.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Agreed, as I read back through my post I almost edited the sections about tax take; there are good reasons to argue against taxes at present.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
We simply do not - as a society - value our children seriously enough. See the way the government has simply kicked the recommendations of the IICSA Final Report into the long grass, effectively abandoning some of our most vulnerable children.
This is not a new problem. One of mine had serious mental issues and there was no help - none - either for the child or us as a family, though the school did try. This was under the Labour government. I say this not to make a political point but simply to point out that the neglect of mental health services and help for troubled teenagers and their families has been going on a long time.
It was only when matters got to the very worst that finally the bare minimum was done. But had I not paid (huge amounts over many years) for professional help we'd have been mourning our losses at funerals too. It is why I still work - because I have to. I do not begrudge what I did. But for those without those resources what happens to them? The misery they must endure. It pretty much destroyed our family for years and I would not wish what happened onto my worst enemy. That misery and unhappiness and violence and shredded families just go unseen. The loneliness is unbearable.
I know this is not heartwarming either. But I do remember the kindness of teachers and the help they tried to give. So if it is any consolation - and even if you may not realise it at the time - whatever you do will be a help, will mean something.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
There are at least a couple of problems with that.
The first is the, "as did many other people" argument. That is probably so, but many did not. There were lots of people who religiously followed the rules that Johnson himself set. The Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral is emblematic because it represents the actual lived experience of so many. Your line therefore probably has resonance with a lot of people... but it is incredibly aggrievating for many others - a lot of them previously True Blue.
Secondly, your argument was NOT the one Johnson went for. Maybe it would have worked if he had, but he simply chose to lie. That, in a nutshell, is his tragic flaw as a PM and as a man. He will always choose the momentarily convenient lie ahead of the even vaguely discomforting truth. His final downfall over Pincher was a classic case - he could have said, "I knew the stories but gave him another chance, and I clearly shouldn't have." He'd have taken a hit but remained standing. But he lied and sent colleagues out to lie for him.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh · 55m It's Private Members' Bill day in Commons and a Tory MP reveals Govt will back his bill to overturn the expansion London's ULEZ. Performative politics ahead of May elxn, but Tory Mayors shd be as worried as Labour ones by this direct attack on devolution.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
The only quibble I have with your excellent post is the idea that anyone advocating for lower tax bear some responsibility for your lack of funding.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
Completely agreed.
maxh I'm sorry for your loss and the helplessness but on a macro national level there is something we can do, and it ironically is a tax cut but a very specific and targeted one I've long advocated for.
The number one problem behind much of the problems you describe is a lack of social mobility and more importantly the lack of a positive parental role model at home that is going to work and showing the value of hard work.
Schools can't fix that. Society can.
Currently we draconianly tax those coming off benefits at a rate that is obscenely high. 70% to 100% marginal tax rates that traps people in poverty as it's seen not worth working.
Worse it encourages people into gangs and crime, as if you're going to make money then doing so illegally and untaxed becomes so much more attractive.
It is obscene that someone on benefits working loses marginally more in tax than someone on £110,000 pa does.
Fix that. Get people working, their economic situation would improve, their mental health and physical health would improve, their children will improve.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
No need to apologise, please: quite the reverse. You're giving a strong personal assessment of something very relevant to modern politics in the UK.
Part of that wider issue is that, as certain functions have been cut from the state, the needs they they addressed haven't gone away. They just resurface somewhere else. So any problems that young people have tend to land in schools, issues with missing bits of the health service pop up in A+E.
And then you have to wonder how much we're really saving.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think I’m going to repeat this post every day, in the hope that someone at CCHQ reads it.
It's not up to CCHQ though because the decision is Sunak's and he doesn't give a fuck how few seats the tories have after the election.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Sorry, but if the only way you can handle things is by breaking the very laws you made, getting shit faced and puking up all over place then you're in the wrong job.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
There are at least a couple of problems with that.
The first is the, "as did many other people" argument. That is probably so, but many did not. There were lots of people who religiously followed the rules that Johnson himself set. The Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral is emblematic because it represents the experience of so many. Your line therefore probably has resonance with a lot of people... but it is incredibly aggrievating for many others.
Secondly, your argument was NOT the one Johnson went for. Maybe it would have worked if he had, but he simply chose to lie. That, in a nutshell, is his tragic flaw as a PM and as a man. He will always choose the momentarily convenient lie ahead of the even vaguely discomforting truth. His final downfall over Pincher was a classic case - he could have said, "I knew the stories but gave him another chance, and I clearly shouldn't have." He'd have taken a hit but remained standing. But he lied and sent colleagues out to lie for him.
I agree with the first - and as I said in my post; It was wrong.
And I pretty much agree with your second point. I find myself in the odd position of (slightly) defending Johnson, given I said he was totally unsuited to being PM before he got the job - and for the correct reasons. It is even more odder given that many who supported him then (coz Brexit!) are now vocally critical of him.
But again, I do think everyone in No. 10 were under an immense pressure at the time, quite unlike anything that has probably been seen in this country for eighty years. Given that, I think the 'parties' (*) were understandable, if not forgivable. The levels of stress must have been hellish, especially when you had idiots like Peston shouting questions at you.
Johnson should have gone over events like Pincher, which far better showed the flaws in his character.
(*) What sort of drab affairs people must go to if they class them as 'parties'!
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
When I read the details originally, based on my own experience, it didn't look like there would be any liability as allowances and timings were quite generous provided you did actually buy the house to live in and lived in it for a significant period of time. It's not like it was a £1m mansion with a massive gain. In my case I only lived in my flat for about 3 years out of 9, but (from memory) CGT only became due in the final year, and the rise in value liable was within the personal allowance.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did them at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Oh yes it appears to be fearsomely complicated. But she is shadow SoS for housing and it is her brief. She is responsible in opposition for the sector.
So she blimmin' well should know.
But she doesn't necessarily need to know the rules from 10+ years ago, and nor is she legally required to retain records from that long ago either. I suspect she can't come clean enough to satisfy you, because she simply doesn't have the details any more. As I wouldn't if I had decided to become a prominent politician and somebody was now quizzing me on my historic tax affairs. Anything more than 7 years ago - sorry, I can't tell you, it's been shredded.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
The only quibble I have with your excellent post is the idea that anyone advocating for lower tax bear some responsibility for your lack of funding.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
Thanks. And yes good point, and it was heartening to hear on the Private Eye podcast yesterday that the doctor who writes for them about the NHS was advocating for money to be diverted from health towards education (best bang of your buck in terms of prevention).
Part of the issue as well is down to the checks that have to be done for safeguarding, when I was younger for example I used to volunteer and help run a youth club organised by the local methodists. Would I do it now? Not a chance because it has now gone from a simple request asking if I would help to which the answer is yes....to fill out this form wait weeks while someone rifles through your life etc. It just isn't something I feel strongly enough to jump through the hoops for.
The same issue has caused many clubs that had junior sections to close them. People don't want to jump through the hoops of getting vetted and the clubs don't want to do all the work of appointing a safe guarding officer etc.
This alone has caused a drop in whats available to youths.
We have reached the stage where the electorate is punishing the tories for not calling the GE when the county needs it. If they wait till autumn or, worse, January, they will get totally slaughtered at the polls - Canada 93. They must understand that they have to cut their losses. Nothing will make it better: not a rwanda flight or half a percent off inflation. Nothing. They simply have to go to the polls now.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Currygate was not worse. If you don't want to trust the police, how about an experienced lawyer, perhaps even a former DPP, who was so confident that he pledged to resign if charged, knowing that he could not be.
On Partygate, even if we accept your judgement that there were mitigating pressures, what Boris should have done is draw a line under the affair by separating himself from the weekly wine o'clock boozers, apologising on their behalf, and ensuring there would be no repeats. What Boris actually did, if we are generous, and we saw a similar pattern with various other scandals that combined to bring him down, was issue a blanket denial in brazen disregard of the known facts, and repeat it under questioning by an experienced lawyer (see above) at PMQs.
If Boris had first troubled to establish the facts about the parties, and about Pincher, Paterson and so on, he might not have painted himself into a corner each time. We cannot be sure but that is a plausible basis for an alternative timeline where Boris is still Prime Minister.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Sorry, but if the only way you can handle things is by breaking the very laws you made, getting shit faced and puking up all over place then you're in the wrong job.
Like Currygate, it was uncertain whether the laws were being broken at the time - and at many of the so-called parties, no laws were broken. Yes, there should have been mare caution, and yes, it was wrong. But I can totally understand why it happened.
We have reached the stage where the electorate is punishing the tories for not calling the GE when the county needs it. If they wait till autumn or, worse, January, they will get totally slaughtered at the polls - Canada 93. They must understand that they have to cut their losses. Nothing will make it better: not a rwanda flight or half a percent off inflation. Nothing. They simply have to go to the polls now.
Why would they go to the polls now with some polls having them under 20%? On the latest Yougov or PP they are already nearly at Canada 93 anyway.
By the autumn they would hope inflation and immigration are down further and interest rates are further stabilised. The biggest risk of Canada 93 is Farage replacing Tice as Reform leader anyway, not when the election is called
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
When I read the details originally, based on my own experience, it didn't look like there would be any liability as allowances and timings were quite generous provided you did actually buy the house to live in and lived in it for a significant period of time. It's not like it was a £1m mansion with a massive gain. In my case I only lived in my flat for about 3 years out of 9, but (from memory) CGT only became due in the final year, and the rise in value liable was within the personal allowance.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did them at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Oh yes it appears to be fearsomely complicated. But she is shadow SoS for housing and it is her brief. She is responsible in opposition for the sector.
So she blimmin' well should know.
But she doesn't necessarily need to know the rules from 10+ years ago, and nor is she legally required to retain records from that long ago either. I suspect she can't come clean enough to satisfy you, because she simply doesn't have the details any more. As I wouldn't if I had decided to become a prominent politician and somebody was now quizzing me on my historic tax affairs. Anything more than 7 years ago - sorry, I can't tell you, it's been shredded.
Interesting. I disagree and there continue to be questions so as that taxpolicy.org article makes clear, there are certain criteria that could have been adopted then and I think it would be sensible for her to make a statement explaining what her understanding of them was. All those years ago. There is not necessarily a statute of limitations on tax payments (ie suspected fraud) and HMRC can look back 20 years.
And here the parallel with partygate is meaningful. All experts seem to agree that this part of the tax code is extraordinarily complicated. It does no harm for politicians to understand what the rest of us have to go through as a result of the laws they make or preside over.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
The only quibble I have with your excellent post is the idea that anyone advocating for lower tax bear some responsibility for your lack of funding.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
Thanks. And yes good point, and it was heartening to hear on the Private Eye podcast yesterday that the doctor who writes for them about the NHS was advocating for money to be diverted from health towards education (best bang of your buck in terms of prevention).
Part of the issue as well is down to the checks that have to be done for safeguarding, when I was younger for example I used to volunteer and help run a youth club organised by the local methodists. Would I do it now? Not a chance because it has now gone from a simple request asking if I would help to which the answer is yes....to fill out this form wait weeks while someone rifles through your life etc. It just isn't something I feel strongly enough to jump through the hoops for.
The same issue has caused many clubs that had junior sections to close them. People don't want to jump through the hoops of getting vetted and the clubs don't want to do all the work of appointing a safe guarding officer etc.
This alone has caused a drop in whats available to youths.
I'm surprised by this, I got an enhanced DBS check to do voluntary work with children and it was quick and completely painless.
So can anyone explain the valuation for Trump Social to me ?
It seems that it has revenues of about $5m per year and loses about $100m per year yet is worth billions.
Sure a business is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
But those people do actually have to put up the money at some point.
Yes they do have to put up the money, but if it’s hundreds of thousands of people putting up a few grand each, not necessarily in the expectation of a financial return, then it’s easy to see how they get there. Instead of a straightforward political donation, how’s about buying shares in the candidate’s company instead? There might even be a return one day, when Twitter or Rumble buys them out for $10bn.
You have to ensure the people putting in a 'few grand each' are not just fences for other interests...
Of course they are, welcome to American business and politics!
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Agreed, as I read back through my post I almost edited the sections about tax take; there are good reasons to argue against taxes at present.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
I mean I yield nothing to the idiocy of Johnson's premiership and the lunacy of Truss's but we have had some pretty bonkers once in a generation exogenous shocks over the past five years. One was of course self-inflicted that would have cut a few percentage points off our wealth and growth but the others really were out of the blue.
Reflecting on Mike’s post yesterday, one of the very best things about this site is the quality of discussion below the line.
This is another good challenge Topping, thanks. If my original post came across as a party political one it wasn’t intended that way. I agree the current government could not have predicted the shocks of the past few years, aside from Brexit and an unfunded Trussterfuck.
Brown deserves some of the blame too for failing to shore up the finances when we were in a more prosperous position.
To add to this: the particular brand of austerity since 2008 was a choice, and left us with invidious choices as eg the pandemic hit.
My real argument, though, is with those who believe that if only the state got out of the way and enabled more growth, these problems would somehow magically recede.
I don’t have solutions, and have deep sympathy for any politicians trying to find solutions. But leaving communities and young people to fend for themselves with bankrupt local authorities is definitely not the answer.
Based on that chart the biggest threat to Sunak and the Tories is Farage. He has a higher favourability and net positive rating now than Sunak, although Sunak still has a higher favourable rating than Tice if he stays Reform leader. Beyond that getting immigration under control, cutting tax and controlling inflation and interest rate levels are more important for the Tories than who their leader is.
Burnham's higher rating than Starmer makes him still a contender for the Labour leadership at some stage if Starmer wins but proves unpopular in power and if he is back as an MP
It's interesting that Tice's favourable rating is closely correlated with Reform's polling numbers. On that basis, I think I would agree - they could maybe get a percentage or two from going with Farage; however, I suspect that would be a blip (albeit a blip that could last through the next GE) and insufficient to propel reform to the 20%+ they need (along with some vote concentration) to actually win a few seats.
The leader Reform needs to do that probably isn't in this list; but someone who emerges after the next election if they do well enough to stay in touch with a Tory party that does particularly badly.
If Reform got to 20%+ they would certainly win seats
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
There are at least a couple of problems with that.
The first is the, "as did many other people" argument. That is probably so, but many did not. There were lots of people who religiously followed the rules that Johnson himself set. The Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral is emblematic because it represents the experience of so many. Your line therefore probably has resonance with a lot of people... but it is incredibly aggrievating for many others.
Secondly, your argument was NOT the one Johnson went for. Maybe it would have worked if he had, but he simply chose to lie. That, in a nutshell, is his tragic flaw as a PM and as a man. He will always choose the momentarily convenient lie ahead of the even vaguely discomforting truth. His final downfall over Pincher was a classic case - he could have said, "I knew the stories but gave him another chance, and I clearly shouldn't have." He'd have taken a hit but remained standing. But he lied and sent colleagues out to lie for him.
I agree with the first - and as I said in my post; It was wrong.
And I pretty much agree with your second point. I find myself in the odd position of (slightly) defending Johnson, given I said he was totally unsuited to being PM before he got the job - and for the correct reasons. It is even more odder given that many who supported him then (coz Brexit!) are now vocally critical of him.
But again, I do think everyone in No. 10 were under an immense pressure at the time, quite unlike anything that has probably been seen in this country for eighty years. Given that, I think the 'parties' (*) were understandable, if not forgivable. The levels of stress must have been hellish, especially when you had idiots like Peston shouting questions at you.
Johnson should have gone over events like Pincher, which far better showed the flaws in his character.
(*) What sort of drab affairs people must go to if they class them as 'parties'!
I think your view as to the level of pressure people were under at Number 10 is entirely overblown. It's a busy job, lots going on, unprecedented times, you're working with bellends like Cummings which isn't ideal etc. But the idea of Number 10 being a nerve centre where a selection of SPADs ran the entire country is one they largely put out for themselves.
A lot of the key work and decisions were being taken in other parts of government, and I'm not even going to go into the pressures on hospital staff.
They just didn't think the rules applied to them, because the boss at the time has never thought rules applied to him, and the Head of the Civil Service was (and still is) a nasty little weasel who didn't get to where he is by having a backbone.
It was heart-warming to read the many posts yesterday showing appreciation of OGH and his team. This was no surprise, but I was amazed at the number of comments from Lurkers who had posted seldom, or never before. That's some tribute. To think that in addition to the likes of me droning on publicly there's a small army of silent followers....
Impressive.
They should get themselves commenting. I know it's not for everyone but it all helps to make the site go round.
Vaguely related, I have often thought of two PB thought experiments.
The first is to have us all debating a familiar topic - Brexit, AV, what have you and instead of making our arguments simply use numbers to refer to the points eg Pt 1 = We were always sovereign, etc
The other is for one day (hour?) to have us all argue vehemently the opposite position to our own. @Richard_Tyndall for staying in (now rejoining) the EU, @BartholomewRoberts about the importance of the greenbelt and sanctity of our planning laws and the countryside, etc. Would be vaguely amusing.
Until the thread was sidetracked by a discussion about Transnistrian Cabernet Franc.
I fondly remember the University debating society having the annual ‘argue the other side’ debate. It’s a very good intellectual exercise, to understand what your political opponents think and be able to argue their side.
The year they did womens society vs catholic society, on the subject of abortion, was probably the highlight of three years of attending debates.
Sadly it would never happen now, at least not for in-person debates, because social media clips and a lack of context.
It would certainly be used to attack the careers of those presenting the unfashionable side of the debate.
My father tells me that when doing such philosophical debates in university, some students refuse, and others demand a no recording policy.
Indeed. We need to encourage more of these sort of events, even if arguing in favour of something I religiously oppose did feel rather uncomfortable at the time.
It’s way too easy today to end up in an echo chamber, where we only hear opinions with which we agree - which is why this site is so good.
We have reached the stage where the electorate is punishing the tories for not calling the GE when the county needs it. If they wait till autumn or, worse, January, they will get totally slaughtered at the polls - Canada 93. They must understand that they have to cut their losses. Nothing will make it better: not a rwanda flight or half a percent off inflation. Nothing. They simply have to go to the polls now.
Well, they don't understand it, otherwise the May election date would have been set by now.
So, if we want to predict when they will call the election we have to understand - What are they trying to achieve? What factors do they think work to their advantage?
I think Herdson's arguments in favour of using the party conference to launch the election campaign are compelling. I can see why someone might convince themselves - at this moment - that it would be a good idea. But when we get to then, and Farage is being fêted at the Tory conference, perhaps Reform have another defection, it might not look so great. The will to go through with it might evaporate.
It's one of the reasons I think the later dates are more likely. No day feels like a good day to start an election campaign. So put it off. Delay.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Currygate was not worse. If you don't want to trust the police, how about an experienced lawyer, perhaps even a former DPP, who was so confident that he pledged to resign if charged, knowing that he could not be.
On Partygate, even if we accept your judgement that there were mitigating pressures, what Boris should have done is draw a line under the affair by separating himself from the weekly wine o'clock boozers, apologising on their behalf, and ensuring there would be no repeats. What Boris actually did, if we are generous, and we saw a similar pattern with various other scandals that combined to bring him down, was issue a blanket denial in brazen disregard of the known facts, and repeat it under questioning by an experienced lawyer (see above) at PMQs.
If Boris had first troubled to establish the facts about the parties, and about Pincher, Paterson and so on, he might not have painted himself into a corner each time. We cannot be sure but that is a plausible basis for an alternative timeline where Boris is still Prime Minister.
Epidemiolocally, currygate was far worse. Getting people to travel from all around the country, meet lots of the public, then get together for a piss-up was a hideous idea. Especially when compared to people who mostly worked together in No. 10 and 11 getting together in the garden.
And no, I don't trust the police on these matters, given their track record. And your argument about SKS is poor - he did not *know* he could not be charged - unless you're claiming he knew what the police would say? There was far more risk of virus spread from currygate than the no.10 party.
Yes, Johnson was a victim of his own character flaws - I've gone on enough about that. I have zero compassion for him over Pincher, Patterson etc. But on partygate... yes, I do have some sympathy, especially given his own personal ordeal months earlier.
It's not up to CCHQ though because the decision is Sunak's
Only until the men in grey suits come a calling...
Then what? Can they find a suicide bomber who can beat Big Rish in a leadership contents AND is prepared to be PM just for the duration of a disastrous election campaign?
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
Certainly I wasn't aware of any such requirement, and I was in the same position for a few years for the same reason (although a few years earlier, and it may have changed in between).
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
Angela Rayner is - checks wiki - shadow housing minister. Whatever she knew at the time, when she wasn't an MP, is one thing. Making a full and frank declaration now of what happened should be the bare minimum now she is responsible for the whole sector.
When I read the details originally, based on my own experience, it didn't look like there would be any liability as allowances and timings were quite generous provided you did actually buy the house to live in and lived in it for a significant period of time. It's not like it was a £1m mansion with a massive gain. In my case I only lived in my flat for about 3 years out of 9, but (from memory) CGT only became due in the final year, and the rise in value liable was within the personal allowance.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did them at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Oh yes it appears to be fearsomely complicated. But she is shadow SoS for housing and it is her brief. She is responsible in opposition for the sector.
So she blimmin' well should know.
But she doesn't necessarily need to know the rules from 10+ years ago, and nor is she legally required to retain records from that long ago either. I suspect she can't come clean enough to satisfy you, because she simply doesn't have the details any more. As I wouldn't if I had decided to become a prominent politician and somebody was now quizzing me on my historic tax affairs. Anything more than 7 years ago - sorry, I can't tell you, it's been shredded.
Rayner's problem is that there are two versions to this story.
Her version in which she received no rent and owes no CGT.
And the neighbours version in which she was a landlord and owes CGT.
Off topic, and not particularly heartwarming, apologies.
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
Always a tragedy when someone is killed. I'm sure increasing taxes (I think we are already quite highly taxed and no one is talking about raising them further) would be one of several factors in this situation.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
Agreed, as I read back through my post I almost edited the sections about tax take; there are good reasons to argue against taxes at present.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
We simply do not - as a society - value our children seriously enough. See the way the government has simply kicked the recommendations of the IICSA Final Report into the long grass, effectively abandoning some of our most vulnerable children.
This is not a new problem. One of mine had serious mental issues and there was no help - none - either for the child or us as a family, though the school did try. This was under the Labour government. I say this not to make a political point but simply to point out that the neglect of mental health services and help for troubled teenagers and their families has been going on a long time.
It was only when matters got to the very worst that finally the bare minimum was done. But had I not paid (huge amounts over many years) for professional help we'd have been mourning our losses at funerals too. It is why I still work - because I have to. I do not begrudge what I did. But for those without those resources what happens to them? The misery they must endure. It pretty much destroyed our family for years and I would not wish what happened onto my worst enemy. That misery and unhappiness and violence and shredded families just go unseen. The loneliness is unbearable.
I know this is not heartwarming either. But I do remember the kindness of teachers and the help they tried to give. So if it is any consolation - and even if you may not realise it at the time - whatever you do will be a help, will mean something.
@cyclefree thanks, and in turn I’m so sorry for what you and your family have gone through. Schools’ abilities to support here are far from adequate, and I agree that this is not a new thing, nor is it or should it be party political. I have immense respect for parents who support their children through times like yours with so little support. And as you say, for those without resources the situation is even worse.
Are no banks being robbed in West Yorkshire? Are the facts about Hester even in dispute? Are there any banks still open in West Yorkshire? Will CCHQ give the money back? QTWAIN.
Emily Thornberry on LBC implicitly accepting that the govt is going to be in power "for the next nine months".
My Jan next GE bet might need topping up still further.
You might be right, but if you really think it will be Jan 2025 you could best clean up by backing Con 0-50 seats, which would be an obvious consequence of hanging on that long, and campaigning over Christmas.
I don't think there would be campaigning over Christmas. The advantage of holding the election in January is exactly that it would be mad to campaign over Christmas, and that the Tories would convince themselves that a short campaign would be to their benefit.
Parliament cleans up all it's business in early December. Election called on Wednesday 11th December for Thursday January 23rd. That weekend is I think the busiest weekend for work Christmas parties. There's some campaigning in week beginning 16th December, but people are well into the final straight for Christmas preparations and it doesn't gain any traction. Campaigning shuts down for Christmastide. Thursday 2nd January the election campaigns restart, but it takes a couple of days for things to ramp up. The election campaign is effectively shortened to less than three weeks, making it harder for local campaigning to signal to people how they should tactically vote, and favouring a campaign reliant on big money donations to fund an online campaign, rather than one with lots of volunteers.
Sounds plausible, but personally I'm of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I think I’m going to repeat this post every day, in the hope that someone at CCHQ reads it.
It's not up to CCHQ though because the decision is Sunak's and he doesn't give a fuck how few seats the tories have after the election.
I don’t believe you ace that it’s only Sunak, a party can have a squatter as leader only interested in getting their own time in office up a leaderboard to the ruin of the party.
I don’t believe the campaign period can clash with either of the holiday periods, August or December. You won’t get your best result eg we are being nice to you for your vote but just pissed you off with this timing - doesn’t sit together does it?
I do believe politics is driven by scientific modelling, they spend a lot on consultants to help them find/create a sweet spot to get the best possible result, perhaps an even better result than they deserve considering mess created and left.
And the modelling and experts and science is not looking for “a day” they are looking at the five weeks prior when everything comes under microscope and outcome at its most fluid.
I thought would be May 2nd, in part becuase I presumed an awful set of local elections makes it difficult to go General Election campaigning shortly afterwards, and, as mentioned I think by Peter “of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.” And media scrutiny is already coming on the beginning of the boat surge, with worse to come later in year with inflation and energy prices up too. So that bit remains true on the forecasts.
BUT. May 2nd local elections are not going to cause No.10 an issue - I was wrong about that, I now realise the worst headline these boring elections can produce is Tories only losing 2 Mayors - and its neither certain to happen, or be front page news if it did.
And I didn’t know about Rishi’s “Week of Wonders” in May till this week.
Meanwhile thanks @StillWaters for the link to the taxpolicy.org article.
Crystal clear. Did she make the nomination. Does any married couple make such a nomination? Married couples let's hear from you. The planet would forgive her, just, as she is an MP who makes the rules (sound familiar?) if she wasn't aware of a line in the tax code about married couples making nominations when there are two properties in the family.
Are you making a correlation between Rayner's ignorance of rules surrounding right to buy, and someone who made rules of social distancing, believing he remained within those rules when he was photographed in a confined space with many other people all wearing party hats, and with glasses of Champagne in hand?
I am making a "correlation" between politicians being given less slack for breaches of the rules they preside over.
I don't know the ins and out of Rayner's case, and far be it from me to defend her, but your allusion that the confusion is on a par with Partygate is nonsense.
You would think that...
As would anyone with a functional brain.
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Let's just look at partygate another way, shall we? A group of people being forced to make life-and-death decisions, often with no clear obvious answers, and having those decisions dissected in real time by both real and self-professed experts. A PM who nearly died of the disease. On a few occasions they let their hair down a little from the enormous stress in a relatively safe manner.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
I think if Boris Johnson had delivered a mea culpa along those lines when the news about the parties first broke it wouldn't have caused him so much trouble. An admission of wrongdoing, an acknowledgement that it was hard for everyone and that people did their best, but mistakes were made.
But that's not what happened. He lied and lied and lied again.
Which is pretty well what everyone - including his opponents - said at the time.
We have reached the stage where the electorate is punishing the tories for not calling the GE when the county needs it. If they wait till autumn or, worse, January, they will get totally slaughtered at the polls - Canada 93. They must understand that they have to cut their losses. Nothing will make it better: not a rwanda flight or half a percent off inflation. Nothing. They simply have to go to the polls now.
Why would they go to the polls now with some polls having them under 20%? On the latest Yougov or PP they are already nearly at Canada 93 anyway.
By the autumn they would hope inflation and immigration are down further and interest rates are further stabilised. The biggest risk of Canada 93 is Farage replacing Tice as Reform leader anyway, not when the election is called
I don't think the tories are going to turn the trend.... go to yougov. Draw a line through the tory numbers since 2022. Extend that trend 6 months into autumn. There is no turning that mega trend. It ain't happening. We are way beyond a rwanda flight and 1 more % off inflation helping. Way beyond that. The electorate is looking at a broken party. Why would you vote for them? You could get a big government big tax one nation in charge. You could get a kamikaze libertarian in charge. You could get a blood and soil ethnonationalist in charge. You'd have no clue what you were suppoting. What you would be voting for for sure was 5 more years of chaos, disorder, bad governance, aimlessness and infighting. Nope, there ain't no coming back with an extra 6 months.... what every tory knows in their heart today is that they should have gone to the polls a year ago.
Comments
Burnham's higher rating than Starmer makes him still a contender for the Labour leadership at some stage if Starmer wins but proves unpopular in power and if he is back as an MP
And has never lost to a car which lost to a lettuce.
If I worked at HMRC and was asked to go digging, I would punt that as far away as possible, preferably to an external tax advising firm for an independent review (indefinite timescale for completion).
I spent Wednesday at the funeral of one of my students killed in a knife attack, and yesterday trying to pick up the pieces psychologically amongst the student’s close friends who are dealing with the trauma whilst preparing to sit their GCSEs in a couple of months.
The student’s death itself was tragic and perhaps not preventable regardless of the support that might have been in place in previous years.
But two things stand out for me within the education system:
1. There is almost nothing left outside the school gates and the home that might provide an anchor to young people struggling to navigate their teenage years. In my Year 11 class alone I could probably list a third of the students who badly need mental health support, or a youth worker, or a kick up the backside, or a positive role model etc etc (mostly the first tbh). Probably a handful are at risk of the same fate of the student we commemorated on Weds. We know this in school but are powerless to do anything (more) about it.
I can recognise that local services are never perfect, but those who currently advocate lowering taxes bear direct responsibility for the decimation of support for young people at a local level, which increase the risk of tragedies like this.
2. The toll that is being placed on teachers and school leaders who have to operate in an environment I’ve just described is not sustainable. Both I and my boss on our senior leadership team shed tears of frustration yesterday as we discussed what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy, and admitted to feeling a deep sense of futility and powerlessness. My boss is probably the strongest, most principled and most uncompromising school leader I have ever met. To hear her admit that she feels powerless to change things is shocking and depressing.
Again, I can recognise that more money won’t solve all the ills for young people at the moment, and can also recognise that education rightly wouldn’t be top priority for any spare funding at present.
But again, those advocating for a lower tax
take bear direct responsibility for the sorts of decisions that are being made within schools that mean students are left to fend for themselves, with whatever imperfect support is available from home.
Lastly, I’m clear-eyed enough to see that education (and LA) funding will get worse rather than better in the next decade. On a personal level I’m left wondering whether, for my own self- preservation, I need to admit defeat and get out of the system.
Sorry for a long and fairly depressing post - this is more of a lament and part of my own grieving than anything else. Apologies for any self indulgence herein.
@AndrewMarr9 he wouldn't vote Tory at the next election: "I couldn't vote for a candidate who'd been in favour of Brexit...Brexit has been a bloody disaster...I don't think Starmer & Reeves are remotely dangerous"
https://twitter.com/hattmarris84/status/1770889429176983684
Today’s guest is a lady called Jenny Sealey who is a Theatre director who is deaf. I thought it was going to be some right on woke-fest. It showed my prejudices as she’s very funny, interesting, relaxed about life and frankly I would probably have a hoot with her over some beers.
All power to Jenny Sealey and no power to my inner gammon.
I agree with Topping that Jan 2025 is a definite possibility. I am less sure than he is that Tories will not go sub 50 in that scenario.
I've always been of the opinion that the "Maybe the horse will learn to sing" impulse was going to be very strong. Perhaps Sunak could overcome it, but the default pressure would be to wait.
For any who aren't aware of the old fable, it runs like this:
A thief was caught in the act and hauled up before the king, who sentenced him to die, sentence to be carried out immediately. The thief cried out if the king should spare him, he would teach the king's favourite horse to sing.
The king was amused and gave him a year to achieve his boast. When the thief was being pulled away, a fellow prisoner laughed at him. "You know you can't do it, don't you?"
The thief shrugged. "Perhaps. But I now have another year I didn't have before. A lot of things could happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die."
"And who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to sing."
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/luca-badoer-in-defence-of-the-unwanted-f1-record-breaker-4975919/4975919/
The leader Reform needs to do that probably isn't in this list; but someone who emerges after the next election if they do well enough to stay in touch with a Tory party that does particularly badly.
Labour should always remember what happened with Ken and Boris when it came to comparing their taxes. It was Boris who had the boring toe the line tax position, and it was Ken who was structuring his financial arrangements to minimise the tax he paid.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, spent £165,561 chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign Rishi Sunak’s deportation deal in Kigali.
The trip took place on 4 December to sign the new deal with the east African state after the supreme court’s finding that Rwanda was an “unsafe country”.
Cleverly travelled to Kigali with officials and a TV crew and signed the new legally binding treaty alongside Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, Vincent Biruta.
Cleverly was the third home secretary to make his way to Rwanda to sign an agreement, following in the steps of his predecessors Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/22/james-cleverly-spent-165000-on-flight-to-rwanda-to-sign-deportation-deal
In the next six months, at least a million households are going to remortgage from 0.5% to 5.5%, costing them hundreds if not thousands extra per month. That’s several million voters with direct experience of the cost of living going through the metaphorical roof, or the actual roof for many who are forced to sell up and downsize.
Every day later than May 2nd, is a day that thousands of people get kicked up the arse by their bills, and see themselves as worse off than they were at the last election.
Having locked all students down on and off for two years, for example, while likewise not the sole cause of many young peoples' fragile mental health would nevertheless also be a contributory factor I'm sure.
The money to pay for support services, while welcome, is treating the symptom not the cause.
It would be possible to cut taxes while diverting a much larger proportion of government spending towards younger people for a net positive effect. Just look at how health and social care spending (both more likely to be used by older people) has increased much faster than demographic change, even while spending on education has fallen.
Local Authority funding is one issue that no political party, north or south of the border, wants to address. It's where most of the cuts have fallen and I reckon a direct reason why central government spending is now coming under such pressure.
And the rest of us have grown resigned to it.
Rayner's housing saga has the refreshing tawdriness of something between Benefits Street and Coronation Street.
And also in my case I wasn't liable for any CGT because I had bought it as my principal residence and lived in it for a sufficient length of time that liability for CGT only just kicked in (and there wasn't any due).
The two cases are chalk and cheese (and wine).
I am comfortable to give Sunak a free pass over Cakegate, he was ambushed, but Johnson innocently not knowing the rules, give me a break!.
Ken had a company and paid himself mostly in dividends.
I’m really expressing a deep frustration that we have got into this mess financially - @Stuartinromford and others have it right when he argues that we have been selling off the family silver, so to speak, at least since North Sea oil and probably before then, and as interest rates rise that’s now coming home to roost.
Agreed mental health support etc would be treating symptoms not causes. But better that than nothing.
It seems that it has revenues of about $5m per year and loses about $100m per year yet is worth billions.
Sure a business is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.
But those people do actually have to put up the money at some point.
I don't subscribe to the view that people elect a PM, but it does seem to be a factor, and that uncertainty should play very badly for the Tories in an election campaign.
In 2015 people voted Tory with Cameron as leader - he lasted 14 months and 5 days.
In 2017 they voted for a Tory party led by Theresa May - she lasted 2 years, 1 month and 13 days.
In 2019 Boris Johnson was the standard bearer for the Tories - after the election he lasted 2 years, 8 months and 21 days.
This is actually a pretty good argument for changing leaders again, in that people mind less about the leader changing when they're happy that the previous leader has gone and they still regard the replacement as an upgrade.
It's the sort of thing that could see the Tories lose support during an election campaign, if Labour can play on those doubts and use it to destroy the authority and credibility of whoever is leading the Tories at the time.
As did many other people with similar and far less excuse. The pressures within government at the time must have been hideous.
It was wrong, but not the massive travesty so many people paint it out to be.
And as I've said passim, currygate was worse. (And no, I don't trust the police on this - not after plebgate)
Chances of it happening must be pretty slim I think.
It is also a tragedy, of a different kind, when a teacher leaves the profession for non-teaching reasons.
I dispair when I hear of the crap the teachers in England have to deal with, and I think ydoethur deserves an OBE for sticking so long with the system. I know many British teachers, who I am certain were very good in the classroom, but left for other reasons. Usually due to the stresses of overburdening admin or sheer work load. I have one friend who had been promoted to head of department at the age of 30, not because she was hell bent on climbing up the system, but because most of her superiors had quit teaching and she was next in line. In term time I never saw her as she worked the whole weekend through. In the end she quit and trained to be a uni-librarian so that she could have a life without stress and get her "free time"back.
My partner is a teacher in Germany and the difference between Engalnd and Germany is unbelievable. The amount of marking and level of admin is at a manageable level. She is given a high level of responsibility both in what to teach (flexible syllabus) and how to teach it. Most of her time is spent actually teaching or considereing/preparing how to teach the lessons in the next few weeks.
Second, I heartily second your criticism of those calling for tax cuts in the current situation. To do so in the face of all the evidence of crumbling public services and a society that has gone far beyond merely fraying at the edges is, in my opinion, wilful blindness verging on callousness.
I would add that I am so sorry for your loss. The death of a child is an unbearable tragedy and I can only imagine the impact on your school community.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/22/police-investigate-alleged-racist-remarks-by-frank-hester
My father tells me that when doing such philosophical debates in university, some students refuse, and others demand a no recording policy.
But that's not what happened. He lied and lied and lied again.
Come January, she is going to be responsible for the whole sector.
Perhaps she should give details, and I'm not a Labour supporter and don't have an axe to grind particularly here. But if you asked me to explain my circumstances with my flat 20 years ago or so, including workings, I couldn't now tell you. I wouldn't have been able to tell you 10 years ago either. But I did work it all out correctly at the time and no tax was due. So if she is like me (and I'm anally retentive and organised, being a good Project Manager, and no longer have the records) then she probably can't.
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 43% (-1)
CON: 22% (-)
REF: 13% (+1)
LDEM: 10% (-1)
GRN: 6% (+1)
via
@techneUK
So she blimmin' well should know.
We simply do not - as a society - value our children seriously enough. See the way the government has simply kicked the recommendations of the IICSA Final Report into the long grass, effectively abandoning some of our most vulnerable children.
This is not a new problem. One of mine had serious mental issues and there was no help - none - either for the child or us as a family, though the school did try. This was under the Labour government. I say this not to make a political point but simply to point out that the neglect of mental health services and help for troubled teenagers and their families has been going on a long time.
It was only when matters got to the very worst that finally the bare minimum was done. But had I not paid (huge amounts over many years) for professional help we'd have been mourning our losses at funerals too. It is why I still work - because I have to. I do not begrudge what I did. But for those without those resources what happens to them? The misery they must endure. It pretty much destroyed our family for years and I would not wish what happened onto my worst enemy. That misery and unhappiness and violence and shredded families just go unseen. The loneliness is unbearable.
I know this is not heartwarming either. But I do remember the kindness of teachers and the help they tried to give. So if it is any consolation - and even if you may not realise it at the time - whatever you do will be a help, will mean something.
The first is the, "as did many other people" argument. That is probably so, but many did not. There were lots of people who religiously followed the rules that Johnson himself set. The Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral is emblematic because it represents the actual lived experience of so many. Your line therefore probably has resonance with a lot of people... but it is incredibly aggrievating for many others - a lot of them previously True Blue.
Secondly, your argument was NOT the one Johnson went for. Maybe it would have worked if he had, but he simply chose to lie. That, in a nutshell, is his tragic flaw as a PM and as a man. He will always choose the momentarily convenient lie ahead of the even vaguely discomforting truth. His final downfall over Pincher was a classic case - he could have said, "I knew the stories but gave him another chance, and I clearly shouldn't have." He'd have taken a hit but remained standing. But he lied and sent colleagues out to lie for him.
@paulwaugh
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55m
It's Private Members' Bill day in Commons and a Tory MP reveals Govt will back his bill to overturn the expansion London's ULEZ.
Performative politics ahead of May elxn, but Tory Mayors shd be as worried as Labour ones by this direct attack on devolution.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
maxh I'm sorry for your loss and the helplessness but on a macro national level there is something we can do, and it ironically is a tax cut but a very specific and targeted one I've long advocated for.
The number one problem behind much of the problems you describe is a lack of social mobility and more importantly the lack of a positive parental role model at home that is going to work and showing the value of hard work.
Schools can't fix that. Society can.
Currently we draconianly tax those coming off benefits at a rate that is obscenely high. 70% to 100% marginal tax rates that traps people in poverty as it's seen not worth working.
Worse it encourages people into gangs and crime, as if you're going to make money then doing so illegally and untaxed becomes so much more attractive.
It is obscene that someone on benefits working loses marginally more in tax than someone on £110,000 pa does.
Fix that. Get people working, their economic situation would improve, their mental health and physical health would improve, their children will improve.
And then you have to wonder how much we're really saving.
And I pretty much agree with your second point. I find myself in the odd position of (slightly) defending Johnson, given I said he was totally unsuited to being PM before he got the job - and for the correct reasons. It is even more odder given that many who supported him then (coz Brexit!) are now vocally critical of him.
But again, I do think everyone in No. 10 were under an immense pressure at the time, quite unlike anything that has probably been seen in this country for eighty years. Given that, I think the 'parties' (*) were understandable, if not forgivable. The levels of stress must have been hellish, especially when you had idiots like Peston shouting questions at you.
Johnson should have gone over events like Pincher, which far better showed the flaws in his character.
(*) What sort of drab affairs people must go to if they class them as 'parties'!
The same issue has caused many clubs that had junior sections to close them. People don't want to jump through the hoops of getting vetted and the clubs don't want to do all the work of appointing a safe guarding officer etc.
This alone has caused a drop in whats available to youths.
On Partygate, even if we accept your judgement that there were mitigating pressures, what Boris should have done is draw a line under the affair by separating himself from the weekly wine o'clock boozers, apologising on their behalf, and ensuring there would be no repeats. What Boris actually did, if we are generous, and we saw a similar pattern with various other scandals that combined to bring him down, was issue a blanket denial in brazen disregard of the known facts, and repeat it under questioning by an experienced lawyer (see above) at PMQs.
If Boris had first troubled to establish the facts about the parties, and about Pincher, Paterson and so on, he might not have painted himself into a corner each time. We cannot be sure but that is a plausible basis for an alternative timeline where Boris is still Prime Minister.
By the autumn they would hope inflation and immigration are down further and interest rates are further stabilised. The biggest risk of Canada 93 is Farage replacing Tice as Reform leader anyway, not when the election is called
And here the parallel with partygate is meaningful. All experts seem to agree that this part of the tax code is extraordinarily complicated. It does no harm for politicians to understand what the rest of us have to go through as a result of the laws they make or preside over.
the very best things about this site is the
quality of discussion below the line.
This is another good challenge Topping,
thanks. If my original post came across as a party political one it wasn’t intended that way. I agree the current government could not have predicted the shocks of the past few years, aside from Brexit and an unfunded Trussterfuck.
Brown deserves some of the blame too for failing to shore up the finances when we were in a more prosperous position.
To add to this: the particular brand of austerity since 2008 was a choice, and left us with invidious choices as eg the pandemic hit.
My real argument, though, is with those who believe that if only the state got out of the way and enabled more growth, these problems would somehow magically recede.
I don’t have solutions, and have deep sympathy for any politicians trying to find solutions. But leaving communities and young people to fend for themselves with bankrupt local authorities is definitely not the answer.
A lot of the key work and decisions were being taken in other parts of government, and I'm not even going to go into the pressures on hospital staff.
They just didn't think the rules applied to them, because the boss at the time has never thought rules applied to him, and the Head of the Civil Service was (and still is) a nasty little weasel who didn't get to where he is by having a backbone.
It’s way too easy today to end up in an echo chamber, where we only hear opinions with which we agree - which is why this site is so good.
So, if we want to predict when they will call the election we have to understand - What are they trying to achieve? What factors do they think work to their advantage?
I think Herdson's arguments in favour of using the party conference to launch the election campaign are compelling. I can see why someone might convince themselves - at this moment - that it would be a good idea. But when we get to then, and Farage is being fêted at the Tory conference, perhaps Reform have another defection, it might not look so great. The will to go through with it might evaporate.
It's one of the reasons I think the later dates are more likely. No day feels like a good day to start an election campaign. So put it off. Delay.
And no, I don't trust the police on these matters, given their track record. And your argument about SKS is poor - he did not *know* he could not be charged - unless you're claiming he knew what the police would say? There was far more risk of virus spread from currygate than the no.10 party.
Yes, Johnson was a victim of his own character flaws - I've gone on enough about that. I have zero compassion for him over Pincher, Patterson etc. But on partygate... yes, I do have some sympathy, especially given his own personal ordeal months earlier.
Her version in which she received no rent and owes no CGT.
And the neighbours version in which she was a landlord and owes CGT.
West Yorkshire Police say they are "working to establish the facts" after Frank Hester was reported as saying the former Labour MP made him "want to hate all black women".
https://news.sky.com/story/police-investigate-tory-donors-alleged-racist-comments-about-diane-abbott-13099708
Are no banks being robbed in West Yorkshire? Are the facts about Hester even in dispute? Are there any banks still open in West Yorkshire? Will CCHQ give the money back? QTWAIN.
I don’t believe the campaign period can clash with either of the holiday periods, August or December. You won’t get your best result eg we are being nice to you for your vote but just pissed you off with this timing - doesn’t sit together does it?
I do believe politics is driven by scientific modelling, they spend a lot on consultants to help them find/create a sweet spot to get the best possible result, perhaps an even better result than they deserve considering mess created and left.
And the modelling and experts and science is not looking for “a day” they are looking at the five weeks prior when everything comes under microscope and outcome at its most fluid.
I thought would be May 2nd, in part becuase I presumed an awful set of local elections makes it difficult to go General Election campaigning shortly afterwards, and, as mentioned I think by Peter “of the view that Sunak missed the best chance of avoiding meltdown when he passed over the May option. From here on, it only gets worse.” And media scrutiny is already coming on the beginning of the boat surge, with worse to come later in year with inflation and energy prices up too. So that bit remains true on the forecasts.
BUT. May 2nd local elections are not going to cause No.10 an issue - I was wrong about that, I now realise the worst headline these boring elections can produce is Tories only losing 2 Mayors - and its neither certain to happen, or be front page news if it did.
And I didn’t know about Rishi’s “Week of Wonders” in May till this week.