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Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it is gone it is very difficult to get back
Political authority is a lot like virginity, once it is gone it is very difficult to get back – politicalbetting.com
I am loathed to jump to conclusions given the inherent sexism in politics about female ministers ‘crying’ etc, but much of Westminster is wondering if that was a moment of genuine upset for Reeves.
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Best,
Kirstie
We live in a post-truth world. People have questions about many things: vaccines, climate change, Jan 6 etc. It doesn't mean they're sensible questions!
God.
No.
Rachel Reeves’s benefits bill is dead, and so is her career.
He will be gone soon too. One just hopes that Labour will not choose Rayner.
I'm off to Specsavers now.
Heres version 3 of crygate
I’m guessing Starmer didn’t walk in with her whilst she was crying and force her to sit down next to him?
If they chose Rayner I shall have to fake an American or Russian accent abroad as it will be less embarrassing than the pity for being British from foreigners.
Which explains why we've had fewer Saturday lunchtime visitors recently.
Given Labour backbenchers forced her to abandon welfare cuts for the mentally ill and disabled to try and get more into work and also forced her to U turn on ending WFA for average income pensioners significant further tax increases are likely from whoever replaces her as Chancellor if she does go
Is he not getting tried for physical assault etc? Or are there other trials to come? The allegations seem very extensive, but this trial appeared to be about 2 specific individuals.
They seemed to forget that going into the 2010 election Alistair Darling was promising cuts more severe than Thatcher.
And now it all needs paying for and there is no money left. Perhaps someone should have left a note in the treasury on their way out.
I was just talking with a friend of a friend who is a left-wing Labour MP, and his prediction is that Starmer will be forced out fairly soon, the two front-runners will be Ange (God help us) and Streeting (bad but not quite so bad). To my point that Labour doesn't usually assassinate its leaders he said he'd never seen anything like how much Starmer is loathed, and, worse, despised, right across the party.
Just one opinion, obviously.
UK visa revamp allows lower-skilled (non-graduate) office workers to come to Britain
Debt collectors, mortgage administrators and HR officers will still be able to come and work in the UK on skilled-worker visas after changes to the immigration rules that have left employers free to recruit overseas for a wide range of lower-skilled office jobs.
https://www.ft.com/content/392541c7-f775-4326-a7b5-5ba18dd57838
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1OVYFNUZT8&ab_channel=TheBeat
@julianHjessop
FYI, Rachel Reeves' obvious distress at #PMQs has knocked about 1% off the value of the pound and added 5-10 basis points to the cost of UK government borrowing (10-year gilt yields have jumped 15bp today, but yields are also up 5-10bp in other countries)... 🤔
https://x.com/julianHjessop/status/1940414833012486235
There is absolutely no need to be recruiting from abroad for f##king debt collectors and HR.
Then a bit more stress, then the v public refusal to back her = meltdown of THE IRON CHANCELLOR
It’s all so Cringe
Also, as he says yields up elsewhere.
FTSE seems to be down a bit,
'Personal matter' could mean just about anything - melting down because she cant handle the job (or a colleague told her she couldnt) is as much a personal matter as receiving bad news etc
Accessing vf.politicalbetting.com goes via Cloudflare. For www, I still see an expired certificate at least some of the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewZYEOQINdI
Putting the clickbait title to one side, I think Pie is finished. Tom Walker sounds like he has decided he doesn't feel comfortable having the character really blast politics of the left other than on "woke" (but seems bored / scared of backlash).
He hasn't even done a video out the benefits cuts.
@Finksi
·
24m
Unconventional view: the gilt movements strengthen the Chancellor's position, at least in the short-term. She can make the case that there is a clear and tangible cost of totally losing discipline with the public finances...
As ever Radio 5 abounded with stories of those claiming PIP and using the money for Caribbean holidays and the like. Anecdotes, not data. And yet.
I have been hearing from friends who have kids that quite a few middle class striver types are pushing their offspring into the degree apprenticeship routes.
Duncan Weldon
@duncanweldon.bsky.social
· 17m
The gilt move - especially at the long end - is big and bad.
No sugar coating it.
That said, the thing about the Truss debacle is that we saw these sort of moves day after day.
Too early to say if this is a wobble or a bigger problem.
Duncan Weldon
@duncanweldon.bsky.social
Worth noting: the gilt move really kicked off on speculation that Reeves could be replaced.
‘Reeves being replaced’ in this case meaning ‘a loosening of the fiscal rules’.
So there you have the first problem.
Cut spending - PLP won’t wear it.
Increase borrowing - the gilt market pushes back.
You’re left with, raise taxes - break a manifesto pledge.
Option 3 likely the least painful.
“She has a degree in accounting and finance from the University of Salford and a masters in management from Manchester Metropolitan University”
Iffy book keeping roles at mediocre universities. People like her, and those skills, are first in the firing line, now. I doubt she will ever get a nice white collar job as she once hoped
This will soon apply to tens of millions of jobs and degrees. She’s saddled herself with all that student debt for nothing. Most universities are doomed
I feel very sorry for her and her generation. The best advice any parent can give an 18 year old child, now, is Give up on uni and get a trade, or, if you are really cerebral: go to a truly good university, a redbrick or better, and study what you love
At the very least you will enjoy your university years
A pensioner drove a mobility scooter down a three-lane A-road at night after “following his satnav”.
The man was filmed travelling slowly along the edge of the 70mph A13 near Dagenham, east London, on Monday evening as passing lorries and cars slowed to avoid him. He was pulled over by a fire engine and questioned by police before being escorted on to local roads. One onlooker said the man was “following his satnav” in dashcam footage capturing his dangerous excursion.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/02/pensioner-drives-scooter-down-a-road-dagenham/
When folk had laughed at this foolish business.
I am a pensioner though who may soon need a mobility scooter
But what about people who don't work? As well the rural landlords the are other landlords, investors, speculators on the Stock Exchange and Metal (etc) Exchanges.
Inheritance tax might be a goer, too, although that doesn't bring in money quickly enough.
Again Labour already have a solution, they did it ruthlessly on 2001-2007 by targeting companies with bonuses on how many people they could kick off incapacity benefits which led to much tougher individual assessments and a tendency to refuse rather than accept and for appeals to also tend to rejection than acceptance. Labour successfully pushed over a million people off incapacity benefits and back into work with that approach and while there were some unfortunate edge cases, overall it was the single most successful policy that they had.
There are at least two types of such scooters, one of which can be used on roads and one is supposed to on pavements only. Sadly, local pavements are so badly maintained and uneven that it's safer on the roads!
I doubt we will have enough for decades to meet the demand, and I would encourage all young people to get a trade, start a business, and earn lots without having student debt round their neck
University is not the pathway to success you seem to think it is
Freezing personal allowances almost certain and a big rise in fuel duty i think is likely
O/t topic, what's happened to the edit button. One used to get a few minutes to correct obvious errors; seems to only be there sometimes nowadays.
You have a chancellor whose future is looking increasingly unsustainable, openly weeping in the Commons while her boss fails to publicly back her.
You have a work and pensions secretary completely AWOL today whose flagship bill was gutted at the eleventh hour.
Then you have a PM who just doesn’t know which way he’s facing, and is all over the place in terms of his political positioning.
And then the news from the markets - which isn’t helpful.
Surely, surely something is going to give here. You can’t have senior members of the government in a state of such crisis. Someone’s going to have to get a grip on it, surely. Can Reeves really carry on like this? To be honest, if I were her I’d probably be quitting at this point and blaming a lack of support.
He has no empathy and does appear to have a woman problem, ask Rosie Duffield
https://x.com/AimenDean/status/1939278518979821890
Let me make something absolutely clear.
I am not a Zionist - not in any way, shape, or form. I am an Arab. My roots are in Bahrain, I was born in Saudi Arabia, and I live in the UAE. My family spans generations across all three countries. On top of that, I am also a British citizen - a nationality I hold with honor, especially given my years working alongside UK security forces. It was a privilege, and an eye-opening chapter of my life.
So no, I don’t carry any Zionist affiliation.
But let me now ask the question I rarely hear answered honestly:
Why should I support groups like Hamas, the PFLP, or other Palestinian factions that have long embraced terrorism - even when their targets have been us, the Gulf Arabs?
Let’s look at reality:
•Israel has never fired a single bullet at any GCC country — not at Saudi Arabia, not at Bahrain, not at Kuwait, not at the UAE, not even at Qatar or Oman. Not even a BB gun.
•Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist groups have assassinated our diplomats, hijacked our planes, bombed our embassies, and worked hand-in-hand with our enemies — even as we offered them political, financial, and moral support for decades.
•And now? Hamas and its allies have fully aligned with the Ayatollahs of Iran, our true existential enemy - the same regime that has plotted coups in Bahrain, that has flooded the region with missiles and militias, and that has openly declared its intent to topple our governments and destroy our societies.
Let’s remember - it wasn’t Israel that launched thousands of drones and ballistic missiles on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
It was Iran.
Through the Houthis.
With Hezbollah operatives.
With Hamas blessings.
And with Iranian weapons.
So why should I betray my own people, my own security, my own dignity - to support a group that would see us fall, just to serve Tehran’s ambitions?
No, I am not a Zionist.
But the Zionists are NOT my enemy.
My enemies are in Tehran, in Beirut, in Sana’a, and - yes - among those Palestinian factions who turned against the very hands that once fed them.
This is not about being trendy or emotional. This is about loyalty, logic, and survival.
If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, senior civil servant, cabinet minister or teacher or academic yes go to university, I never said it would be worth it for everyone else beyond love of subject