Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
So we pick the one metric he wins on and say that's the only one that matters. The risk there is that we're starting with the answer ("Farage PM") and backfilling.
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
That's fascinating, because Jeremy Corbyn is the least intelligent of the lot.
Fanatical and dogmatic people aren't intelligent or secure; in fact, that's usually why they are fanatical and dogmatic: they can't deal with, process, or adapt to conflicting facts and information but cleave to it as an identity.
Intelligence is a rather dubious metric anyway, and very domain-specific. I've seen some undoubtedly highly intelligent people make really dumb mistakes, and people with zero qualifications be rather insightful.
I've no idea if Corbyn is 'intelligent' or not. He doesn't come across in any way as an intellectual, but neither does he come across as dumb.
As for 'fanatical and dogmatic': it's a good job there's no-one like that around here...
Well, on one metric: he also failed to finish his Trade Union degree, and got Es at A-level.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Anyone wanting to do long term business in the US will sign up a distributor (or distributor by state) and will ship consignment stocks to the US. US businesses frequently ask for consignment stocks (stocks held at the risk of the seller). Amazon is the world's largest holder of consignment stocks. One duty/shipment payment made by the seller.
The Chinese subsidised postal system will be taking a big hit with shrinking volumes, as will Temu, Shine and AliExpress (who are crap by the way.)
An interview by Richard Elliott with Tara Palmieri, who discusses how she thinks Ghislaine Maxwell operated.
Tara Palmieri is afaics credible, having worked for Politico etc and done much reporting around Epstein. I don't know Tim Elliott.
Following interviews, including with Maxwell's chauffeur, her thesis is that Maxwell was herself abused / exploited by Epstein, but consciously made a Faustian bargain to be his operative, abusing girls, in return for her lifestyle. To me that is credible as a factor, which does not reduce her responsibility.
Wasn’t that the same as Victoria Giuffre though, she was abused and then made a Faustian bargain to live the life but bring in new girls to be abused and yet people were very quick to absolve her of responsibility.
If Maxwell wasn’t the daughter of Bob then she would probably be given a bit more understanding and sympathy as being an abused “victim” and if Giuffre hadn’t allegedly been used by Prince Andrew then maybe people would have had have less sympathy for her as she was useful for attacking him/the royals etc.
Aiui one of the major differences was that Maxwell was 29-30 years old ish and attached herself to Epstein, whilst Giuffre was 16 or 17 when he recruited her.
Certainly, Bob Maxwell was harsh with her; one report I have seen was him locking her up when she had anorexia, and I can quite believe that she was traumatised. But she had agency to decide not to do what she did.
I've always had certain questions about the way Guiffre waged her legal campaigns, but I don't think that is significant in the scheme of things wrt Epstein and Maxwell.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
I get really worried when people say "it can't be worse than this."
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
Truss was removed after 6 weeks
Reeves is hurting the economy far more with bond rates higher than in that six weeks of Truss, and Reeves actions have decimated business, enterprise, wealth creation and as for growth. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And whats more she has been 'hooked' yet unfortunately
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Unpopular, but clearly a big cause of child poverty, so something Labour should be doing even if plenty of people disagree.
It's also now something that Farage is pushing, so politically it's a lot easier to do.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
Good morning everybody. Lovely sunny and summery morning here, and after my computer froze last night, seems to be working fine this morning.
On topic, I have some sympathy with Jeremy Corbyn, although I think it's high time he retired to his allotment and I think Keir Starmer is over-promoted (I think he'd make a reasonable Attorney General, or, on recent evidence, Foreign Secretary). On Nigel Farage I bow to the opinion of one of my sons, who worked with/for him for a short while in the City and never, ever, wishes to do so again!
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
I get really worried when people say "it can't be worse than this."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
You are probably right, but certainly Welsh labour's monopoly of power is coming to an end
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
Sometimes the public are stupid. Look at their track record in voting for governments.
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
Perhaps people do realise that, and that's why he scores so highly?
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
Welsh love-spoons are quite long and carefully crafted. That might be a pointer.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.
I was travelling round this ward this afternoon and predicted Reform would get over 50%. Almost tailer-made territory for them. Interesting fact is that the ward almost reaches 1,000 feet since it's next to Cannock Chase itself.
Why tailor-made? White working class?
I went there a couple of years ago and it seemed moderately prosperous, not down at heel post industrial Red Wall, but maybe I got the wrong impression
About as upper-working class and white as you can get. Not poor at all, but not wealthy either. A lot of bungalows which is usually a sign of Reform strength.
Interesting!
It would be genuinel;y fascinating to map British voting patterns to domestic architecture. Someone should do it. I had no idea "bungalows = Reform"
I'm interested - as politicos don't we do analysis by housing type like breathing? It's an indicator of demographics, though it varies by area and over time.
I used housing type and estate period as indicators, alongside placards, when I was doing "cycle around" Ashfield reports before the election iirc.
The people in an 80s estate in the noughties will be different from who they are now. Ditto 1930s when afaik we started building bungalows in quantity, 1930s/1940s (when there were many posh, but many prefabs), 1950s (not sure), 1960s/1970s bungalow estates (when mass bungalow building largely halted due to land pressures), ranch-style detached, or park homes, or the holiday chalet style traveller communities build.
And the same goes for Council Estates by decade, and Housing Association, with breaks determined by when allocation policy changed, they were sold off, and policy and economic shifts since, with an increasing social inertia with age and time as house-moving reduced.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
It certainly looks like Plaid/Labour will be the only option other than a minority. I guess there's a case fir allowing a 'winning' Reform to screw up for a year before collapsing it and going back to the electorate. I don't think there's any path to RefCon having half the seats, conversely the more seats the Tories can grab at the 6th place slot away from their better areas of Monmouth and Clwyd the harder they make it for PC/Lab potentially. There will be a big difference between a Welsh Con 10% (6 or 7 seats) and a Welsh Con 14/15% (maybe 15 seats top end but probably 12 to 14)
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
Sometimes the public are stupid. Look at their track record in voting for governments.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
Yes it’s all rather amusing.
With a couple of exceptions the most dislikeable group of athletes, and even now everyone is talking about the pay protest and dildos, not the actual games.
Comedian Bill Burr had a good bit on the WNBA a couple of years ago, to paraphrase and without Burr’s language, women’s basketball, like soccer, has failed because no-one is watching it. Women would rather watch reality TV than sports, with a few exceptions like tennis, MMA, Olympics, so the money is going to reality TV ‘stars’ and not to athletes. Men prefer to watch sports, so male athletes make bank. If the WNBA can start filling the arenas in which they play, at more than $5 a ticket, then perhaps the players can talk about how much they’re getting paid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYjCBG9wjk <<<—— Warning, Bill Burr, NSFW language.
Strong results for Reform in yesterday's local council by elections but August contests on often very low turnout can produce exaggerated results if a motivated minority gets out and votes.
I'm struck not by the differences between Corbyn and Farage but by the similarities. We often talk about the "horseshoe" aspect of politics and those who throw around terms like "left" and "right" do so more as a perjorative than from a sense of any real political analysis (e.g: "lefties").
In policy terms there are differences but both are offering equally ridiculous yet equally superficially attractive prospectuses and in a time of disillusion and frustration they are getting much more of a hearing than if times were good when they would be relegated to the far margins (or the same margin if you prefer).
That's the thing about Government and governing - it's not easy and simply waving around ideas isn't the same as a coherent programme. Too often, the pressure is on Government to be seen to be doing something but it ends up being the wrong thing and especially when it has consequences elsewhere.
Someone once offered the virtues of masterly inactivity - it's not the worst approach on occasion.
Government is or should be about getting the basics right which for me is or are the administration of law and the provision of public services - the old adage you know you're doing a good job when people don't think you're doing anything at all applies but it doesn't have electoral benefit.
Reform couldn't have asked for 3 much better places to fight by elections in a quiet August - they got over 25% in all 3 relevant parliamentary contests last year before their surge
I did say on the previous thread that no seat in Wales is safe for labour, and last night is just another stark reminder that labour are heading for a terrible night in Wales in May 26
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
Even so, all the seat projections "suggest" Plaid, Reform and Labour will end up close together, just shy of 30 seats each leaving the balance with the Conservatives, the LDs and the Greens.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
Welsh love-spoons are quite long and carefully crafted. That might be a pointer.
Years ago my wife presented me with the largest Welsh love spoon you could imagine and, on giving it to me, said this recognises how excellent you are at stirring things up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.
Will that not just push the online bookies even further offshore than they are now? You’re not going to stop people taking phones to the races.
I was travelling round this ward this afternoon and predicted Reform would get over 50%. Almost tailer-made territory for them. Interesting fact is that the ward almost reaches 1,000 feet since it's next to Cannock Chase itself.
Why tailor-made? White working class?
I went there a couple of years ago and it seemed moderately prosperous, not down at heel post industrial Red Wall, but maybe I got the wrong impression
About as upper-working class and white as you can get. Not poor at all, but not wealthy either. A lot of bungalows which is usually a sign of Reform strength.
Interesting!
It would be genuinel;y fascinating to map British voting patterns to domestic architecture. Someone should do it. I had no idea "bungalows = Reform"
I'm interested - as politicos don't we do analysis by housing type like breathing? It's an indicator of demographics, though it varies by area and over time.
I used housing type and estate period as indicators, alongside placards, when I was doing "cycle around" Ashfield reports before the election iirc.
The people in an 80s estate in the noughties will be different from who they are now. Ditto 1930s when afaik we started building bungalows in quantity, 1930s/1940s (when there were many posh, but many prefabs), 1950s (not sure), 1960s/1970s bungalow estates (when mass bungalow building largely halted due to land pressures), ranch-style detached, or park homes, or the holiday chalet style traveller communities build.
And the same goes for Council Estates by decade, and Housing Association, with breaks determined by when allocation policy changed, they were sold off, and policy and economic shifts since, with an increasing social inertia with age and time as house-moving reduced.
Bungalows are favoured by older people, like the Coles, because, by definition, they don't have stairs and the toilet is on the ground floor. It's when stair-climbing gets difficult that the advantage presses home.
And you'll never see a Reform placard outside my home while I'm alive! See my earlier post.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
"use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment" - the problem there is that this go against basic political literacy. Announcing a tax rise without "SHINIEST! AWESOMEST! POLICIES! IN! THE! SPOONIVERSE!" would be considered political suicide.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.
Will that not just push the online bookies even further offshore than they are now? You’re not going to stop people taking phones to the races.
France does it this way, I think. And there's a lot to like about racing there.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
Sometimes the public are stupid. Look at their track record in voting for governments.
The Tories promise to cut taxes without detriment to services, and the public are annoyed when this proves to be impossible. Labour promise to improve services without raising taxes and, again, the public are annoyed when this proves to be impossible. So now the public, in their wisdom, are going to elect Reform, who promise to both cut taxes and improve services. The public are indeed stupid.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
Sometimes the public are stupid. Look at their track record in voting for governments.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
Precisely. 'Crashed the economy' was a lazy trope used by Labour and now can be turned back on them.
Perhaps we should organise monthly rammies in local parks. Police can whack some baddies instead of arresting 70-year old Palestine protestors, and these violent thugs can take their energy out on a riot shield instead of their wives (or immigrants).
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
I would just answer that by saying the conservatives time was up, and pre-election Starmer said all the right things and I really did have hopes that we would turn a corner
However, Starmer and Reeves have been a disaster from day one with all their freebies then the ill-fated job destroying Autumn statement
They have continued to have no answers for the country's woes and yes, they deserve all the critism they are receiving and it must be difficult being a labour supporter at this time
As a conservative I understand and recognise that feeling
TL;DW: it's cr@p, and orders of magnitude away from what was initially promised. Note also: Tesla, with all their alleged self-driving expertise, rely on human drivers on what is an almost totally closed system.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
“Conservatives are low tax low spending” lol sure. Maybe in your dreams
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
For celebrity to launch the first dildo it’s got to be Prince Andrew as, by the sound of things he’s like a the main use for a dildo, stuck up c***.
Perhaps we should organise monthly rammies in local parks. Police can whack some baddies instead of arresting 70-year old Palestine protestors, and these violent thugs can take their energy out on a riot shield instead of their wives (or immigrants).
Back when I was student, helping coordinate demos, the police made little secret of the fact they like policing demos by the latest variation of the fascists - "If you bump into a student, the SMT are on you. Give a BNP supporter a tune up, silence."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
IIRC among the first acts of the Conservatives in 1979 were to increase VAT considerably and reduce the top rate of income tax. So "ordinary folk" paid more and wealthier people had more to spend.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
“Conservatives are low tax low spending” lol sure. Maybe in your dreams
That’s why they lost the last election.
They’d turned into Blairites, owned by the civil service and with little conviction in anything they did.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
There was an old story - no idea if true - that Strathclyde Police would distribute officers across Glasgow based on who lost the Old Firm.
Well they ended up demanding the Old Firm matches kick off at lunchtime, after one too many drunken riots in Glasgow city centre.
IIRC the broadcaster once had them kick off at 5:30 Saturday, with the quite predictable outcome that all the ‘fans’ had been in the pub since morning, and were in a good mood for fighting well before the match even started.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.
That ship has sailed. The Tote has been sold off and there are questions around its current practices.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
Precisely. 'Crashed the economy' was a lazy trope used by Labour and now can be turned back on them.
Why would you want to direct lazy tropes at anybody?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
Precisely. 'Crashed the economy' was a lazy trope used by Labour and now can be turned back on them.
Why would you want to direct lazy tropes at anybody?
You might have me there tbf
I will have to stick with 'has been a poor steward of the economy'
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
“Conservatives are low tax low spending” lol sure. Maybe in your dreams
'Lower' not low. Whatever Cons would spend Lab would spend more. Whatever Cons would tax Lab would tax more.
TL;DW: it's cr@p, and orders of magnitude away from what was initially promised. Note also: Tesla, with all their alleged self-driving expertise, rely on human drivers on what is an almost totally closed system.
Yet cities are still buying into the grift...
Has anyone used it?
I get the idea that it is just like Elon Musk .. a mad opium dream in search of a problem. That is, taxis in a tunnel, as a monopoly.
It's "one more lane" moved underground, run by a grifter.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
Pretty much - expect the current government is doing slow motion Truss.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
Farage's key aim is to make the public believe two falsehoods:
1. The country is becoming a shithole. 2. It's because of immigration.
He had success with this with his Brexit campaigning - where (2) was EU free movement.
I'm not about to predict he'll fail this time - he's very effective and things are going his way - but I desperately hope he does.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
I think gambling taxes and fuel duty are certainties to go up in the autumn - horse racing is fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep betting duty at 15% but I think they will struggle. In truth, most of the country doesn't care enough and none of it will stop "a day at the races" which for most is a pie a pint and a fiver on each race. The industry may suffer though a lot depends on the attitude of the bookmakers.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
A tote monopoly with money back into the sport might be better for the long term health of racing.
That ship has sailed. The Tote has been sold off and there are questions around its current practices.
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
I think people are realising that
Nobody really wants 'change' what they want is things to be better than they are. Which means some alterations to minimal parts the status quo but most of it not changing at all. We want more money in our pocket but not, say, for it suddenly to be illegal to skip on Mondays and everyone has to wear boob tubes to church. A better this not a different this
Edit - you could say they want reform rather than change
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
Pretty much - expect the current government is doing slow motion Truss.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
Can you give examples of Churchill or Attlee doing something like that (rushing legislation into Parliament in response to a judge's ruling)?
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
Pretty much - expect the current government is doing slow motion Truss.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
Can you give examples of Churchill or Attlee doing something like that (rushing legislation into Parliament in response to a judge's ruling)?
Not to hand - but also, judges were not generally challenging government policy, back then. Not the thing.
Churchill did stuff like taking control of the Navy's ammunition supply in 5 minutes, from a garden party, when Home Sec.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
Pretty much - expect the current government is doing slow motion Truss.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
Can you give examples of Churchill or Attlee doing something like that (rushing legislation into Parliament in response to a judge's ruling)?
Well, there is the example of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939, which was passed in a single day.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
Farage representing change is the only metric that matters here.
And people need to realise that 'change' can have negative outcomes, as well as positive ones.
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
I think people are realising that
Nobody really wants 'change' what they want is things to be better than they are. Which means some alterations to minimal parts the status quo but most of it not changing at all. We want more money in our pocket but not, say, for it suddenly to be illegal to skip on Mondays and everyone has to wear boob tubes to church. A better this not a different this
Edit - you could say they want reform rather than change
We are being offered a need to Reform Asians, rather than a Reformation.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
So? He's the one in charge for nigh on half of that period. He gets the credit every bit as much as Mr Sunak does for the other half. In fact it was pretty obvious well before the election who would be in charge ...
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
Good question. They should really be able to get a few retired basketballers to try and throw one in from halfway.
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
Good question. They should really be able to get a few retired basketballers to try and throw one in from halfway.
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
There you are - get wossername in the cheap jeans to do the first toss.
I just asked Google AI if it's possible to have a white meat mixed grill. It said yes and told me that such a grill could include pork chops, which I'm pretty sure is red meat.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Neither, in that sense, did Truss.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
There's no comparison between this situation and Truss. That was a self-inflicted short sharp crisis caused by political hubris and recklessness.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
Pretty much - expect the current government is doing slow motion Truss.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
'Slow motion Truss' is rather an oxymoron though. The hasty blundering was its essence.
I just asked Google AI if it's possible to have a white meat mixed grill. It said yes and told me that such a grill could include pork chops, which I'm pretty sure is red meat.
Depends if you're a scientist or chef, apparently. In fact quite a bit of poultry would count as red meat on scientific grounds of high myoglobin content and primarily aerobic operation, in contrast to the primarily anaerobic, low-myoglobin breast meat of a chicken. Red meat would include the thigh and hip musculature of primarily groundliving birds such as pheasant and chicken, and all of a pigeon because it uses its wings a lot, so the breast is also red meat.
I just asked Google AI if it's possible to have a white meat mixed grill. It said yes and told me that such a grill could include pork chops, which I'm pretty sure is red meat.
I could have answered that for you. Yes, there is more than one white meat and no legal reason you cannot combine some of them in a meal in which those meats are grilled. Would you like me to order some white meats from your Sainsbury account?
I just asked Google AI if it's possible to have a white meat mixed grill. It said yes and told me that such a grill could include pork chops, which I'm pretty sure is red meat.
I could have answered that for you. Yes, there is more than one white meat and no legal reason you cannot combine some of them in a meal in which those meats are grilled. Would you like me to order some white meats from your Sainsbury account?
I must admit that I wouldn't trust Google AI on anything since a recent check for any more reviews of a book in which I was involved. The things it said about me ...
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Yes much of the public think if you can’t afford to have more than two kids then don’t have them . What helps Labour though is Farage supports lifting the cap.
Sometimes the public are stupid. Look at their track record in voting for governments.
Comments
In fact, change is much more likely to damage things than improve things. Which is why change needs to be well-considered, and which is why I've always been a small-c conservative, favouring evolution rather than revolution.
So, he's either fickle, lazy or dumb. Or all.
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .
The Chinese subsidised postal system will be taking a big hit with shrinking volumes, as will Temu, Shine and AliExpress (who are crap by the way.)
Certainly, Bob Maxwell was harsh with her; one report I have seen was him locking her up when she had anorexia, and I can quite believe that she was traumatised. But she had agency to decide not to do what she did.
I've always had certain questions about the way Guiffre waged her legal campaigns, but I don't think that is significant in the scheme of things wrt Epstein and Maxwell.
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Of course so are the conservatives, but with Plaid and Reform fighting for First Minister any cooperation by either party with Labour post the election would be toxic for them
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
https://polymarket.com/event/dildo-thrown-at-wnba-game-on-august-6-13?tid=1754642193379
$180,000 bet on this market so far!
It can, it really really can.
However, the residual 10-12 seats doesn't offer any of Plaid, Reform or Labour a path to a majority so if you want a majority Government, two of the "big three" need to co-operate.
They say supping with the Devil requires a long spoon - well, I suspect sales of long spoons are going to rise exponentially following the Senedd elections. No one will, according to you, want to deal with Labour and I suspect the same applies to Reform so you're looking at a Plaid minority which looks very unstable.
Oddly enough, the position seems worse in Ireland with the recent closure of the country's only independent track at Thurles (it will reopen, someone will take it on). The problem for horse and dog racing is they don't command the monopoly of off-course betting they once did - when I worked in shops back in the Bronze Age, bets on football were perhaps 5-10% of the day's turnover. Most people in the shop played the horses and the dogs - it's so much different now.
Reeves is hurting the economy far more with bond rates higher than in that six weeks of Truss, and Reeves actions have decimated business, enterprise, wealth creation and as for growth. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And whats more she has been 'hooked' yet unfortunately
It's also now something that Farage is pushing, so politically it's a lot easier to do.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
Lovely sunny and summery morning here, and after my computer froze last night, seems to be working fine this morning.
On topic, I have some sympathy with Jeremy Corbyn, although I think it's high time he retired to his allotment and I think Keir Starmer is over-promoted (I think he'd make a reasonable Attorney General, or, on recent evidence, Foreign Secretary). On Nigel Farage I bow to the opinion of one of my sons, who worked with/for him for a short while in the City and never, ever, wishes to do so again!
There's so much self-indulgent nonsense around.
I used housing type and estate period as indicators, alongside placards, when I was doing "cycle around" Ashfield reports before the election iirc.
The people in an 80s estate in the noughties will be different from who they are now. Ditto 1930s when afaik we started building bungalows in quantity, 1930s/1940s (when there were many posh, but many prefabs), 1950s (not sure), 1960s/1970s bungalow estates (when mass bungalow building largely halted due to land pressures), ranch-style detached, or park homes, or the holiday chalet style traveller communities build.
And the same goes for Council Estates by decade, and Housing Association, with breaks determined by when allocation policy changed, they were sold off, and policy and economic shifts since, with an increasing social inertia with age and time as house-moving reduced.
Have we found a gap in @Leon's omniscience ?
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
I don't think there's any path to RefCon having half the seats, conversely the more seats the Tories can grab at the 6th place slot away from their better areas of Monmouth and Clwyd the harder they make it for PC/Lab potentially. There will be a big difference between a Welsh Con 10% (6 or 7 seats) and a Welsh Con 14/15% (maybe 15 seats top end but probably 12 to 14)
With a couple of exceptions the most dislikeable group of athletes, and even now everyone is talking about the pay protest and dildos, not the actual games.
Comedian Bill Burr had a good bit on the WNBA a couple of years ago, to paraphrase and without Burr’s language, women’s basketball, like soccer, has failed because no-one is watching it. Women would rather watch reality TV than sports, with a few exceptions like tennis, MMA, Olympics, so the money is going to reality TV ‘stars’ and not to athletes. Men prefer to watch sports, so male athletes make bank. If the WNBA can start filling the arenas in which they play, at more than $5 a ticket, then perhaps the players can talk about how much they’re getting paid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYjCBG9wjk <<<—— Warning, Bill Burr, NSFW language.
It's when stair-climbing gets difficult that the advantage presses home.
And you'll never see a Reform placard outside my home while I'm alive! See my earlier post.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
Like Truss, she is causing government borrowing to get more expensive. Because the markets (and foreign buyers of UK Government bonds) do not see a commitment to anything other than eternally growing debt.
This isn't "Evul Capitalists Attack Labour Government" - if you want to borrow money, you are priced on your likelihood to default. You can either spend less or tax more.
EDIT: Construction is already in recession.
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/30/glasgow-police-domestic-abuse-old-firm-rangers-celtic
Are you selling @Leon's Civil War?
Original quote - "the majority have no right to do wrong"
The BBC has this story:
"Big Mags: The paedophile-hunting granny who built a heroin empire"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07p9ng1zvno
'Crashed the economy' was a lazy trope used by Labour and now can be turned back on them.
However, Starmer and Reeves have been a disaster from day one with all their freebies then the ill-fated job destroying Autumn statement
They have continued to have no answers for the country's woes and yes, they deserve all the critism they are receiving and it must be difficult being a labour supporter at this time
As a conservative I understand and recognise that feeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPjODKUxV5g
TL;DW: it's cr@p, and orders of magnitude away from what was initially promised. Note also: Tesla, with all their alleged self-driving expertise, rely on human drivers on what is an almost totally closed system.
Yet cities are still buying into the grift...
Sponsored by the Knappers Gazette I would hope.
The upright citizen who lynches only the very criminal on weekends and after work is a comic book fiction.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes.
https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
So "ordinary folk" paid more and wealthier people had more to spend.
They’d turned into Blairites, owned by the civil service and with little conviction in anything they did.
Fact is, we've had low growth since the 08 crash and our public finances are stressed due to the cost of that, and the pandemic, and the energy crisis. Now to compound matters interest rates are back at historical norms. We're off the drug of QE and superlow gilt servicing costs.
There are no easy answers, maybe no answers at all other than to move expectations more in line with reality. But that's in nobody's short term political interest except the government. And they can't do it either because of the need to sound positive. "Going for growth" bla bla.
So there we go. The discourse is nonsense all round and it's hardcoded to stay that way.
IIRC the broadcaster once had them kick off at 5:30 Saturday, with the quite predictable outcome that all the ‘fans’ had been in the pub since morning, and were in a good mood for fighting well before the match even started.
I will have to stick with 'has been a poor steward of the economy'
I get the idea that it is just like Elon Musk .. a mad opium dream in search of a problem. That is, taxis in a tunnel, as a monopoly.
It's "one more lane" moved underground, run by a grifter.
Part of it is an inability to think and act. It's all about the process. Starmer appears to be a rules engine that takes the law as input and doesn't compute that he is actually supposed to be modifying the rules....
It's hard to imagine that Churchill or Attlee would have reacted to a judge redefining "family" to mean friends and next door neighbours with a shrug. They'd have had legislation in parliament by breakfast and an interview without coffee for the judge (with the Lord Chancellor) by tea.....
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
1. The country is becoming a shithole.
2. It's because of immigration.
He had success with this with his Brexit campaigning - where (2) was EU free movement.
I'm not about to predict he'll fail this time - he's very effective and things are going his way - but I desperately hope he does.
We want more money in our pocket but not, say, for it suddenly to be illegal to skip on Mondays and everyone has to wear boob tubes to church.
A better this not a different this
Edit - you could say they want reform rather than change
Happy Balustrade Lanyard Day to all who celebrate!
https://x.com/biscuit_ersed/status/1953745993209381039
Churchill did stuff like taking control of the Navy's ammunition supply in 5 minutes, from a garden party, when Home Sec.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Powers_(Defence)_Act_1939
It was not substantially repealed until 1959, and finally repealed the following decade.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i-ZRBA5QroY
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
Would you like me to order some white meats from your Sainsbury account?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5205604/