Dunno, but it says a lot about UK dysfunction that the PM is doing a press conference about the opening of a theme park.
No idea how accurate their visitor estimates will be, but they're suggesting it would get more than 3 times as many visitors as any other theme park in the UK, and possibly the UK's biggest visitor attraction.
While it might not appeal to the demographic of this site, I'd say that's pretty big news. It's a bit bigger than Noel Edmund's bringing back Blobbyland.
It’s the London equivalent on Disneyland and most of Europe have been trying to get it.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
What absolute rubbish, for starters Trump is head of state of a REPUBLIC.
If anything the election of Trump shows precisely how much better constitutional monarchies are and it was of course Starmer who invited Trump in reality, he just asked the King to send the invite
Well, the crowned and cancer ridden old thief is going to be the very public face of Starmer's submission when DJT rocks up for his Statty Viz.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
We could try losing a world war - worked for the Hapsburgs, the Kaiser and the Tsar.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
What absolute rubbish, for starters Trump is head of state of a REPUBLIC.
If anything the election of Trump shows precisely how much better constitutional monarchies are and it was of course Starmer who invited Trump in reality, he just asked the King to send the invite
Well, the crowned and cancer ridden old thief is going to be the very public face of Starmer's submission when DJT rocks up for his Statty Viz.
Assuming he makes it. Cancer is a tricky opponent.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
A lot of the fall in European markets was just catching up with what happened in US markets after European markets closed yesterday.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
We certainly need to radically change our focus. Ideally, we would run a surplus sufficient to repay our debts as the gilts mature for the next 30 years. No doubt things in that time will knock us off course for a time but that should be the target.
There may be some exceptions for public sector pay but a lot of it is absurd. So the average newly qualified court solicitor in Edinburgh earns £35-40k. A newly qualified procurator fiscal earns £57k plus a pension plus a series of additional benefits in terms of sickness, maternity etc. It’s just outrageous.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
What absolute rubbish, for starters Trump is head of state of a REPUBLIC.
If anything the election of Trump shows precisely how much better constitutional monarchies are and it was of course Starmer who invited Trump in reality, he just asked the King to send the invite
Well, the crowned and cancer ridden old thief is going to be the very public face of Starmer's submission when DJT rocks up for his Statty Viz.
Assuming he makes it. Cancer is a tricky opponent.
Be quite the slap if William said no to Trump attending his pa's funeral.
Massive Chinese retaliation. Significant EU retaliation. China, South Korea and Japan working on a notAmerica trading block.
Where is Starmer?
Frit I tell ya.
I think he has broadly played it well as have China and the EU. Different strokes for different folks.
He hasn’t done anything. Although that may be the most sensible policy.
I think in this case resisting the immediate temptation to say 'F Off' is the right one. It reminds me of a few occasions when something daft has gone on at work, and it's best to sit tight and let all the others stir the pot, wait to see what happens, and if necessary quietly do what you planned to do in response anyway.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
What absolute rubbish, for starters Trump is head of state of a REPUBLIC.
If anything the election of Trump shows precisely how much better constitutional monarchies are and it was of course Starmer who invited Trump in reality, he just asked the King to send the invite
Well, the crowned and cancer ridden old thief is going to be the very public face of Starmer's submission when DJT rocks up for his Statty Viz.
Assuming he makes it. Cancer is a tricky opponent.
Are you suggesting Charles takes one for the team, to give us a cast iron excuse to cancel the visit ?
On topic, Almaty Kazakhstan is the most surprisingly agreeable city I’ve visited in - fuck knows how long. A decade? More? Ever?
Good food, great bars, young people, no fucking “religion”, major mountains, loads of booze, big party people, really safe, surrounded by amazing scenery, yet also respectful polite and kind
So if the shit hits the tan? - PB - this is where we all go. Or Uruguay
I don’t give a fuck about this shit any more. Wanky students protesting about wanky shite
Slam them in jail. Do worse with the worst
You know who sent the tanks into Tiananmen Square? Deng Xiao Ping, the man who correctly saw that China needed prosperity long before democracy - if it ever needs democracy at all
Deng pulled 1bn Chinese out of poverty, after that. He was right to crush the protests
Trump doesn't care about his ratings now though, as he can't run in '28.
He basically has two years to do scorched earth and burn everything down before the Dems obviously win the mid-terms and neuter him (to some degree) for his final two years...
Are we quietly pretending the talk of a third term never took place now ?
That would be unwise. The tariff news has blocked out in Europe the continuing saga of the USA government's contempt for the rule of law, but it is carrying on apace. Thus far the lower courts have done their best to stem the tide, but because of appeals including to SCOTUS they have usually been ineffective.
Brian Tyler Cohen, Glenn Kirschner and Marc Elias are three to follow on all this.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
Dunno, but it says a lot about UK dysfunction that the PM is doing a press conference about the opening of a theme park.
No idea how accurate their visitor estimates will be, but they're suggesting it would get more than 3 times as many visitors as any other theme park in the UK, and possibly the UK's biggest visitor attraction.
While it might not appeal to the demographic of this site, I'd say that's pretty big news. It's a bit bigger than Noel Edmund's bringing back Blobbyland.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
Dunno, but it says a lot about UK dysfunction that the PM is doing a press conference about the opening of a theme park.
No idea how accurate their visitor estimates will be, but they're suggesting it would get more than 3 times as many visitors as any other theme park in the UK, and possibly the UK's biggest visitor attraction.
While it might not appeal to the demographic of this site, I'd say that's pretty big news. It's a bit bigger than Noel Edmund's bringing back Blobbyland.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
That's one of the main target age groups for a big theme park. They're full of late teens, and kids in their 20s.
The man gives off such a heady aroma of banal robotic mendacity I don't buy his family man guff any more than his father being a toolmaker guff. I'll be very pleased when his Government is ejected and we can forget he existed.
That's one of the main target age groups for a big theme park. They're full of late teens, and kids in their 20s.
The man gives off such a heady aroma of banal robotic mendacity I don't buy his family man guff any more than his father being a toolmaker guff. I'll be very pleased when his Government is ejected and we can forget he existed.
You are so wrong.
The most honest thing ever said by a politician was when Sir Keir Starmer said his father was a toolmaker.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
We certainly need to radically change our focus. Ideally, we would run a surplus sufficient to repay our debts as the gilts mature for the next 30 years. No doubt things in that time will knock us off course for a time but that should be the target.
There may be some exceptions for public sector pay but a lot of it is absurd. So the average newly qualified court solicitor in Edinburgh earns £35-40k. A newly qualified procurator fiscal earns £57k plus a pension plus a series of additional benefits in terms of sickness, maternity etc. It’s just outrageous.
Maybe it's different in Edinburgh, but in London to earn £57k you would be in the managerial roles in most public sector organisations, which in my field is at least 30% under market rate (even allowing for benefits, which aren't as good as they used to be). And I say this as someone in the private sector, but sometimes working for government clients.
My view is that departments should be given a budget, a set of priorities and left to get on with it. And hopefully cut out expensive contractors like me.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
People like me would be paying it, I suppose. But only once. And then taking our wealth and our businesses somewhere else in Europe.
You think a 19 year old can't enjoy a theme park?! I'm a lot older than that and will happily fling myself down a flume or a rollercoaster.
You must have been the world's most boring teenager. But this is PB, I suppose...
Not sure what to make of that!
When I was a teenager, my mates and I were doing drugs, getting drunk and chasing girls… can’t remember anyone saying ‘let’s go Alton Towers’ but maybe I just wasn’t in with the cool crowd
Really? There was not one moment pf mu life between the ages of 8 and 21 when a visit to a theme park wouldn't have been brilliant. (A good theme park, mind - Alton Towers or Blackpool.) I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers? Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
We certainly need to radically change our focus. Ideally, we would run a surplus sufficient to repay our debts as the gilts mature for the next 30 years. No doubt things in that time will knock us off course for a time but that should be the target.
There may be some exceptions for public sector pay but a lot of it is absurd. So the average newly qualified court solicitor in Edinburgh earns £35-40k. A newly qualified procurator fiscal earns £57k plus a pension plus a series of additional benefits in terms of sickness, maternity etc. It’s just outrageous.
We should broadly set public sector pay by what is needed to recruit, not what they deserve, or even comparisons with the private sector.
So where we have tens of thousands of vacancies like in nursing and care we need to pay more. Same in some high skill, high demand IT roles. At the top end there is rarely a need to be paying £200k+ to non specialist managers, who have ended up on those salaries as the people setting the pay scales tend to be the same people getting the high pay.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
We could try losing a world war - worked for the Hapsburgs, the Kaiser and the Tsar.
Mostly absolute monarchs at the time effectively so a different scenario
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
In 30 years, Papua New Guinea 30 year bonds will be more attractive than US 30 year bonds, such will be the decline inflicted on America by the (as history judges it) hilariously mis-named MAGA.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
I'd have used that as an excuse to continue cutting NICs while increasing income tax.
DavidL's list of interventions was quite good, I think. The problem is that by far the easiest thing to do is to cut more capital and preventative spending (like Hunt did) while popping up indirect taxes like Employer NICs. Sigh.
FWIW, I'd go mad and abolish all taxes on electricity, increase them significantly on gas (the winter is over), whack up fuel duty. That's both green and progressive, with poor people using much more electricity as a proportion of their energy use. Abolish CGT, IHT, Stamp Duty and Council Tax and apply a >1% property tax and pump that number up until the budget balances. Pledge to merge IT and NICs. Big SUV tax, abolish VAT on house renovations and improvements.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
Said that earlier. The only viable response would be for the Fed to buy another $750bn of bonds through QE which would surely end the US position as the reserve currency forever.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
People like me would be paying it, I suppose. But only once. And then taking our wealth and our businesses somewhere else in Europe.
I was thinking of the many souls whose only real wealth is in property.
£1m house? That'll be £100k as a one-off payment please.
What do you meant you can find anyone to buy it?
Better to tax wealth at 0.5% or less p.a. And tax all UK citizens, even those with wealth stashed abroad. Let those who love money more than their country sod-off and become Khazak or wherever citizens.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
Indeed, even 55% of 2024 Labour voters prefer the monarchy to becoming a republic, as do 60% of LDs, 81% of Reform voters and 94% of Tory voters so no party is going to put a referendum on the monarchy in their manifesto apart from maybe the Greens.
Referendums are of course irrelevant anyway, after all MPs voted down Brexit despite the 2016 Leave vote for 3 years, only the Dec 2019 Conservative majority got Brexit done
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
Keep hearing that higher taxes will kill off growth.
Haven't countries like Denmark, along with the other Scando countries, had much higher taxes than the UK yet there is zero evidence that they have lower growth or productivity as a result?
Not sure I understand Pollock's point unless he's applying an idée fixe. Or two if we count ethnicity and religion.
I will start watching Adolescence tonight. The prospect of any film being shown throughout the school system is interesting and made me think of A Clockwork Orange. Will all the teachers have to watch it too? The term "online radicalisation" or just "radicalisation" is undergoing mission creep. Where does this lead?
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
Keep hearing that higher taxes will kill off growth.
Haven't countries like Denmark, along with the other Scando countries, had much higher taxes than the UK yet there is zero evidence that they have lower growth or productivity as a result?
I think that higher taxes are inimical to growth but we currently have a state spending more than £800bn a year. That needs to come down but that will not happen overnight and until it does we need to pay for it.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
Indeed, even 55% of 2024 Labour voters prefer the monarchy to becoming a republic, as do 60% of LDs, 81% of Reform voters and 94% of Tory voters so no party is going to put a referendum on the monarchy in their manifesto apart from maybe the Greens.
Referendums are of course irrelevant anyway, after all MPs voted down Brexit despite the 2016 Leave vote for 3 years, only the Dec 2019 Conservative majority got Brexit done
Another of your increasingly bizarre arguments.
Had MPs 'voted down' Brexit, it wouldn't have happened but they didn't.
OTOH had there been no referendum there'd have been no Brexit, xo how is the referendum 'irrelevant' ?
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
It’s normal to borrow, since a normal growing economy should in time deflate away the size of that borrowing.
Also, if you just turn the taps off, you crater the economy and create scarring.
Reeves’s failure is a to lack a long-term persuasive vision and theory for growth, to fail to get to grips with tenaciously wasteful cost like the triple lock, and - like most UK chancellors since Lawson - to lack much interest in supply-side reform which is actually where much of the dysfunction is.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
Keep hearing that higher taxes will kill off growth.
Haven't countries like Denmark, along with the other Scando countries, had much higher taxes than the UK yet there is zero evidence that they have lower growth or productivity as a result?
Yes - that assertion that it's the only way to achieve growth is wrong. It might be the best way for the UK, sure, but you'd need to provide good evidence for why, particularly when the Nordics/Canada etc beat us on pretty much every measure.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
People like me would be paying it, I suppose. But only once. And then taking our wealth and our businesses somewhere else in Europe.
I was thinking of the many souls whose only real wealth is in property.
£1m house? That'll be £100k as a one-off payment please.
What do you meant you can find anyone to buy it?
Better to tax wealth at 0.5% or less p.a. And tax all UK citizens, even those with wealth stashed abroad. Let those who love money more than their country sod-off and become Khazak or wherever citizens.
Fair enough. I'm in favour of higher annual taxes on residential property (along with abolition of stamp duty). But when people start talking about a wealth tax I get nervous about it being applied to the business I've built up and the pension etc I've built up from the past dividends.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
What absolute rubbish, for starters Trump is head of state of a REPUBLIC.
If anything the election of Trump shows precisely how much better constitutional monarchies are and it was of course Starmer who invited Trump in reality, he just asked the King to send the invite
Well, the crowned and cancer ridden old thief is going to be the very public face of Starmer's submission when DJT rocks up for his Statty Viz.
I'd institute the ban hammer for constructions like "Statty Viz". It's overly twee and a horrible mangling of the language. It's like those deranged individuals who use "Holiday bobs".
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday sought to calm fears about U.S. government debt, saying a spike in interest rates was no reason for concern about the health of the financial system.
Trump will be happy with a recession to get inflation under control, which means he'll be happy with high unemployment, which is quite low currently, which means the margin calls are priced in for him and screw everyone else. Unemployment peaks at midterms most likely but what the world is like in 2028 is another story. But the 2020s are a decade like no other, and we knew that by this time in 2020.
I am not a fan of Starmer but I believe he is acting sensibly by not retaliating against Trump
On a wider issue this crisis and bond yields make me very worried that Reeves is COE
Never mind, she apparently has taken to saying ' we have your back"
I would suggest she may need to worry more as to who has hers
Reeves and the Treasury in general are petrified of another Truss fiasco - hence the deeply boring budget and performative cutting of pensioner benefits.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
Her gravest error besides the employers NI increase was not reversing Hunt's absurd NI cuts on 5/7/2024.
That budget (by Hunt) increased taxes overall. The NI cuts simply reduced the proportion of tax on earnings and reduced the differential with unearned income. That was a good thing.
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
You cannot really make the case that he should have increased taxes further, as economic growth in the Sunak era was anaemic, and we have an object lesson with Reeves of what happens when someone DOES increase taxes further.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
A Labour Chancellor once explained that when you are in a hole the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Borrowing £100bn a year when we already had a debt problem was not and is not the answer.
Keep hearing that higher taxes will kill off growth.
Haven't countries like Denmark, along with the other Scando countries, had much higher taxes than the UK yet there is zero evidence that they have lower growth or productivity as a result?
Yebbut had the Scandis had lower taxes they'd have obviously outstripped us in a much biglier way.
Dunno, but it says a lot about UK dysfunction that the PM is doing a press conference about the opening of a theme park.
No idea how accurate their visitor estimates will be, but they're suggesting it would get more than 3 times as many visitors as any other theme park in the UK, and possibly the UK's biggest visitor attraction.
While it might not appeal to the demographic of this site, I'd say that's pretty big news. It's a bit bigger than Noel Edmund's bringing back Blobbyland.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
The public know well that the King has no input on such matters.
I’ve heard, over the years, so many prognostications on The End Of The Monarchy.
#DesparateRepublicanism
I think there will be sympathy for the King having to put up with Trump through gritted teeth
I think there is too, but amongst the "firm" there is considerable pessimism about the long term viability of the Monarchy. The attempt to slim down the number involved has also been a bit too successful. The forced exit of The Sussexes and the Yorks and the illness of the Princess of Wales and indeed the King himself has put a lot more of the burden on the loyal but elderly Dukes of Kent and of Gloucester as well as the Princess Royal, all of them well over 70.
No wonder the Prince of Wales looks so worried. Keeping the show on the road when the press are quite happy to rip you apart and when the nuances of constitutional monarchy are not really understood by the media, let alone the wider population, is a pretty daunting prospect.
Personally I am quite content with a Monarchy. God Save His Majesty King Charles, especially in right of Canada.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
You think a 19 year old can't enjoy a theme park?! I'm a lot older than that and will happily fling myself down a flume or a rollercoaster.
You must have been the world's most boring teenager. But this is PB, I suppose...
Not sure what to make of that!
When I was a teenager, my mates and I were doing drugs, getting drunk and chasing girls… can’t remember anyone saying ‘let’s go Alton Towers’ but maybe I just wasn’t in with the cool crowd
Really? There was not one moment pf mu life between the ages of 8 and 21 when a visit to a theme park wouldn't have been brilliant. (A good theme park, mind - Alton Towers or Blackpool.) I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers? Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
When I was at junior school as a treat maybe my parents would take me to a theme park, but not when I was old enough to go out and about with my mates! Maybe I’ve read the room wrong, but in my experience of being 14-21, anyone who suggested going to a theme park would have been… well, no one I know would have even suggested it.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
Trump will be happy with a recession to get inflation under control, which means he'll be happy with high unemployment, which is quite low currently, which means the margin calls are priced in for him and screw everyone else. Unemployment peaks at midterms most likely but what the world is like in 2028 is another story. But the 2020s are a decade like no other, and we knew that by this time in 2020.
We're speedrunning 1914 to 1930 at the moment, doing it in just 5 years.
Major war in Europe - check Major illness sweeping the globe - check Major depression incoming - check
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
That teenage knife crime is considered to be disproportionately perpetrated by black kids I assume. That’s why right wing people thought ‘Adolescence’ absurd anyway.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
You think a 19 year old can't enjoy a theme park?! I'm a lot older than that and will happily fling myself down a flume or a rollercoaster.
You must have been the world's most boring teenager. But this is PB, I suppose...
Not sure what to make of that!
When I was a teenager, my mates and I were doing drugs, getting drunk and chasing girls… can’t remember anyone saying ‘let’s go Alton Towers’ but maybe I just wasn’t in with the cool crowd
Really? There was not one moment pf mu life between the ages of 8 and 21 when a visit to a theme park wouldn't have been brilliant. (A good theme park, mind - Alton Towers or Blackpool.) I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers? Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
When I was at junior school as a treat maybe my parents would take me to a theme park, but not when I was old enough to go out and about with my mates! Maybe I’ve read the room wrong, but in my experience of being 14-21, anyone who suggested going to a theme park would have been… well, no one I know would have even suggested it.
I grew up in Denmark, and visiting Tivoli Gardens in my teens was a decent idea, and there were lots of other teenagers there too.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
Indeed, many of our most brilliant artists, composers, singers and writers and actors and directors have had rather dubious personal lives and morality.
Caravaggio was a murderer, Michael Jackson almost certainly a paedophile, Gill committed sexual abuse, Harvey Weinstein a rapist.
You can still appreciate their work and of course they are no longer alive to enjoy royalties or in jail anyway
Trump will be happy with a recession to get inflation under control, which means he'll be happy with high unemployment, which is quite low currently, which means the margin calls are priced in for him and screw everyone else. Unemployment peaks at midterms most likely but what the world is like in 2028 is another story. But the 2020s are a decade like no other, and we knew that by this time in 2020.
We're speedrunning 1914 to 1930 at the moment, doing it in just 5 years.
Major war in Europe - check Major illness sweeping the globe - check Major depression incoming - check
The 2020s are turning into the worst decade since the 1930s. And yes worse than the 1970s when real incomes were rising strongly. And amazingly it took a world war defeat, hyper inflation and a depression to get germans to turn towards Hitler. But with Trump rising cost of eggs did it.
Crockett: "My Republican colleagues are here using today to continue pushing this false narrative of sanctuary cities harboring criminals, yet right here in DC we have a 34 count felon being harbored in the White House."
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
Indeed, many of our most brilliant artists, composers, singers and writers and actors and directors have had rather dubious personal lives and morality.
Caravaggio was a murderer, Michael Jackson almost certainly a paedophile, Gill committed sexual abuse, Harvey Weinstein a rapist.
You can still appreciate their work and of course they are no longer alive to enjoy royalties or in jail anyway
Or, to use closer-to-home examples, Marlowe was a murderer, Wilde probably a pederast, and Lucien Freud hardly a bastion of morality.
You think a 19 year old can't enjoy a theme park?! I'm a lot older than that and will happily fling myself down a flume or a rollercoaster.
You must have been the world's most boring teenager. But this is PB, I suppose...
Not sure what to make of that!
When I was a teenager, my mates and I were doing drugs, getting drunk and chasing girls… can’t remember anyone saying ‘let’s go Alton Towers’ but maybe I just wasn’t in with the cool crowd
Really? There was not one moment pf mu life between the ages of 8 and 21 when a visit to a theme park wouldn't have been brilliant. (A good theme park, mind - Alton Towers or Blackpool.) I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers? Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
When I was at junior school as a treat maybe my parents would take me to a theme park, but not when I was old enough to go out and about with my mates! Maybe I’ve read the room wrong, but in my experience of being 14-21, anyone who suggested going to a theme park would have been… well, no one I know would have even suggested it.
I grew up in Denmark, and visiting Tivoli Gardens in my teens was a decent idea, and there were lots of other teenagers there too.
Kids vary, just like everyone else.
I think we were just open to lots of things. Swimming in the river, trip to a theme park in Spain, camping in the Cairngorms, drinking at the beach, house parties, Glasgow for gigs etc etc.
I have an upcoming thread saying how the Trump state visit could turn the UK into a republic.
Trump comes to the UK and is hosted by the King then we will see protests on the streets not seen the Iraq war.
The monarchy could be collateral damage.
This isn't going to happen. The reasoning is simple. Ignore the Trump issue altogether, even if it damaged Charles III, which it won't.
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum. To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment and The party making the commitment has to win the election. Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes. I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me) The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
Indeed, even 55% of 2024 Labour voters prefer the monarchy to becoming a republic, as do 60% of LDs, 81% of Reform voters and 94% of Tory voters so no party is going to put a referendum on the monarchy in their manifesto apart from maybe the Greens.
Referendums are of course irrelevant anyway, after all MPs voted down Brexit despite the 2016 Leave vote for 3 years, only the Dec 2019 Conservative majority got Brexit done
Another of your increasingly bizarre arguments.
Had MPs 'voted down' Brexit, it wouldn't have happened but they didn't.
OTOH had there been no referendum there'd have been no Brexit, xo how is the referendum 'irrelevant' ?
They did, MPs rejected the Withdrawal Agreement from the EU umpteen times after the 2016 EU referendum and instead voted to extend staying in the EU over the Brexits on offer. It was only finally passed when the Conservatives won a majority with a manifesto commitment for Brexit in Dec 2019.
Indeed, had there been no EU referendum or Remain scraped home in 2016 Brexit may have happened anyway eg George Osborne replaces Cameron as PM in about 2018/19 but loses his majority at a general election in 2019 or 2020 as UKIP surges, Boris takes over as PM and wins a majority for Brexit at the subsequent general election
Trump will be happy with a recession to get inflation under control, which means he'll be happy with high unemployment, which is quite low currently, which means the margin calls are priced in for him and screw everyone else. Unemployment peaks at midterms most likely but what the world is like in 2028 is another story. But the 2020s are a decade like no other, and we knew that by this time in 2020.
We're speedrunning 1914 to 1930 at the moment, doing it in just 5 years.
Major war in Europe - check Major illness sweeping the globe - check Major depression incoming - check
The 2020s are turning into the worst decade since the 1930s. And yes worse than the 1970s when real incomes were rising strongly. And amazingly it took a world war defeat, hyper inflation and a depression to get germans to turn towards Hitler. But with Trump rising cost of eggs did it.
This egg thing seems to have stuck. But as far as I can tell, eggs only started going up after Trump’s election (but not perhaps his inauguration), due to bird flu.
People voted Trump because they were - are - still suffering PTSD from Covid-era inflation, and because they were sick of woke militancy.
Trump will be happy with a recession to get inflation under control, which means he'll be happy with high unemployment, which is quite low currently, which means the margin calls are priced in for him and screw everyone else. Unemployment peaks at midterms most likely but what the world is like in 2028 is another story. But the 2020s are a decade like no other, and we knew that by this time in 2020.
We're speedrunning 1914 to 1930 at the moment, doing it in just 5 years.
Major war in Europe - check Major illness sweeping the globe - check Major depression incoming - check
The 2020s are turning into the worst decade since the 1930s. And yes worse than the 1970s when real incomes were rising strongly. And amazingly it took a world war defeat, hyper inflation and a depression to get germans to turn towards Hitler. But with Trump rising cost of eggs did it.
1970s had Fawlty Towers and Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
You think a 19 year old can't enjoy a theme park?! I'm a lot older than that and will happily fling myself down a flume or a rollercoaster.
You must have been the world's most boring teenager. But this is PB, I suppose...
Not sure what to make of that!
When I was a teenager, my mates and I were doing drugs, getting drunk and chasing girls… can’t remember anyone saying ‘let’s go Alton Towers’ but maybe I just wasn’t in with the cool crowd
Really? There was not one moment pf mu life between the ages of 8 and 21 when a visit to a theme park wouldn't have been brilliant. (A good theme park, mind - Alton Towers or Blackpool.) I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers? Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
I managed to combine the two. When I was 17, my girlfriend and I both skipped school (unbeknown to our parents), and I took her to Alton Towers on my motorbike. We had a great time snogging on the rides and generally messing about. Unfortunately, I managed to crash the bike when we were almost home. We were both OK aside from a few bruises and scrapes, but she went off me after that for some reason.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
The problem is, the BBC tie themselves in knots over this kind of thing. Top of the Pops 2 has been utterly decimated in recent years thanks to Yewtree.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
People like me would be paying it, I suppose. But only once. And then taking our wealth and our businesses somewhere else in Europe.
I was thinking of the many souls whose only real wealth is in property.
£1m house? That'll be £100k as a one-off payment please.
What do you meant you can find anyone to buy it?
Better to tax wealth at 0.5% or less p.a. And tax all UK citizens, even those with wealth stashed abroad. Let those who love money more than their country sod-off and become Khazak or wherever citizens.
Fair enough. I'm in favour of higher annual taxes on residential property (along with abolition of stamp duty). But when people start talking about a wealth tax I get nervous about it being applied to the business I've built up and the pension etc I've built up from the past dividends.
The big problem with tax is that people are always in favour of tax raises on other people. As far as defence is concerned it should have a simple separate tax which should be a flat percentage and everyone should pay it, no exceptions. I'd rather pay a defence tax than see my sons go to war
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven. It's the US that have imposed tariffs on themselves. Why aren't they tanking?
Or is it simply expected that the rest of the world (Europe especially) will reduce their prices to offset the tariff cost to the end US consumer/purchaser; and therefore European stocks fall whilst US ones don't?
Not sure how far this explains it. Share price indices reflect among other things expectations of future aggregate expenditure, i.e. GDP. And tariffs affect real GDP by reducing imports and thereby increasing net exports which is the X-M element in the GDP=C+I+G+X-M definition. So, other things being equal, tariffs raise GDP and hence company valuations.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
“Most people” voted for Brexit, Johnson, and Trump.
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
The problem is, the BBC tie themselves in knots over this kind of thing. Top of the Pops 2 has been utterly decimated in recent years thanks to Yewtree.
The BBC ties itself in knots over everything now. It lacks a clear ethos, and seems no longer able to stand up for anything.
John Birt undermined it, Alistair Campbell demoralised it, and Yewtree might have been the effective death knell.
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Is displaying his work akin to “celebrating” him? This seems a very superstitious idea.
Yeah, I can see how it might be but it is an bearded bloke (like Gill) with a naked boy. If it was say a sculpture of the BBC coat of arms then it wouldn't have the same disgust factor. I would suggest that most people would not wish public money to be used to protect it and that wouldn't be a passing fad of disapproval.
Rule out 'bearded blokes with naked boys' and that's half of Renaissance fine art in the bin.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
Increase IT by at least 2p Introduce Mays plans for funding care from the capital of the patient immediately. Start a capital tax. End the triple lock. Cut public sector wages by something like 10% across the board. Cut benefits. Restrict pension reliefs. Try, somehow , to find some money for investment, probably by subsidising the lending. Find the money for increased defence spending. Radically shake up our immigration system by granting the right to work to everyone already here and restricting future access. Increase fuel duty , taking advantage of lower oil prices. And probably a whole lot more deeply unpleasant things besides.
I'd agree with a lot of that. Though cutting public sector pay won't work as from where I'm sitting, it's too low already with too many vacancies that can't be filled (at least, not by anyone vaguely competent).
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Something radical is needed. A 10% one-off tax on property though? Who's paying it, and how? By selling it - to whom?
People like me would be paying it, I suppose. But only once. And then taking our wealth and our businesses somewhere else in Europe.
I was thinking of the many souls whose only real wealth is in property.
£1m house? That'll be £100k as a one-off payment please.
What do you meant you can find anyone to buy it?
Better to tax wealth at 0.5% or less p.a. And tax all UK citizens, even those with wealth stashed abroad. Let those who love money more than their country sod-off and become Khazak or wherever citizens.
Fair enough. I'm in favour of higher annual taxes on residential property (along with abolition of stamp duty). But when people start talking about a wealth tax I get nervous about it being applied to the business I've built up and the pension etc I've built up from the past dividends.
The big problem with tax is that people are always in favour of tax raises on other people. As far as defence is concerned it should have a simple separate tax which should be a flat percentage and everyone should pay it, no exceptions. I'd rather pay a defence tax than see my sons go to war
In your last sentence, you seem to be saying that there's a choice between paying a defence tax and sending your sons to war.
That teenage knife crime is considered to be disproportionately perpetrated by black kids I assume. That’s why right wing people thought ‘Adolescence’ absurd anyway.
I think he might be saying that adolescence is a woke wash. Instead of the Southport killer and radical Islam, you get a white boy and Andrew Tate. How true that is, I'm not sure, but I'm sure that the liberal orthodoxy has form for ignoring things that do not fit into their worldview.
Can anyone explain to me, looking at the markets, why all the European ones are in the red today, down about 3-4%, but the US ones are broadly breakeven.
No, they can't. Despite some feverish herding of opinion on here, unmatched since the gilded dawn of the SMO, nobody has a fucking clue what is happening or what comes next.
The bond markets tell a different, but equally incomprehensible story.
EU have just announced tit-for-tat tariffs. Starmer is the outlier.
It's good that we are not governed by a panican.
Starmer has a real problem saying no to aggressive/legalistic opponents. Famously he can beat the crap out of Labour lefties (see "Out", "Get In", etc) but he kneels to Trump every time. The word for that is not "panican"
I wonder if there's a market price for Vance taking over due to assassination?
Historically speaking, betting markets are voided in the event of the death of the principal. The most recent example was when Boris got COVID. In the past people used to insure the king as a method of betting, but laws were brought in to prevent it and the concept of "insurable interest" was born. The Blair reforms in the Noughties messed this up, but the principle and common decency still apply.
Comments
To abolish the monarchy there would have to be a referendum.
To hold a referendum there has to be a manifesto commitment
and
The party making the commitment has to win the election.
Such a manifesto commitment will be believed by all party strategists to risk a number of votes.
I do not think anyone would put a possible figure on those votes as less than two million (that's 1,999,999 + me)
The gap between Lab and Tory in the 2024 wipeout was 2.9 million.
So it isn't going to happen.
My suggestion is that there needs to be a one-off raid on wealth, with the explicit purpose of paying off a large chunk of the national debt. We can then use the money saved on interest on more worthwhile things.
The money received by privatisations over the last 40 years has largely been squandered, and returned to the wealthier and older half of the population via tax cuts. The people currently sitting with property and investments are the beneficiaries of not having paid enough tax over the 40 years and now it is time to recover some of this. A quick Google tells me that National Debt is £2.8tn, value of UK property is £10.8tn (proper research needed - no time) so I propose a one-off 10% tax to halve the national debt. Lots of thinking through and I don't have time now. But that's my starter for 10.
Whatever you think of her policies otherwise, I don't thing we have evidence that she will play fast and loose with the fiscal position. I'd expect some sort of intervention soon given the non-existent headroom.
There may be some exceptions for public sector pay but a lot of it is absurd. So the average newly qualified court solicitor in Edinburgh earns £35-40k. A newly qualified procurator fiscal earns £57k plus a pension plus a series of additional benefits in terms of sickness, maternity etc. It’s just outrageous.
Brian Tyler Cohen, Glenn Kirschner and Marc Elias are three to follow on all this.
Markets now rate Greek 30 year bonds a safer investment than US 30 year bonds.
https://x.com/DrewPavlou/status/1909950326180024373
And safer
Where did we go wrong?
You can make the case he should have increased taxes even further but it absurd to look at the NI in isolation and say that these were unfunded cuts.
The most honest thing ever said by a politician was when Sir Keir Starmer said his father was a toolmaker.
My view is that departments should be given a budget, a set of priorities and left to get on with it. And hopefully cut out expensive contractors like me.
I liked underage booze and interaction with the opposite sex as much as the next horny teemager, but come on - Alton Towers?
Not as much my cup of tea any more, mind. But when it was, it was absolutely brilliant.
The only way to balance the books is increase supply (long term) and cut spending.
They can utterly fuck American via bonds.
CDU/CSU 25.1%
AfD 24.5%
SPD 15.4%
Grn 11.1%
Left 10.3%
BSW 4.3%
FDP 3.8%
Oth 5.5%
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahl_zum_22._Deutschen_Bundestag/Umfragen_und_Prognosen#Dynamische_Sonntagsfrage
So where we have tens of thousands of vacancies like in nursing and care we need to pay more. Same in some high skill, high demand IT roles. At the top end there is rarely a need to be paying £200k+ to non specialist managers, who have ended up on those salaries as the people setting the pay scales tend to be the same people getting the high pay.
DavidL's list of interventions was quite good, I think. The problem is that by far the easiest thing to do is to cut more capital and preventative spending (like Hunt did) while popping up indirect taxes like Employer NICs. Sigh.
FWIW, I'd go mad and abolish all taxes on electricity, increase them significantly on gas (the winter is over), whack up fuel duty. That's both green and progressive, with poor people using much more electricity as a proportion of their energy use. Abolish CGT, IHT, Stamp Duty and Council Tax and apply a >1% property tax and pump that number up until the budget balances. Pledge to merge IT and NICs. Big SUV tax, abolish VAT on house renovations and improvements.
ICE director says deportations should be run like ‘Amazon Prime for human beings’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/ice-todd-lyons-deporation-amazon
£1m house? That'll be £100k as a one-off payment please.
What do you meant you can find anyone to buy it?
Better to tax wealth at 0.5% or less p.a. And tax all UK citizens, even those with wealth stashed abroad. Let those who love money more than their country sod-off and become Khazak or wherever citizens.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Internal_RoyalFavourability_240815.pdf (p4)
Referendums are of course irrelevant anyway, after all MPs voted down Brexit despite the 2016 Leave vote for 3 years, only the Dec 2019 Conservative majority got Brexit done
Haven't countries like Denmark, along with the other Scando countries, had much higher taxes than the UK yet there is zero evidence that they have lower growth or productivity as a result?
I will start watching Adolescence tonight. The prospect of any film being shown throughout the school system is interesting and made me think of A Clockwork Orange. Will all the teachers have to watch it too? The term "online radicalisation" or just "radicalisation" is undergoing mission creep. Where does this lead?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/09/bbc-reinstalls-sculpture-by-paedophile-eric-gill-with-new-protective-screen
Don't care if it's Grade II* listed, there's no way that monster should be celebrated and there's plenty of people who would remove it for free.
Had MPs 'voted down' Brexit, it wouldn't have happened but they didn't.
OTOH had there been no referendum there'd have been no Brexit, xo how is the referendum 'irrelevant' ?
Also, if you just turn the taps off, you crater the economy and create scarring.
Reeves’s failure is a to lack a long-term persuasive vision and theory for growth, to fail to get to grips with tenaciously wasteful cost like the triple lock, and - like most UK chancellors since Lawson - to lack much interest in supply-side reform which is actually where much of the dysfunction is.
He's already planning a four mile military parade on his birthday in Washington.
A couple of horse drawn gilded carriages and dinner at Windsor followed by a tour of the gardens aint gonna cut it.
This seems a very superstitious idea.
@vtg2
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday sought to calm fears about U.S. government debt, saying a spike in interest rates was no reason for concern about the health of the financial system.
https://x.com/vtg2/status/1909990770251108830
"No reason for concern"?? LOL
So sayeth St Laffer
ps. preferably not the ones that require us to pull out swords from rocks.
No wonder the Prince of Wales looks so worried. Keeping the show on the road when the press are quite happy to rip you apart and when the nuances of constitutional monarchy are not really understood by the media, let alone the wider population, is a pretty daunting prospect.
Personally I am quite content with a Monarchy.
God Save His Majesty King Charles, especially in right of Canada.
But then again I like Wagner's music and he was a raving anti-semite.
Let the art stand for itself while roundly condemning the artist - seems fine to me.
(TOTP is not quite in the same 'great art' league.)
Major war in Europe - check
Major illness sweeping the globe - check
Major depression incoming - check
Gill was an outstanding sculptor and the piece in question one of his most notable works. It’s good that Britain preserves its patrimony rather than tear everything down because of whatever the latest moral witch-hunt is.
Kids vary, just like everyone else.
Caravaggio was a murderer, Michael Jackson almost certainly a paedophile, Gill committed sexual abuse, Harvey Weinstein a rapist.
You can still appreciate their work and of course they are no longer alive to enjoy royalties or in jail anyway
And amazingly it took a world war defeat, hyper inflation and a depression to get germans to turn towards Hitler. But with Trump rising cost of eggs did it.
Crockett: "My Republican colleagues are here using today to continue pushing this false narrative of sanctuary cities harboring criminals, yet right here in DC we have a 34 count felon being harbored in the White House."
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmfeeurqjc2y
It looks like Arsenal's win last night confirmed the 5th team in the champion's league next season for English clubs.
Indeed, had there been no EU referendum or Remain scraped home in 2016 Brexit may have happened anyway eg George Osborne replaces Cameron as PM in about 2018/19 but loses his majority at a general election in 2019 or 2020 as UKIP surges, Boris takes over as PM and wins a majority for Brexit at the subsequent general election
But as far as I can tell, eggs only started going up after Trump’s election (but not perhaps his inauguration), due to bird flu.
People voted Trump because they were - are - still suffering PTSD from Covid-era inflation, and because they were sick of woke militancy.
Woke nonsense if you ask me.
It lacks a clear ethos, and seems no longer able to stand up for anything.
John Birt undermined it, Alistair Campbell demoralised it, and Yewtree might have been the effective death knell.
It’s a decent metaphor for Britain itself.
You seem to have come over all DM, DM.
🤔
It doesn't work like that.
Something about German auto manufacturers, and Italian prosecco makers.