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Rhetoric meets reality. What will Reform voters make of this? – politicalbetting.com
Rhetoric meets reality. What will Reform voters make of this? – politicalbetting.com
The leader of a Reform-run county council has written to government to express “grave concern” about planned tightening of visas for health and care workers, despite party’s wider commitment to significantly reducing net migration @peterwalker99 writeshttps://t.co/lEVWVz1ls1
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The squaring of what Reform needs for their councils to succeed and what their voters want is going to be an interesting problem.
In Durham the council have announced they need to find £31m in cuts to cover an expected social care overspend
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/62cea3b2-5267-4a91-b8a4-8cc8dd9a79b8?in=12:56:34
Liverpool bid for Newcastle Isak
Newcastle say no
Liverpool now after Ekitike
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Kessler_(journalist)
Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as WW I, Mao for about as many as WW II.
(Among national leaders, Pol Pot may have highest per capita record.)
Nearly all the migrants who ended up working in care homes did so via other visa routes.
As a result of this comedy, we don’t have reliable numbers for shortages of workers. This is because the care home owners created visas for jobs that didn’t exist, in many cases. So the non-existent job went on the tally of vacancies. And since it didn’t exist, was never filled…
*Selling a visa like this is a crime.
Based on stories I’ve heard actually doing some work and not sleeping on the job would also be useful as well
https://news.sky.com/story/sycamore-gap-tree-stump-showing-signs-of-life-as-men-face-sentencing-for-felling-landmark-13396838
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0zkg4g4zyo
Whether they have gone far enough to make the apology publicly, in front of the school assembly and everyone before whom they humiliated her, and to explain how they have corrected whatever the issue was with their values, principles and practices, remains to be seen.
If they want the value of their declared inclusive culture, they need to do that and demonstrate that they have learnt from it, otherwise it is an easy gift for the "patriotic" lobby.
It is unskilled labour. That's not to be disrespectful, I have the greatest respect for those who choose to do it, but the only qualification needed is to pass a DBS Check. You don't even need a GCSE let alone a degree, literally anyone with a clean DBS can do it.
If the vacancy isn't filled, its because either the terms and conditions are shit, the pay is shit, or the way management treat their employees is shit. Or a combination of the above.
All the above are readily fixable problems.
The sweet spot for any insurgent party is substantial gains that don't give you majority control anywhere. The May 2025 campaign was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off Conservative and Labour councils, not destroy them.
The bigger question is whether the same goes for Reform at Westminster.
Looks like this EV subsidy will be going straight to China as will the other green subsidies. Why subsidise when you should be making sure the business has a viable future based on sound products that meet customer needs.
I love my country. But I recognise that that's a function of me growing up in this country and being rooted in it, and human psychology valuing what we have more than what we don't. And I also recognise it's not perfect. I am, however, sick of the mindset - which seems particularly common in education and in the public sector - that the UK, and England in particular, is uniquely terrible: that Nigerians and Indians and Pakistanis and Europeans should be proud of their culture but the British should not, and that the British alone should have to apologise for their past. That's the mindset that resulted in this decision, and its the mindset you see again and again in the public sector, and in education in particular.
I'm sure no other country does this.
(Oddly, my kids are encouraged to be proud to be Mancunian. That seems to be ok. But to feel distinctly ambivalent about being British. It's odd to contrast the two. It's also odd to contrast our mayor's 'everything about Manchester is great' rhetoric with his distinct reluctance to express equivalent sentiments about the UK.)
In some ways, I find this something of a relief. It's not a *good* reason, certainly, but the least bad reason I can think of.
This will have two benefits:
We don't fill our country up
Lower paid people get paid more
Which will have the knock on benefit that state spending on these two things can fall.
"We've lied to you about how many people we were bringing to Britain and how much we were spending, then gagged anyone who found out about it."
I feel like this sort of official state disinformation might be more damaging to public trust in politics than social media posts.
At some point, Labour will lose power and the most likely consequence of that is that a right-of-centre party will take over. Whether that's Reform, a merged Reform-Tory combo, or a resurgent Conservatives free of the pull of Reform if the latter collapses, it's in the country's interests that it's not promising the world and cutting down anything in its path to its hallucinations.
Then Manchester is greater
As you dry your clothes once again
Upon the radiator
What makes Britain great
Makes Manchester yet greater"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWP62EoU4g
There are certain places in the UK where you are almost supposed to feel 'pride' for being from, as though they are superior. Manchester is one; Liverpool has it on steroids. The East End of London (the sound of Bow Bells rubbish). Yorkshire people take a pride that just does not exist in (say) Derbyshire. Cornwall is always bleaker and harder than cream-tea Devonshire.
Sometimes it feel a little more like insecurity than pride.
(Then you get people from Oxford; why they take pride in anything is beyond me. A third-class university, and the documentary series Morse and Lewis shows how it has been a hellhole of murder and deceit for decades.)
With hindsight, we could have done with Harold Macmillan;
Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you’ll see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime- nor indeed ever in the history of this country. What is beginning to worry some of us is 'Is it too good to be true?’ or perhaps I should say 'Is it too good to last?’
(though there is a Goods and Services Tax @ 5%)
*The school might, for example, after some previous trouble between two groups, banned overt national symbols such as flags. As I noted before, my kids' school bans pro football kits due, I think, to some incidents between people sporting kits of rival teams. They make that very clear each non-uniform day. That said, I hope they'd tackle any violation with more tact and compassion than sending a kid to sit in reception.
"Under Kemi Badenoch, we've set out a clear, common-sense position. This is about fairness, responsibility and protecting support for those who've contributed to this country," he said.
The majority of the foreign nationals are EU who were here before Brexit. As part of Brexit, EU laws were simply rolled over (T. May) with the idea that they would be amended or withdrawn. A certain Mr Johnson did nothing but added to the issue.
The level of denial by the Conservatives is off the scale.
https://bsky.app/profile/the-independent.com/post/3ltza5xtf2k2a
Has the video evidence
That would be the case whoever got in at the last set of locals.
The problem is down to how local govt is funded and inter party point scoring hardly helps and I’d include reform with their stupid DOGE in that.
But the answer is quite simple; rediscover the huge cultural achievements of 17th and 18th century Britain, while being honest in facing its darker chapters of slavery and appropriation.
Labours comms are inept. They don’t refute.
Setting the threshold at £30,000 or so would allow a slight reduction and remove a strange barrier that stops firms expanding beyond a £90,000 turnover
Or to embarrass the politicians and officials who think emailing spreadsheets around is a good idea.
Probably the latter.
And to be serious for a moment, what is the flipping point of the NCSC if not to prevent these sorts of thing? Or are they part of the blob that stops smartarsed SpAds getting on with running the country? See rants by Elon & Cummings passim.
This is it. Today at 1:30pm Congress votes whether to release the Epstein Files or keep them secret. How will Republicans vote?
https://x.com/RepSwalwell/status/1945123723515740594
Unless the issue is that it was only after someone screwed up the Government actually thought hmm best make sure the people we promised to look after are actually looked after
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drpzN7tN2xE
Let's take a wild guess shall we?
Are they planning to do that? Or just boost supply and ignore infrastructure.
The Boriswave generated negative growth.
Many trees got nobbled this way. I would guess in some cases a felling licence should have been required but all this says usually is that a few saplings should be replanted.
I think this has changed for Net Gain in that you are allowed to look at a site over time although in most cases that will be relying on old aerial images of dubious quality.
They blame the Tories for breaking it (see their polling) and they blame Labour for sustaining/not fixing it. And then they go to Reform/Greens/LDs as NOTA.
Betfair has a new feature, Match Me, which when enabled allows your bets to be matched at a shade under the price you requested to save having to chase the price down.
The seemingly harsh sentences are starting to make sense.
Reform are on trial at the moment. people will be very interested in whether 'they are just the same as all the others - all blame and excuses and non delivery etc'. The deal locally and nationally is not sealed. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Again, do we really think this is terrorism? I know it fits the legal definition but... it's politically motivated criminal damage. It's not terrorising us into supporting Hamas or something.
Devon, beautful though it is, perhaps stirs different, calmer emotions - perhaps one is supposed to feel 'lucky' rather than 'proud' to come from Devon.
I agree they will have a record to defend but, I suspect, like the prior Labour and coalition councils they will just blame central govt grant being inadequate
As it stands, you can dip your toes in the water of business without much need for anything other than yearly microaccounts. No accountant, no fuss, not much jeopardy. Start adding quarterly VAT returns and the limited-liability-piercing nature of VAT and it's not as easy.
Ah well, that video will rule him out of the new Masterchef jobs.
Although has he really been sacked if he’s simply a contractor whose contract is not being renewed ?
Compare it with Derbyshire further south: also some very spectacular scenery, a stunning history (birthplace of the industrial revolution), and some ultra high-tech employers. Yet when I was growing up, there was little of the 'pride' that Yorkshire seems to be famous for. Many people I met when I went to uni in London could not even say where Derbyshire was.
It's all a bit weird.
(Note, I have nothing against any of the places I mention.)
Masterchef is going to go the way of Top of the Pops, all cut up repackaged on BBC4 or youtube if you are lucky.
Politically motivated damage against people or property is the frigging definition of terrorism.
Peaceful protest doesn't entail damage.
Is that not the case?
I wonder if some of it is because 'British culture' is kind of the wallpaper (in Britain) and therefore not a natural subject of interest. As opposed to, say, expat Brits living in other countries, where it more likely would be (to them).
Or consider somebody hosting a social occasion. You wouldn't expect them as they circulate to be continually bigging up their own house. "Yes yes, all very fascinating, but have you seen the size of my bathroom?" It would be unsettling if they carried on like that.
Also if being British involves a degree of reticence and stiff upper lip - I'm a sceptic on all this stuff but let's go with it for these purposes - then you could argue it's an integral part of British culture to not celebrate British culture.
I would have given them 3,000 hours of community service each.
Planting trees.
And then at the end of every day, let kids trample their work.